Tag: Tête à Tête

How not to close a school.

Whilst the logic of school closures is portrayed in communications from the British Government and English local authorities as an act of logic and rationality, school closure invariably generates press stories of incensed parents, irate communities and exhausted teachers. What is frequently lost amongst the sturm und drang of closure however are the tiny stories (Denzin, 1991) of loss: of professional expertise, of collective memory, of shared hopes and fears.

This paper introduces a research programme which asks what is lost from a school community once the programme of closure has been agreed and a school moves inexorably towards its final days. In counterpoint to the national Building Schools for the Future programme, this project is informed by earlier work conducted by Whitefield (1980) Molinero (1988), Schmidt (2007) and Picard (2003). This study is thus both timely and of significance to future policy developments: the lived experiences of the community of teachers, families and children during school closure is rarely researched and a great deal of understanding and knowledge remains uncaptured, analysed or assessed.

This study begun as an ethnographic study of the closing months of a single primary school, Centenary Primary School on the Wirral which celebrated its 100th birthday with its imminent closure just months away. It adopts a multi-method research strategy, using both quantitative and qualitative research methods, the latter of which involves a traditional ethnographic approach coupled to an arts based educational research methodology.

One methodological consequence of adopting an arts based approach to the research has been to engage a team of artist researchers. This means that knowledge of the lived experience (van Manen, 1997) of school users can be developed from different perspectives which privilege not only linguistic forms of communication but spatial, musical, and visual: a method we believe is important to the school given its diverse mix of users and participants. It thus may be of use to schools in similar circumstances who wish to effect positive political outcomes during periods of future rationalisations: and in doing so, transform their tiny stories into noisy histories.

5 steps to getting your research paper published – in a London theatre

Closing Schools for the Future is being published / performed at a top London venue this week, the Riverside Studios, as part of the Tete a Tete Opera Fstival. But how did it get there and what does this process tell us about the connection between research and performance?

1. Start at a micro-local level. The first manifestation of CSF was in Seacombe Library, a small local library in Wallasey. It was presented in the form of a photographic exhibition to families, teachers and local residents.

2. Pitch to a discipline specific conference – in this case, the Oxford Ethnography conference which does exactly what it says on the tin. Talk, share and argue for ethnography. This supplied a friendly ‘on-board’ audience who were not averse to offering some important critical feedback.

3. Pitch to an international audience overseas who start off not having a clue what you’re talking about. The intelligent but ignorant audience really helps you to interrogate your own hard earned findings (in this case at the 1st Educational Research conference at the University of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia). At this point the paper had been extended to take into account not just local, but regional and national perspectives too.

4. Take the leap and present to an international audience, at home: but in the format you’ve been aiming at all along – ie a performed reading with sympathetic, intelligent and friendly-critical artists. In this case, at the BERA conference at the University of Warwick with composer Gary Carpenter and vocalist, Jen Heyes.

5. Put it out there with the support and advocacy of aforesaid artists. Get invited to leading innovative opera festival, in this case the Tete a Tete Opera Festival at Riverside Studios.

The next steps…? Wait and see but this story isn’t finished yet.
What else have we learnt about this process? More to follow, tomorrow.

The death of Powerpoint?

Closing Schools for the Future is an operatic performance which is unique because it draws its subject material not from Greek tragedy, ancient European myths or Italian romances – but from research into the day to day lives of ordinary people who are facing a critical event in their local community; that of the closure of their local primary school.  Our research project has taken two years to look at the effects of school closure in schools across England and has focused particularly on schools in Wirral and Knowsley.

Many people have asked why school closure is a suitable subject for an opera, and whether opera is a suitable means of communicating research: and our answer is a qualified yes to both questions.  School closure is a huge issue these days.  Whilst there have been many initiatives to provide new schools (the government scheme Building Schools for the Future is one recent example), what gets lost in these initiatives are the hidden consequences to peoples communities, peoples jobs and the very fabric of their society.  This generates many poignant stories, larger than life characters and real life drama which often does not find an audience either in the media, in the arts or in education.

Even when research about those events are communicated within educational circles, the way those stories are communicated are often arid texts, written and communicated in academic terms and the results frequently ignored.  This leads to a real disconnect between those whose stories were being communciated and the audiences who are listening to those stories.  However, using music and drama to tell those stories – through the discipline of Arts Based Educational Research – communicates that research more effectively, with more emotional vibrancy and it has the chance for a greater impact – and for the lessons learnt in the research to be acted upon.

Closing Schools for the Future has already been presented in 3 educational conferences in Oxford, Ethiopia and Warwick.  At its last presentation, the audience left asking, Is this the Death of Powerpoint?  And whilst this might be an over ambitious outcome for the project, we certainly hope that by using opera as the means to communicate research findings, that these performance provide new opportunities for the results of our research into school closure to be acted upon.

Production team credits

Nick Owen, Director of the Aspire Trust, is a producer, director and artist educator who has worked across the UK and internationally. Recent publications include Placing Students at the Heart of Creative Learning (Routledge) and Outsider | Insiders: becoming a creative partner with schools (International Handbook of Creative Learning) and the film, My Life as an American (Latent Productions).

Gary Carpenter, Composer, has written operas, musicals and a radio music-drama (with Iris Murdoch) as well as film, dance and concert music. He was Musical Director on ‘The Wicker Man’ (1973) and won a British Composer Award in 2006. His portrait CD Die Flimmerkiste is released on NMC. Gary teaches at the Royal Academy of Music and the RNCM (Manchester).

Jen Heyes, Vocalist, is a director, producer, performer, educator and artistic director of the Liverpool based company Cut to the Chase Productions. As a theatre maker Jen has worked regionally and nationally (touring and individual works) and internationally (Berlin, Porto, Lisbon, Luxembourg, and Hong Kong) working on small, medium and large scale productions. She specialises in multi-media site specific theatre and always strives to use live music within her work.

Brian Hanlon, designer, is an Arts practitioner with specialist skills in design. He works in a range of settings from Youth Theatre to the West End. He recently worked on the Manchester Day Parade, for the second year with Walk the Plank. And with the Aspire Trust Scouse Wedding: The Opera.