The Home School Knowledge Exchange (HSKE) activities were generally well received by the teachers, parents and children.
Parents felt that the school-to-home activities had made them much more knowledgeable about what and how their child was learning in school. Videos of literacy lessons in particular had provided a ‘window’ on to their children’s other lives. One parent said: ‘It opened my eyes to how they learn’.
The home-to-school activities were also positively received by the teachers. One teacher reported how a shoebox activity had a dramatic effect on many of the children’s writing - children used shoeboxes to bring in personal artefacts from home and these were used by teachers to support literacy and other activities across the curriculum.
There was some evidence that the knowledge exchange activities were having a positive effect on children’s attainment, but this was not found uniformly across the project. In the literacy strand the children who experienced HSKE activities made significantly better progress in Cardiff, but not in Bristol.
Some of the activities were continued or developed in the schools after the research was completed.
The HSKE project was funded by the ESRC (2001-2004). The project was part of a large research programme called the Teaching and Learning Research Programme (TLRP), directed by Professor Andrew Pollard (www.tlrp.org). The HSKE project was based on the assumption that both parents and teachers have knowledge that is relevant to enhancing pupil attainment and learning disposition, but this knowledge is often poorly communicated and under-utilised. The overall aim was to develop, understand and evaluate ways in which pupil attainment and learning disposition can be enhanced by a process of knowledge exchange between parents and teachers, which also involved children themselves. This briefing focuses on the Literacy Strand: Developing literacy at Key Stage 1.
Four primary schools in Bristol and Cardiff actively participated in the Literacy Strand. Within each city one school had a relatively high proportion of pupils eligible for free school meals, the other relatively low proportion. Schools matched to the action schools were also recruited. These schools did not carry out activities but provided the opportunity for quantitative comparisons to be made of the pupils’ learning outcomes. A literacy teacher-researcher worked with teachers and parents in the four action schools, developing literacy-related home-school knowledge exchange activities and supporting their implementation. The teacher-researcher focused on one class in each of the four schools. At the start of the project children in these classes were starting Year 1, and they continued to be the focus of the project’s work during Year 2. Other project staff evaluated the impact of the knowledge exchange activities using a range of quantitative and qualitative methods.
Improving Primary Literacy - a project output
Feiler, A., Greenhough, P. and Winter, J., with Salway, L. and Scanlan, M. (2006) Getting engaged: possibilities and problems for home school knowledge exchange. Educational Review, 58, 4: 451-469.
Greenhough, P., Scanlan, M., Feiler, A., Johnson, D., Ching Yee, W., Andrews, J., Price, A., Smithson, M. and Hughes, M. (2005)Boxing clever: using shoeboxes to support home school knowledge exchange. Literacy, Volume 39, Issue 2, pp 97-103.
Greenhough, P., Ching Yee, W., Andrews, J., Feiler, A., Scanlan, M. and Hughes, M. (2005) Mr Naughty Man: Popular culture and children's literacy learning. In J. Marsh and E. Millard (eds)Popular Literacies, Childhood and Schooling.
Dr Anthony Feiler, Martin Hughes (Project Director), Jane Andrews, Anthony Feiler, Pamela Greenhough, David Johnson, Elizabeth McNess, Marilyn Osborn, Andrew Pollard, Mary Scanlan, Leida Salway, Vicki Stinchcombe, Jan Winter, Wan Ching Yee. John Bastiani, Guy Claxton and Harvey Goldstein acted as project consultants.
Email: a.feiler@bristol.ac.uk Phone: 0117 331 44998.
Mind and Brain in Social and Educational Contexts; Inclusive and Special Education