Collaboration with a composite P5, 6 & 7 class and their teacher exploring autobiography and agency: both on the part of the pupils, and the teacher herself.

The story

• We delivered a whole staff team session for August Inservice. Following this, two teachers nominated themselves to work with Hidden Giants

• We facilitated bi-monthly collegiate meetings with the class teachers and a student teacher. Through this professional dialogue it emerged that one of the teachers originally trained as an artist. The teacher quickly realised that her distinctive skills and knowledge as an artist were a relatively untapped resource in her pedagogy. Employing a coaching model, we began to explore how she and the pupils could think and act more like artists in their own approaches to the curriculum.

• Hidden Giants collaborated with the teacher to carry out explorative sessions with the class.

• We accompanied the teacher and pupils on a guided tour of Edinburgh’s national art galleries, and worked together back at the school to explore this inspirational experience. A ‘line of flight’ soon emerged – an idea coming from the pupils themselves – to explore autobiography: who were they? They chose to find out more about the individuals, communities, forces and stories that shaped them – and were continuing to shape them.

Highlight

A whole IDL topic dedicated to SuperNoodles. The pupils’ life stories revealed a shared passion for SuperNoodles, prompting an IDL cycle to begin, with the teacher bringing her skills, knowledge and experience to a new pupil-driven inquiry, rather than planning in advance and leading it. Pupils worked in the playground to measure the length of noodles when laid out end to end, conducted polls to find statistical evidence of the favourite flavour, scientifically invented new flavours, and mapped these to issues of geography and ecology.

We worked with three primary school Head teachers to co-design and deliver an innovative in-service event at the internationally-renown Jupiter Artland for the combined staff of all three primary schools.

The story

• Jupiter Artland is privately-owned outdoor art gallery located just outside Edinburgh, hosting a world-class collection of art on permanent display.
• Working with Jupiter’s own specialist education team, we negotiated exclusive access to the park for more than fifty teachers, support staff and parents.
• We facilitated a series of planning meetings to co-design a distinctively different in-service day which would provide time and space for
  discussion, reflection and opportunities to actively participate in self evaluation & forward planning.
• On the day we focused participants with a series of provocations and questions to explore thorough walking and talking in mixed groups
  amongst the art.
• In the afternoon, participants made their own art, and each school had time to address issues relating specifically to them as a team and community.

Highlight

We asked each school to use a ball of string to model a specific problem, task or issue affecting them as a group. The string acted as a connecting thread, enabling everyone to ‘visualise’ how all the component parts of their issue or problem linked in relation to each other. “We were able to make connections within our school across what can feel like separate stages.” Teacher
“For me today has been about seeing the end goal. How obstacles appear in your way, but by being together and working as a team, we can overcome these obstacles together. There has been a really interesting togetherness with all the staff.” Teacher
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Staff from a large primary school in a Scottish new town worked alongside Hidden Giants to co-design an immersive inter-disciplinary learning (IDL) project engaging the entire school. The project supported engagement and creativity through exploring concepts of home, heritage, architecture, STEM, culture, and the future.

The story

• We co-created a learning project that would connect to social studies, citizenship, and technologies.
• A lure was designed to spark curiosity and excitement amongst the pupils.
• We arranged for a leading Glasgow-based architect to invite the pupils to be part of his research team to design a new town for Scotland. The children’s lived experiences of growing up in a new town could help him understand what a town of the future would need.
• To participate effectively in this project, all the classes needed to design their own curriculum.
• Each class underwent a process of experimentation with the task to decide what element they wanted to learn about: housing, transport, culture, shopping, community, etc.
• Over the next two months everyone worked together, making new connections, supporting each other’s enquiry, and learning as a collective team of researchers.
• The project culminated with a showcase for families which offered a multitude of innovative and highly creative solutions of what to include in the new town.

Highlight

“Pupil engagement and pupil lead learning permeated lessons and learning in the juniors and seniors and noticeably in PEF pupils. Some pupils showed growing confidence when presenting at the showcase event and felt proud showing and explaining their work to parents and invited guests.” Teacher

We worked with a primary school to explore culture change. Across three twilight sessions we facilitated discussions and an immersive experience which dug deep into existing culture and practices within the school. Follow-up visits led to the beginnings of significant shifts in mindset and practice.

The story

• We worked with all staff at an inner-city primary school across three twilight sessions.
• During our first meeting we facilitated an immersive, lived-experience that focused everyone’s attention on unspoken rules and assumptions within the school.
• Follow-up sessions enabled staff to recognise the culture of their school and identify changes they could make, both individually and collectively.
• Whole school culture shifted as teachers began to reclaim and reassert their agency and professional judgement.

Highlight

We created an immersive experience in which the entire staff group were left waiting for instructions. The staff began to realise how conditioned they had become to expect instructions, and as the situation unfolded, became acutely aware that they were unsure how to act in the (continuing) absence of instructions. We unpacked this unsettling and emotional incident in discussions with the staff, and uncovered tensions around teacher agency.

Hidden Giants define agency as the capacity to act autonomously and exercise professional judgement. The teachers realised how and why their agency was diminished, or in some ways even dormant. With our help, they began work to reclaim and reassert it.