ANNEX 1b

Case study material – Finland

Baseline Case StudyVintturi school, Finland

Juha PaasimäkiChydenius-Institute

1.0 Background

The school is situated in the municipality of Kaustinen in the middle of Finland. It is about 50 kilometres from Kokkola, which is the nearest big city. The town of Kaustinen is 9 km distance by car. Almost all pupils in the school community live in Vintturi or in Tastula village or near by it.

Vintturi School has over a hundred years of history. It was built in 1895, so in 1995 the school celebrated its 100 years anniversary. The history committee of the school wrote a book about Vintturi School’s history for the event. The people of Vintturi and Tastula villages have always greatly valued the school.

Of the 27 pupils only one pupil needs transportation to the school. All other pupils live near by the school, so they can walk to the school or come by bike. The school works closely with the local church and other authorities.

There are some basic elements in a normal school day. Pupils can take a break between lessons (usually 15 minutes) and there is always at least one adult to look after them. Every day starts with a “beginning of the day speech or exercise” or morning assembly. This is held once a week for the whole school and on other days in the classroom. The themes are usually taken from religious studies or ethics.

Vintturi-Tastula school has certain theme days during the year, for instance sports day, and of course observes different celebrations through out the year. The sixth of December is Finland’s Independence Day, and is celebrated in every school in Finland. Two other big celebrations are Christmas, and the end of May, when the schools end and the summer holidays begin in Finland. It is traditional for the pupils and teachers to prepare a programme to show to the whole school and parents, to celebrate these days. Once a year Vintturi school has a”night school”, when classes spend the evening and night in the school. This is the highlight of the autumn term. As the school is located near the woods, the local environment and nature has an important role in the curriculum. Music teaching is another important area.

The school arranges special evenings for parents in Vintturi School, so parents are aware of how their children are progressing. If there is a need, there is an opportunity to meet a pupil’s own teacher privately. The school feels that it is important to keep parents informed and encourage them to come along to parents' evenings as this contributes to the development of the school.

Vintturi School is a small school, and from time to time the town of Kaustinen raises the question of the school’s future. The reasons are financial ones. One option is to transport pupils to the middle of Kaustinen, where there are bigger schools near by. The people in Vintturi village and in the school do not support this idea, of course. After all the school has over a hundred years of history.

The baseline case study was undertaken through a combination of teacher interview, classroom observation and documentary analysis.

2.0 Human resources: teachers and pupils

There are two regular teachers and 27 pupils in Vintturi-Tastula school. Pekka Lehto is the head teacher in the school. The (administrative) principal is Mrs. Mailis Tastula. She does not work on the school premises, but can come to school when needed.The school has a teacher for pupils who have special needs, who helps the teacher and gives support. If difficulties continue, it is possible to make a personal curriculum for the pupil. This is made after consultation with the school psychologist. In Finland, every school is developing ways to address the issue of special needs in the classroom. There is a special team in every school for this purpose. (The student welfare unit of the school, which includes usually: class teacher, special teacher, school nurse, headmaster, psychologist, and student counsellor). Vintturi school has this team as well.

2.1 Staff

2.2 Pupils

0-2 grade 93-6 grade 18

3.0 Physical resources

The school building is old and made of wood. There are two classrooms and three auxiliary rooms in the building. The school is in full use during the day, and the building is used during the evenings for extra activities. For technical and woodwork classes there is a special classroom with all the equipment needed. The school building is not in the best possible condition and soon there will be a need for improvements. For instance all the school buildings are in need of painting.

The following equipments: desks, chairs, television, video, slide projector,students’ library and educational software are in mediocre condition. Plumbing, electricity and wc, cassette player and maps are in good condition. The photocopier, teacher’s library and instruments for experiments (physics and chemistry) are in poor condition.

The school is located near the woods, so there is plenty of opportunity to use this area for environmental studies. Also the

0-2. grade Mrs. Leena Harju3-6. grade Mr. Pekka Lehtospecial needs teacher Mrs.Terttu KänsäkangasSchool assistant (Monday-Wednesday)

Ms. Sari Kuorikoski

Principal / Headmaster Mrs. Mailis TastulaSchool meals and cleaning Mrs. Mirja KoskelaSchool Building Mr. Teuvo Isokangas

schoolyard is big enough for the children to play in. In the winter time there is an area for skating and ice-hockey.

4.0 ICT

The school is equipped with six computers. There is data projector and video-consultation equipment. There is also the following for ITC-use:

-printer-scanner-web-camera-speakers-microphone

There is a small classroom for the personal computers. Pupils are basically very active with computers and they like to use them. P/Cs are used forwriting documents, educational software and games. There is Internet connection and the school is connected to a local network. Although there is a video-conference system it is not in use very often. The teachers feel that it should be used more often. The teachers work very well with computers, but there is a constant need for updating skills. Their attitude is quite positive towards using computers in teaching. Computers are in use everyday of the week. Teachers felt that there was not enough technical support for ITC. This is an issue that the community should take seriously and act upon as soon as possible. This school is also a partner in an ICT-project (VERKOKE-project), where the goal is to develop E-learning in the local area.

The following targets are currently in the Vintturi-school curriculum:

Targets: Pupil has acquired at least these basic skills (following list) by the end of primary school

know how to assemble the computer can search for information with the computer can print can open different kinds of files know the basic concepts of ICT

Previously in Finland schools, cities and communities made the school curriculum by themselves without much direction from the government. Now there is a new cycle of curriculum development. There is much more direction and more rigid guidelines from the educational department of the government. Here are the guidelines for school subjects and hours as stipulated in the new curriculum.

5.0 School subjects and curriculum

Curriculum, grade and classroom organisation

Subjects and amount of hours

Subjects 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9TOT.

Finnish language 14  14    14      42

A-language - - - - - - - 8      8    16

B-language - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 6  6

Mathematics 6  12    14      32Environmental study           31Biology ja Geography 9   3  7    Physics and Chemistry 2  7    Health education             3     Religion/Ethics 6        5      11

History and Society - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 3  7    10

Music 4-   3-     56Art   26 4-   304-    Handicrafts   4-   7-    

Physical education     8-     10-      

Home economics - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 3    3

Pupils‘ counselling - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 2    2

Flexible Zone             (13)     13

Minimum hours for pupil 19 19 23 23 24 24 30 30 30 222

Not compulsory A-language - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - (6)     (6)   (12)

5.1 The main educational targets in Vintturi School are linked to the national curriculum

Values of basic education

The values to be upheld in basic education are human rights, equality, democracy, preserve biodiversity and viability of environment and accepting multi-culturalism. Basic education should promote community building, responsibility and respect of individuals’ rights and freedom.

Finnish culture provides a base for teaching, which has developed through interaction with Nordic and European culture.

Teaching supports the building of student's own cultural identity and his/her partnership in Finnish society and the globalize world. Teaching also promotes tolerance and understanding between cultures.

Through basic education it is possible to increase regional equality and equality between individuals. In teaching, different learners are taken care of, and equality between genders is promoted by preparing boys and girls with the skills to take part in society with equal rights and duties in society, work, and family life. Teaching in different subjects is politically independent and schools are non-denominational.

About multigrade teaching

In multigrade teaching, there can be a different number of hours per week in some subject areas, within the same classroom, to cater for different year groups. It is also possible to rearrange the teaching hours for different subjects over the school year. It is also possible within the curriculum to define learning hours for a multigrade teaching class as learning units, without stipulating for which year group. However, this must be in accordance with section 11 subsection 3 of the basic education statute.

5.2 Goals of learning and main content of teaching

Integration and integrated subjects

Teaching can either be divided by subject or integrated. The aim of integration is to approach areas of learning from the view point of different branches of sciences and build integrated learning units that emphasise general educational and instructional goals.

Integrated subjects are central to education and teaching work, where goals and content cover several subject areas. They are integrated themes in education and teaching. They are also answering contemporary challenges of education. Integrated units of study are described below. In practice, they are implemented and developed to meet pupils' educational needs and stage of development.

Growing up as a human being

Cultural identity and internationality

Communication and media skills Participant citizenship and entrepreneurship

Responsibility for the environment, its well-fare and sustainable future

Safety and traffic

Man and technology

6.0 Teacher Attitudes to multigrade Teaching

The attitude towards schoolwork in this multi-grade school is positive. Teachers felt that the basic problem is “how to differentiate the teaching properly”. There are also problems in some pupils’ backgrounds and the multi-grade school is no different in that respect. Both teachers felt that is important to get pupils’ families to support the school and learning. Teachers liked the atmosphere the small, multi-grade school can provide. It can provide a cosy and almost family-like atmosphere for the whole

work-community. Teachers felt that the opportunity to use the school assistant would help a lot, when working in the multi-grade class. Most of the teachers in Vintturi School have been multi-grade teachers their whole career, so for them it is a natural way to teach.

7.0 Teacher profiles

Teacher 1: Ms. Leena Harju completed her education as a class teacher in 2003. She studied first to be a nursery teacher. She teaches all subjects as required in a village school. Handcraft is not one of her favourite subjects. Her favourite subject is Finnish – mother tongue teaching. Leena has also worked at a college of adult education.

She feels that a multi grade classroom is challenging for the teacher and requires different organisational skills and a good knowledge of the pupils.The benefits: socialisation skills develop with different age groups; it is possible to teach according to pupils' development stage and individual skills; children can be divided into groups regardless of their age. Most difficult to deal with is the greater need for differentiation than in a normal classroom. The space is not big enough to allow for working and teaching in groups without disturbing others. Teacher 2: Mr. Pekka Lehto. He also trained first as a nursery teacher. He has yet to complete his masters thesis but has completed all his teacher education courses. He teaches all subjects, his favourite subjects are biology and music; he is less keen on teaching religious studies.

The benefits of the multi-grade classroom are that students grow to be social and helpful towards others, they take care of others (the older students help the younger ones). Learning from others, or peer teaching is emphasised, independent learning is also emphasised because the teacher rarely has enough time to work with each age group at the same time. A small village school has benefits too as it is easier to work with parents. The biggest problem is to make the lessons work in practice, because there are always two subjects being taught at the same time.

7.1 Teacher and pupil timetable

AI= mother tongue (Finnish

language)TN/TS= HandicraftsMA= MathematicsUE= ReligionMU=MusicLI= Physical education(Sports)HI= HistoryENA=EnglishYMP=Environmental studyKU= ArtLI= Physical education(Sports)

8.0 Classroom observation

Two lessons were observed.

3-4 grades Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday 9 - 10  Ma Ymp  Ai Ma Ma  10 - 11 Ue Ai Ue Mu Ai 11 - 12 Ai Ma Ymp Ai Li 12 - 13 Ku Ku Mu Ymp Li 13 - 14  Tn/Ts  En  En 14 - 15  Tn/Ts    

5-6 grades 9 - 10 Ue Ma Ma Hi 10 - 11 Ai Ymp Ai Mu Ymp 11 - 12 Ma Ai Ma Ymp Li 12 - 13 Ku Ku Mu Ai Li 13 - 14 Tn/Ts En Li En 14 - 15 Tn/Ts

The class: 1-2 + pre-school mathematics lesson.First grade has 2 pupils.Second grade has 6 pupils.Teacher: Mrs. Leena HarjuDate of evaluation: 3.11.2003

12.15 T starts the lesson about mathematics. She writes numbers on the blackboard11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18. The class started to play an educational/mathematical game with these numbers. Pupils sit in pairs.

12.20 Teacher asks one pupil to go to the other room which is next to the bigger classroom.This pupil is from the first grade and T tells her to complete work in her mathematics workbook.

12.35 T gives a small bag to pupils which includes ten-models( mathematical model for number ten)T tells students to make maths examples or problems using the bag.

12.35 Pupils are trying and making estimations

12.40 T shows how much there is and starts to teach about multiplying.T asks a pupil to come to the blackboard and do an example 10*8T asks pupil to make sums first 40+40, 10+10+10+10+10+10+10+10=80T tells the other pupils to follow their work.T asks the pupil to come and show the others 3*10 with the help of a ten model(Unifix-models)T tells the pupils they should use mathematical language the whole time when showing examples. Each pupil comes and does the same thing.

The atmosphere is calm and good except one boy who is trying to get attention all the time

12.50 T asks pupils to read out loud what they have just done (all the multiplications and sums)

12.52 T gives pupils an exercise sheet and asks the pupils to explain what they need to do next

12.55 T helps the pupils to do it (exercise sheet) T gives homework for pupils (10 multiplication sheet) T has checked and corrected the math books and every pupil has some corrections to make. Home work is for everyday except for the weekends

It was the last lesson for the day and pupils shake hands with the teacher. T lesson ends

13.00 The end of the lesson

Physical layout of the classroom

1-2 grades Teacher: Leena Harju

Teacher´s desk

PC

Window

window

Door

Door Blackboard

The heatingsystem

A small room for group work or for other pedagogical use

The class: 5-6 and 3-4 multigrade class 17 pupils:3rd grade: 6 pupils4th grade: 3 pupils5th grade: 2 pupils6th grade: 6 pupilsTeacher: Mr. Pekka LehtoDate of evaluation: 3.11.2003The atmosphere in the classroom was calm and fine. Everybody was ready to study.5-6 grades will soon have a math test and they are preparing for the test in this lesson.

12.15 T starts the lesson. Everybody is studying mathematics. T tells the fifth grade what they should do first, and the pupils start their work in their exercise books. T tells them that if they get ready they should go ahead to another exercise forum.

12.20 3 -4th grades are starting to learn about mother tongue ( Finnish language)T is teaching without blackboard or anything else (just orally)

Pupils work independently all the time.

12.25 3-4th grades begin to do a worksheet about what they have just learned

12.30 One pupil from 3-4 grade did not understand and teacher started to help him. T helps also 5-6 grades pupils with the mathematics

12.40 T started to tell (5 th grade) about the soon coming math-test ( What it is going to involve)T informs 6 th grade about the math test

12.45 3-4 th grade. T asks how their work is doing. Nobody asks any help.

5-6 th grade starts to check their work. One girl (5th) goes to teacher and ask about how to do the exercise. T starts to check 3-4 grades mother tongue exercise work

12.50 More and more 5-6 th grades are getting ready with their work and they too start to check their work. ( There are special books for checking the correct answers)

T gets ready with 3-4 grade and informs them about literature and reading week, which is also coming in the next week.

12.55 T tells about warming system of the schoolhouse and about the week the class is going to study outside the school.

Physical layout of the classroom

5-6 grade.Teacher: Mr.Pekka Lehto

Teacherdesk

Window Window

DOOR

Door

The heating system

Door

Blackboard

window

window

Vintturi Primary School

The school building: front view

Back view

Grades 0-2

The school is close to the forest, so it is easy to use it as a learning environment.

Dinner time

Karaoke singing

Going to school should be fun

Report of a visit to Finland for the MUSE Project –10-16 May 2004

1.0 Introduction

The purpose of this visit was to collect further evaluation data on the implementation and impact of the MUSE teacher training intervention. Data were collected through observation of classroom practice (and video taping), semi structured interviews and discussion with teacher and pupils in the project schools and colleagues at the Chydennius Institute. The following programme was arranged:

Monday 10th May – Travel from UK to Kokkola in Finland

Tuesday 11th May - Visit to the Chydennius Institute - in Kokkola. Morning – half day seminar of presentations and discussion with colleagues

from the Department of Continuing Education at the Chydennius Institute to learn more about education in Finland and share experiences of the MUSE Project and learning and teaching in other multigrade settings. Presentations were made by Juha Paasimaki, Programme Manager and MUSE Project co-ordinator in Finland, Prof. Juhani Aaltola (Prof. Of Education), Dr. Paivi Perkkila (maths specialist), Marketta Widjeskog (pre-school and multigrade specialist), Dr. Eila Aarnos (specialist in social psychology) Dr. Leena Isosomppi (teacher education) and Dr. Pat Pridmore, Institute of Education and MUSE project team member. (Information is available in English on the Chydennius Institute website www.chydennius.fi .

Afternoon – meetings with Anne Jokela, Institute Development Manager and with Magnus Bjorkgren, Project Director, The Information Technology Unit.

Dinner with Dr. Eila Aarnos and Dr. Paiva Perkkilla.

Wednesday 12 May - Visit to Kausten and the project school – Vintturi School. Morning – drive to Kaustenen and observation and filming of lessons with

grades 0+1+2 and with grades 3+4+5+6 and discussion with class teachers Leena Harju and Pekka Lehto respectively. Accompanied by Juha Paasamaki and the administrative head teacher of this school (and 7 other schools) Mailis Tastula and the deputy director of education for Kaustinan municipality Matti Rosvall.

Lunch – visit to Folk Art Centre (Vionojasaatio) meeting with Centre Director. Afternoon – visit to Keskuskoulu primary school with mg classroom – (grades

1-6) and junior high school (grades 7-9) and the Kaustinen Music School (Musiikkilukio) (ages 17-19years)

Dinner with head and teachers of project school – Vionoja School in Ullava – other teachers and the director of education of Ullava commune.

Thursday 13th May – Visit to project school, Vionoja School Morning – observation and filming of lesson with grades 3+4 and with pre-

school class and discussion with teachers Mauri Niemisto and Rcetta Puskala respectively.

Afternoon – observation and filming of lesson with grades 1+2 and with 5+6 and discussion with teachers Sari van Schaik and Maila Koivumaki (the headteacher) respectively. Interview with pupils from grades 5+6 and interview with teachers.

Evening – drive back to Kokkola

Friday 14th May – in Kokkola

Morning – Feedback to Juha Paasamaki on the school visits and discussion of MUSE Project finances

Afternoon – discussions with Dr. Eila Aarnos and Dr. Leena Isosomppi on the web based teacher training programmes they have developed and familiarisation with the Optima learning environment.

Evening – Dinner and further discussion with colleagues from the MUSE from Chydennius Institute and project schools.

Saturday 15th May – in Kokkola Morning – working on the visit report Afternoon and evening - further discussions and dinner with Juha

Paasamaki.

Sunday 16 May 2004 Travel to UK.

2.0 Background and context

Multigrade schools are very common in the rural areas of Finland due to low population density. Recent research at Chydennius Institute has found that 30% of primary schools in Finland are multigrade. However, this is likely to be an underestimate because schools have autonomy to arrange their class timetable and many so-called monograde schools also have a multigrade class from time to time. In Helsinki some ungraded schools have been established in communities, informed by the model developed in the USA that contends that children learn better in non-graded classes. The idea is that teachers make an individual curriculum to suit each child. In all schools in Finland children with special educational needs already follow their own individual curriculum.

Despite the large number of multigrade schools there is very little teacher education for multigrade teachers. Initial teacher education now includes a two-week teacher training practice in multigrade schools but there is no theoretical component and teachers who were trained some time ago have not had any multigrade training. The Chydennius Institute is currently trying to get one course on multigrade teaching through the National Education Board (which provides funding for their courses).

At the beginning of the project baseline studies were developed by Juha Paasamaki in each of the two project schools. At the time of the present evaluation visit the teachers were in the final week of the MUSE training programme working on the Youra environmental project using the Internet and e-tools. In this project pupils were gathering weather data and posting it on the internet where pupils from the other project schools could share it and discuss. The Euro project was scheduled to run for one week and half way through this week only the Finnish schools had posted up the data. Their pupils could, however, see data from non-MUSE schools that had previously been doing the Youra project. At the time of my visit there were two weeks of the school term left before the 10-week summer vacation started.

The two project schools in Finland have been working together on the MUSE training programme. Maila Koivumaki, the head teacher of Vionoja School has been liasing with Juha Passamaki at the Chydennius Institute for tutoring on the materials. In turn Maila has been acting as a mentor not only for the teachers in her own school (who have all followed the training programme) but also for Leena Harju in the other project school in Vintturi who likes to seek support and advice from Maila. These teachers all work together in a very collaborative and supportive way but it is only

Maila who has regular contact with Juha.) The second teacher in Vintturi School, Pekka Lehto is a class teacher and also acts as a vice-head teacher because the administrative head of Vinthuri school, Mailis Tastula, is also head of 7 other schools in the municipality and is based at Keskuskoulu junior high school in Kaustinen.

The MUSE teachers in Finland have received the same training as those in Greece and Spain except that Juha Passamaki developed an extension of the module on ICT – this extension amounted to 36 hours of additional training. This training was delivered in December 2003 and included content on how to use the enquiry-based approach that is required by the new primary school curriculum in Finland.

From the outset of the MUSE project it has been clear that both teachers and teacher educators in Finland are very aware of their responsibilities towards pupils who have special learning needs and are integrated into main stream schools. During the evaluation visit the schedule included a brief visit to a small special needs unit in Kaustinen primary school and discussions with special needs teachers, one of whom was peripatetic. In all the schools visited teachers reported that the government’s inclusive school policy needs to be backed up by the provision of more special needs teachers so that children can have more frequent one-to-one support.

During this evaluation visit classroom practice was recorded on digital video tape and later edited to be included in the video of the MUSE project. Data were collected through Semi-structured interviews with teacher and pupils and informal discussions with project teachers, head teachers and education officials. This data will be used to supplement the evaluation data gathered from annexes 4 and 5 though which project teachers give feedback on the training materials and support provided.

2.0 Visit to Vintturi School

On this visit I was accompanied by Juha Passamaki, MailisTastula and Matti Rosvall. The school is more than 100 years old and has 27 children enrolled. The numbers have been slowly declining in recent years and if they drop below 20 pupils the school will be closed for financial reasons and the children bussed to other schools. The community is very supportive of the school and want it to stay open. The head teacher lives in Vintturi and her child attends this school. School hours are from 9-2pm and then there is an after school club (in the school house) until 4pm to help parents who are working.

Lesson 1: Mathematics. Grades 0+1+2 (7-9 years old). Teacher Leena Harju. Duration 40 minutes

The classroom layout was very creative with many features characteristic of good quality multigrade teaching. A small adjoining room to provide additional working space. The furniture was arranged for small group work and the lesson started with children sitting with teacher on a mat on the floor with cushions. Teacher explained what activities they were going to do and said that they did not need to finish all the activities today. She then took the whole class around each of the activites to explain what they should do. She organised them into groups of 2 and 3 based on similar levels of ability and provided separate activities for grades 1 and 2. There were 9 children present in the class, 1 pre-schooler, 4 in grade1 and 4 in grade 2. The one pre-school child (grade 0) was put into a group with grade 1 pupils. Children then started their activity by taking a numbered card from the black board and finding the table on which the activity (a task card and equipment) had been laid out. When they had finished that activity they took their card back to the blackboard and changed it

for another. One activity involved the use of ICT. There was a computer corner in the classroom and children were using a software programme to help them learn how to draw shapes. Whilst the children were working on the maths activities the teacher provided individual assistance to pupils. This lesson demonstrated many of the innovative ideas presented in the MUSE training programme on the organisation and management of teaching in the multigrade classroom.

There was one pupils with special needs in this classroom – he was unable to read and constantly seeking attention. He receives weekly visits from a special needs teacher in Kaustinen and some daily support from a teaching assistance but the school would like him to have more frequent support. The organisation of teaching and learning during the maths lesson enabled this child to join in and he was well accepted by the pupils in his group.

At lunch time the furniture was quickly rearranged so that the desks were in a horseshoe shape.

Leena Harju, was previously a kindergarten teacher and is new to primary teaching. She is clearly very keen to learn new ways of organising and managing the learning in her classroom. She has put into practice many of the ideas taught in the project training and said that she had learned many helpful ideas through close collaboration and mentoring from Maila in Vionoja School.

Lesson 2 Grades 3+4 Biology (10-11 years old); Grades 5+6 Maths (12-13 years old). Teacher Pekka Lehto. Duration 1 hour

Grades 5+6 were seated traditionally in rows facing the front and spent the lesson working individually from the text book on differentiated tasks. Individual help was given to pupils by the teacher and the teaching assistant. On the other side of classroom grade 3+4 pupils were seated in three groups around biological specimens (stuffed birds) which they had to draw and label with help from the textbook. They stayed on task for the entire one hour lesson with very little support being given. A two-year curriculum span was used so that these pupils could work on the same content. There was no use of ICT in this lesson.

Unfortunately there was not time in the schedule to interview Pekka Lehto and it was not clear exactly how much of the training programme he has followed. From the classroom observation he does not appear to have been very much engaged with the project and Juha Passamaki commented that he did not feel Pekka has picked up anything from the training. Pekka has spent his entire childhood and teaching career in multigrade classes.

The MUSE project cross-curriculum activity

This school joined with Vionoja school to plan this activity. The activity focused on Easter and brought together curriculum content from religion, mother tongue language, art and music. It culminated in an event at the school from which photographic materials were available. This project involved children in using the Internet and Word.

3. Visit to Vionoja School

This school has recently been extended with new buildings and now has 4 classrooms and a large hall for sports and school assemblies. There is a central

‘break out’ working space that is also used for eating lunch and a spacious area for teachers to work. There is a library that belongs to the commune but is part of the school and available for school use. This library is an ideal place for adults in the to community come and see something of the work of the school. Children were noticeably well behaved and there was a quiet but busy atmosphere in the school. Even when teachers were out of the class it was noticeable that pupils stayed on task. There are very friendly relaxed relations between pupils and teachers – at lunch teachers sat on small chairs and tables to eat amongst the children.

The teachers have not made much use of the MUSE Netmeeting facility. They reported having experienced ‘firewall’ problems with the software and their schools had already subscribed to a school network in Finland called ‘Pedanet’ developed by the University of Jvaskyle. Pedanet enables is similar to Netmeeting in that it enables teachers to post up information and chat with each other on the web. (Pedanet can be accessed through www.ullava.fi from which you select schools (koulut) and then pedanet.)

Discussion with teachers confirmed that they use a mixture of assessments for the pupils. There are end of year summative exams, which pupils must pass but it is rare for a child to fail and have to repeat. There is also ongoing formative assessment throughout the year and self-assessment by pupils is a requirement of the new curriculum.

Lesson 1: Mother tongue (Finnish) language. Grades 3+4 (10-11 years old). Teacher Mauri Niemisto. Duration 1 hour

The teacher provided a lesson plan in Finnish and English at the start of the lesson. There were 18 pupils in the class (9 girls and 1 boy in grade 3 and 4 girls and 4 boys in grade 4) and 1 full-time teaching assistant. The lesson was directed by the teacher and the assistant helped to hand out papers and support individual pupils and groups to move forward with the task. This was the first lesson of the day and it started (as always) with a whole class introduction. This morning the teacher read a short passage from the bible and played some quiet music. The teacher then conducted a brief whole-class language test asking questions and recording the oral answers on the overhead projector. He then introduced the lesson explaining that pupils were going to be journalists and write articles for a newspaper. The task was differentiated with grade 3 working in self-selected small groups to make a poster and grade 4 working in small groups to write articles for a class newspaper. In all groups boys chose to work with boys and girls with girls.

The poster paper was fixed onto the blackboard and divided into sections for news, weather, sports etc. Pupils worked in twos and threes to find or write content for the poster and then stick their contribution on the poster. Grade 4 worked in a similar way but there was more writing of original material and less cutting and pasting of content they had found. Pupils had access to the Internet to find weather information and maps and also to the television text pages to get the latest sports news etc. Additional space was made available to them to cut and paste in the library.

After one hour the lesson stopped for pupils to have a short lunch break and then continued for a second hour (which was not observed). At the end of this second lesson the class came together and shared the poster made by grade 3 and the class newspaper made by grade 4. The poster was displayed on the classroom wall and the newspaper put into the library for other pupils staff and parents to read.

This lesson demonstrated that the teacher had a good grasp of the ideas presented in the MUSE training. Although he has had many years of classroom experience he reported that the MUSE project had helped him to use ICT in his teaching more frequently and in different ways. He has not had any multigrade training but feels strongly that his training in the university should have included such training from a theoretical perspective as well as practical experience.

Lesson 2: Maths. Grades 1+2 (8-9 years old). Teacher Sari van Schaik. Duration 1 hour.

There were about 20 pupils in the class and a full-time teaching assistant working with the teacher. A quazi-monograde strategy was used for this lesson with grade2 pupils being given a revision activity whilst the teacher gave direct teaching to grade 1 pupils. Grade 2 pupils were dispersed around the classroom and also some other classrooms so that each pupil had a computer with a maths revision programme. The programme was interactive in that it asked them to give answers and then ‘spoke’ to them saying whether their answer was right or wrong. The teaching assistant spent most of her time supporting the work of grade 2 pupils on the computers.

Having given grade 2 pupils their instruction to do the revision task and set up the computers for them the teacher left the teaching assistant to settle the children down and turned her attention to grade 1 pupils. One pupil had special learning needs and was following her own individual curriculum – working on a task from the textbook. The teacher then gave direct input to the rest of this group – presenting maths tasks on the OHP using transparent ‘unifix’ cubes’. Pupils took turn to come up and write down the answer to a task and the whole process was displayed for the class to follow on the OHP.

This teacher did not go to a multigrade school herself as a child and was not trained to teach multigrade classes. She started to teach multigrade classes here in Vionoja school one year ago and said that she likes it very much. She feels it would be a little bit boring to have a monograde class. She reported that she had learned how to organise her teaching by trial and error and by watching Maila and Mauri teaching their classes. She uses a quazi-monograde strategy to teach maths and mother tongue language but combines the class for environmental studies, music and physical education using a two-year curriculum span.

Lesson 3: Preschool Grade) (5-6 years) Teacher Rcetta Puskala

This lesson was only observed for 15 minutes because the class was scheduled to go off to a swimming lesson. The small group of about 10 children had a spacious classroom with moveable furniture and also an adjoining room very well resourced with separate play areas – a shop, dressing up area, soft toys etc. In the lesson observed the teacher started by inviting one child to come up to the blackboard and display the date and the day. Children were seated in two groups around large tables. The teacher then played the guitar whilst the children sang a song and did their daily physical exercises for 5 minutes.

Lesson 4: Environmental studies Grades 5+6 (12-13 years old). Teacher Maila Koivumaki. Duration 1 hour.

There were about 20 children in this class and a full-time teaching assistant. For environmental studies the teacher uses a two-year curriculum span. I was provided with a lesson plan in English at the start of the lesson to explain the enquiry-based

approach that was being used. To work through the entire process takes the teacher 4 hours. I observed the first 2-hours which covered steps 1 to 4 in the 7-step enquiry process shown below:

1. What is the problem/issue to be explored? (Teacher builds the context using books, stories, ICT)

2. What questions do I want to answer in my enquiry? (Pupils write questions)3. What do I know already? What more do I need to find out? (Pupils develop a

mind map)4. Finding out more (Pupils gather new data using ICT, books etc.)5. What did I find out? How do I now see the problem? (Pupils critically reflect

on their findings)6. What new questions do I want to answer? (Pupils write new questions)7. What do I understand now? What is my new theory? (Pupils develop a new

mind-map.

The teacher began by explaining that they were going to start a new enquiry into how to classify insects. She wrote the first step on the blackboard ‘What is the problem/issue to be explored?’ and gave a general introduction using large pictures and charts of insects and digitised material projected onto the classroom wall through a data projector to illustrate the problem/issue. She then moved onto the second step (again writing the question on the board to track the process) and divided the class into groups to work on this enquiry. Each group was set the task of writing a ‘learning diary’ on ‘How to Classify Insects’. One pupil in each group decorated the front cover of the diary whilst the rest of the group began to write questions that they wanted to answer in their enquiry. The next step was to discuss what they already knew about how to classify insects and then to develop a mind-map (web-diagram) using this information and to add to this diagram things they wanted to find out. One person in each group acted as a scribe to draw the diagram and to keep adding to it as the group moved through the enquiry process. At the end of each step in the process the teacher brought the pupils together to move them onto the next step together.

In the next step the group set about collecting information to answer their questions. To help them do this the teacher provided a range of resource materials. There were 5 computers in the classroom, they had internet connections and pupils were encouraged to use the ‘google’ search engine. They also had resources on CD and reference books. One computer was attached to the data projector so that pupils could share information on the large screen. Pupils appeared to be learning in a truly collaborative way although it was evident in one group that one pupil was doing very little. This observation led to a later discussion with the teacher about continuous assessment when she confirmed that she made notes not only about the final quality of the learning diary produced by each group but also on the contribution of individual members in a group.

This teacher is a very dynamic person with a keen interest in ICT and excellent leadership skills, which she puts to good use as the head teacher of the school. She went to a multigrade school as a child and has worked in multigrade classes for many years. She has not had any specific multigrade training but after working for some years she went for continuing education at the Chydennius Institute where she could share experiences with classmates. She is well established in the school and in the community. She has spearheaded the MUSE project not only in her own school but also in Vintturi School through her mentoring of Leena.

As head teacher she is responsible for making the school timetable (in consultation with her teachers) and she has implemented a strategy to avoid having to teach subjects such as Maths and English language that are considered to be difficult to older multigrade classes. This strategy is to have a staggered start and finish time for the pupils in the class so that the teacher only has pupils from one grade to teach during the first and last lesson. For example on Tuesday morning Grade 3 may start at 9am with Maths whilst the other half of their class (grade 4) do not come to school until 10am. At the end of that day grade 3 would then finish at 2pm whilst grade 4 would stay on until 3pm to have a maths lesson. (This strategy was also observed in practice in Kaustinen primary school.) Two year curriculum spans are commonly used to avoid teaching across grades in history and environmental studies and music and physical education are taught to whole classes.

At the start of the MUSE project this teacher had already developed very good ICT skills and was using ICT in her teaching. Most of the MUSE training available was not new to her – but the extension training on enquiry-based pedagogy was new and she has now adopted it for environmental studies. She feels it can be used for all subjects including maths. When she has gained more experience in using this method and feels confident that she has mastered it she plans to encourage her staff to use it and provide help and support to those who want to use it. She feels that the enquiry-based methodology is best for older children because they need to be able to read and write well. The Youra project that she is currently working on as part of the MUSE training is new to her and she is enthusiastic about it although she would like to see the data input from the schools in Spain and Greece.

She feels that a key to good quality multigrade teaching is to have small classes (no more tan 20 pupils) and a teaching assistant in each class.

The MUSE project cross-curriculum activity

As mentioned above Vionoja school joined up with Vintturi school to plan an activity about Easter that used ICT (Internet and Word). In Vionoja school this activity culminated in an event in the local church of which photographic materials were available. In additional to bringing together curriculum content from art, music, religion and mother tongue language teachers felt this activity taught children how to behave in the church.

Interview with pupils from grades 5 and 6

Seven pupils (all girls) were interviewed to find out their attitudes to multigrade teaching and to different learning and teaching styles. All pupils were strongly positive about being taught in a multigrade class. The agreed view was that it was better to have more than one grade because they liked to have large classes with more friends to learn with. Six pupils said they most liked to learn using ICT with the computers, one pupil most liked to learn from books.

4.0 Concluding comments

This section compares the findings from the visit with the learning objectives of the teacher training programme delivered by the MUSE Project.

The general objective of the programme is to enhance the professional skills of and develop a positive attitude to multigrade teaching. Specific objectives are related to each of the three training modules.

In the two project schools all teacher have a strongly positive attitude to multigrade teaching. Teachers joined the Project with very different levels of experience and skills in organising and managing multigrade teaching and using ICT but all (except Pekka Lehto) have been observed to have moved forward and enhanced their skills through the Project.

The specific objective of module 1 (Introduction to the use of Information and ICT) was that by the end of the training programme teachers should have:

1. Used the new teaching and learning tools provided by the project, i.e. the computer, the web-cam, the BSCW shared work space and the Microsoft Netmeeting software.

2. Communicated with other schools through accessing the internet, sending and receiving e-mails and video-conferencing.

Both Project schools have made use of the new teaching and learning tools provided by the project. The computers have been in constant use both by the teachers and the pupils. The web-cams have been used for the training and BSCW shared workspace has been relatively useful. Teachers have tried to use the Netmeeting software but have faced problems from firewalls and need further support with this. They fully appreciate the facilities provided by Netmeeting but are already using these within Finland through their membership of the Pedanet.

Module 2 Methodological Approaches to Multigrade TeachingBy the end of the training programme teachers should have:

1. Set up activity centres in their classroom e.g. for a technology centre for ICT and audiovisual work, a language centre, an art and crafts centre, a science centre.

2. Arranged student seating in small groups.3. Displayed individual and group student work in the classroom.4. Labelled resource materials on shelves so that pupils know where to find

what they need.5. Used a range of different student groupings in their teaching including, single

grade and mixed ability groupings and whole class teaching.6. Displayed a large picture chart of the sequence of daily activities (timetable)

in the classroom.

In both schools the above objectives were observed to have been met. although class timetables were often quite small. However, pupils were clearly aware of their daily schedule.

Module 3 Cross Curriculum ApplicationsBy the end of the training programme teachers should have:Used ICT to facilitate children’s learning in cross-curriculum projects.

This objective was met through the collaborative project developed on Easter. In this project ICT was used to enable children to search the internet for information on Easter and to use the software programme Word to develop materials.

To conclude: The MUSE project has been well delivered and mostly well received in the project schools. It has resulted in enhanced social organisation of the pupils and enhanced use of ICT. These schools are providing high quality multigrade education. The introduction of enquiry-

based learning is an important innovation and has the potential to develop critical thinking in pupils which was previously deemed by the head teacher in Kaustinen to be something that was lacking in the approach to teaching and learning used in her schools.

Dr. Pat PridmoreInstitute of Education,University of London

21th May 2004