Teaching and Learning Research Programme

Annual Conference Papers

5th Annual Conference, 22-24 November 2004Cardiff Marriott Hotel

Home School Knowledge Exchange: Activities and conceptualisations

Pamela Greenhough, Martin Hughes, Jane Andrews, Anthony Feiler, Elizabeth McNess, Marilyn Osborn,

Mary Scanlan, Leida Salway, Vicki Stinchcombe, Jan Winter, Wan Ching Yee

University of Bristol

David Johnson, University of Oxford

Andrew Pollard, University of Cambridge

NB: This paper was presented at an internal TLRP conference; if you wish to quote from it please contact the authors directly for permission. Contact details for each project and thematic initiative can be found on our website (www.tlrp.org).

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Home School Knowledge Exchange: Activities and conceptualisations

Pamela Greenhough, Martin Hughes

Jane Andrews, Anthony Feiler, David Johnson, Elizabeth McNess, Marilyn

Osborn, Andrew Pollard, Mary Scanlan, Leida Salway, Vicki Stinchcombe, Jan

Winter, Wan Ching Yee

Acknowledgements: The Home School Knowledge Exchange project is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ref no L139 25 1078) as part of the Teaching and Learning Research Programme. We are very grateful to the teachers, parents and children who have taken part in the project, and to the Local Education Authorities of Bristol and Cardiff.

This is a draft account of the research. Please do not quote without the authors' permission.

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Home School Knowledge Exchange: Activities and conceptualisations

In this paper, we wish to do two things. The first is to give an account of research

undertaken on the Home School Knowledge Exchange project. The second is to

examine some conceptualisations relevant to this area in the light of our experiences

on the project.

The project

Children live and learn in two very different worlds - those of home and school. These

worlds are often kept separate from each other. The project has been working to

bridge this divide by bringing together parents, teachers and children in a process of

knowledge exchange. Our premise is that children's learning will be enhanced through

this interchange. There are three strands to the project -

supporting literacy learning at Key Stage 1

supporting numeracy learning at Key Stage 2

supporting transfer from Key Stage 2 to Key Stage 3.

This structure allows for the comparison of the basic idea across contexts, affording

an internal replication of the premise within the research itself. It also allows for

increased understanding and articulation of the area as ideas and analyses are explored

across strands.

Design - school sample

Within each strand, four primary schools actively participated in the project, with two

of the four schools being located in Bristol and two in Cardiff. (Schools were

involved in a single strand only.) Within each city, one school had a high proportion

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of students eligible to receive free school meals, while the other school had a low

proportion of eligible students. Thus, the grid formed from the factors of 'city' and

'proportion of free meals' formed the sampling frame for each strand. We also tried to

ensure that the school intakes reflected the ethnic diversity of the two cities. A

combination of volunteering and specific recruitment produced the final group of

participating action schools. A set of schools matched to the action schools was also

recruited to the project. These schools did not carry out any action but provided the

opportunity for quantitative comparisons to be made of learning outcomes. In the

literacy strand only, the two schools in the low free meals cell in Cardiff were Welsh

medium schools where the curriculum is delivered wholly in Welsh at Key Stage 1.

Advisers from the LEAs of the two cities provided information and advice throughout

the school recruitment and selection processes.

Methods and procedures

Multiple methods are being used in the research. The procedures for the literacy and

numeracy strands have differed slightly from those used in the transfer strand and are,

therefore, described separately.

Literacy and numeracy

Action

At the centre of the research has been the action element. In each strand, an

experienced teacher was seconded to work part time on the project. The role of these

teacher-researchers was to develop literacy or numeracy related home-school

knowledge exchange (HSKE) activities and to support their implementation. (For

more on the nature of the activities see below.) The project felt it was important not to

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impose ideas for action upon the participants. The first step, then, was a mapping

exercise whereby the current state of home-school interchange and the knowledge

exchange needs of those involved were investigated. Headteachers and teachers were

interviewed and parents were sent questionnaires and invited to take part in focus

groups.

Initially, the teacher-researchers focussed their work on one class in each school. At

the beginning of the project, the children in the literacy strand classes were starting

Year 1 and the children in the numeracy classes were starting Year 4. The teacher-

researchers worked with the schools over a period of two years. For the most part, the

classes remained intact during that time. However, in two numeracy schools, the

children were dispersed to new classes at the start of Year 5. This entailed expanding

the action to include a wider set of students, although a small number of children who

moved into a combined Year 6/Year 5 class were lost to the project.

Assessing the project's impact on children's learning

Since the action is embedded within the structured frame described above, it has been

possible to set up systematic quantitative comparisons between the children in the

action classes and their counterparts in the comparison schools. Assessments were

carried out (a) during the first term of the project, to establish a baseline, (b) after the

first year of action and (c) at the end of the second year of action.

There are two hypotheses as to the mechanism that might be in play were children in

the action classes to demonstrate learning gains greater than their comparators. One is

based on the possibility that increases in esteem would lead to learning gains in

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general. The other suggests that potential learning gains will be specific to the content

area of the exchange, either literacy or numeracy. We decided, therefore, to use

assessments of both maths and literacy in both strands, to allow for the exploration of

these hypotheses. In the Welsh medium schools, attainment assessments were in

Welsh and were administered by a Welsh speaking teacher.

Changes to the children's general learning dispositions were assessed using a junior

version of the Effective Lifelong Learning Inventory developed at the University of

Bristol (Deakin Crick et al., 2003). In addition, differences in the students' subject

related self efficacy were monitored using questionnaires devised by the project.

These assessments were administered in both English and Welsh in the Welsh

medium schools, since the majority of students had English as their home language. A

small number of the youngest EAL students who were expected to have difficulties

with the language demands in these assessments also had the tests read to them in

their home language.

In each action class, further exploration of a mainly qualitative nature was conducted

around six 'target' students (three girls, three boys; two higher attaining, two medium

attaining and two lower attaining students). The target students were selected through

stratified random assignment. Their parents were invited to participate, mostly by

phone, although a few were approached directly in the playground at school. Almost

all parents agreed to take part. Reserves were approached in the few cases where

parents declined. This further exploration was aimed at building a picture of the funds

of knowledge (Moll and Greenberg, 1992) of the teachers and parents of the target

children, accessing the literacy and numeracy practices of the home and school, and

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monitoring response to the HSKE activities. A mixture of methods was used to collect

data. Interviews were conducted with the parents and teachers of the target students,

and with the students themselves. The final set of interviews included the use of

photographs taken during the action to prompt stimulated recall. Families also made

videos of literacy or numeracy events taking place at home, and observations were

carried out of the target students at school.

In addition, more prolonged and intensive exploration was pursued with a number of

families selected from amongst the targets. These case studies allowed a more

detailed investigation of the perceptions of those involved. A variety of techniques

were used here, including diaries made by the participants (both written and

photographic), videos, observation, informal chats, drawing and model making.

Transfer

In the transfer strand, the situation has been rather more complex. As indicated earlier,

four primary schools were involved in the action. However, since the focus was on

supporting transfer from Key Stage 2 to Key Stage 3, the destination secondary

schools also needed to be involved. The major secondary receiver for each primary

school was, therefore, also recruited to the research.

During the first year, the emphasis was on building relationships with and between

parties. In addition, the work at this time with target families (selected as above) was

used to identify the areas where home-school links could be strengthened and the role

of parents could be developed. During the subsequent year, activities were conducted

with the new cohort of Year 6 students and their families, which built on the work of

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the previous period. Action was implemented with this set of students both prior to

transfer, and, where they transferred to the selected destination school, post transfer as

well, since transfer was seen as encompassing the period of assimilation and

accommodation during Year 7, as well as the move from one school to another.

Students in this cohort in both the action and comparison schools were tested prior to

transfer using assessments of verbal and non-verbal intelligence and literacy and

numeracy attainment. All these students were assessed again after transfer to their

new schools. In Bristol especially, students were widely dispersed, with the result that

this phase of testing entailed making arrangements with and visiting a large number of

secondary schools, (16 in Bristol, 12 in Cardiff). Changes to students' learning

dispositions were monitored through the administration of the full version of the

Effective Lifelong Learning Inventory before and after transfer. We also assessed

student acclimatisation to life in their new schools using a questionnaire devised by

the project.

Target families (encompassing higher, medium and lower attaining boys and girls in

each school) were followed through transfer. In fact, a slightly larger number of

students were included as targets in Bristol to take account of the more varied transfer

paths in the city. Parents and students were interviewed before and after transfer. The

students' primary teachers were interviewed prior to transfer and the children were

observed in their primary schools. Their tutors and secondary maths and English

teachers were interviewed post transfer. Students were also observed on the first day

in their new school.

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As with the literacy and numeracy strands, more extended and detailed work was

carried out with cases selected from amongst the transfer families. These families

were visited more frequently both before and after transfer and the case students were

observed in English and/or maths lessons in the secondary school.

We do not have space in this paper to describe in detail the action undertaken in the

transfer strand. Furthermore, the issues raised by the work in this area, and the

intersection of this context with the conceptualisations we discuss later takes a rather

different form, which, again, we do not have space to develop. The remainder of this

paper will, therefore, focus on the literacy and numeracy strands.1

Action in the literacy and numeracy strands

School to home

A wide range of activities was undertaken to promote home-school knowledge

exchange. (More extensive accounts will be available in Feiler et al., forthcoming,

Winter et al., forthcoming.) The mapping exercises indicated a desire on the part of

both teachers and parents for parents to know more about the ways literacy and

numeracy were taught in schools.

It would be helpful if we knew more about what they’re doing, strategies used for teaching, so that help is relevant, it doesn’t confuse

Bristol parent to know the school’s way of teaching for consistency with your child at home

Cardiff parent

These aspirations were supported in a number of ways. In the literacy strand, the

teacher-researcher helped the teachers to make videos of literacy lessons in school.

The focus in the two Bristol schools was on writing, while in the two Cardiff schools

1The results of the quantitative cohort level analyses in all strands will be reported elsewhere, as results become available.

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the focus was on reading. The videos were accompanied by booklets written by the

teachers, which contained explanations and suggestions. Video viewings for parents

were arranged in the schools and all parents received their own copy of the video.

The parents appreciated the immediacy and familiarity of the video as a form of

communication.

I think the video is good, because it does give people an idea of the way to do things. So I think that was a good idea, I personally think people looking at that and think, oh yes, I could do that, because I think sometimes people do need to be shown how to do things, don’t they (Parent of MG2 Bristol HFSM Lit)

In contrast, we found that several parents had not read the booklet. This included

parents across types of school and the range of attainment.

The titles of the videos and booklets - e.g. 'Cefnogi eich plentyn trwy ddarllen'

(Supporting your child through reading), 'Helping your child to write at home', 'How

to write at home' - and their contents make it clear that the intention was both to

provide information on school approaches and to afford parents the opportunity to

build on these at home. For some parents, the video was 'eye-opening' in this respect

Int I think they made a video of the literacy hour in school.Mum They did and I saw that, yes. It was good, that.Int What did you think of that?Mum Really good. That’s where I found out.. it was surprising because they had him first, reading a book that he hadn’t read before, and you could tell the difference instantly when they had him again then, reading a book that he’s read say half a dozen times before, the enthusiasm and the expression in his voice compared to reading a book with just no expression whatsoever, you could tell the difference completely. And they do, they read the story first, then they go back through the book and go through the different words and if there’s bigger words they explain them and like with your apostrophes and.. is it {we'll} or something like that they’ve got, instead of ‘we have’ or.. you know, they split them up like that and they explain to them. And it was very interesting and I learnt a lot from that, because I never used to read a story first, I’d just open the book and start to read it, and that’s where you get your no expression, but if you’ve read the

2 H higher attaining, M middle attaining, L lower attaining, G girl, B boy, LFSM low eligibility for free school meals, HFSM high eligibility for free school meal

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book and you look through the pictures and you explain the story, by the time you get to read it then you’re more into it, aren’t you, because you know what you’re looking at. It makes sense, it does make sense, but you don’t think to do it until you’re actually shown yourself, do you? But it was, it was really interesting, that was, it sort of opened my eyes more to how they learn. (Parent of MB Cardiff HFSM Lit)

For other parents, the eye opening features were in respect to the teachers' skills and

to the complexity of their teaching task.

That was really interesting, seeing what they did, how Miss [name] divided the literacy lesson up and how she got them all involved, because she had them sort of … sometimes she asked questions and children shot up their hands and they were very enthusiastic, but she got everybody involved, not just the ones who shot their hands up. I mean, she must have got everybody in the class and asked their opinions or asked things and that, so she got everybody involved. So it was interesting to see how she did that, because you sometimes think in a class of 30 children my child could easily get lost, sitting at the back, but in fact she got everybody involved. (Parent of HB Bristol HFSM Lit)

But there’s a lot of co-ordination, isn’t there, a lot of planning, getting it all sorted. It’s amazing. And there just looks like such a lot of children, just hundreds! Yes, it’s amazing that they can sit there and read like they were reading, I find it amazing. (Parent of MG Cardiff LFSM Lit)

Most of the teachers involved at this stage were young and relatively inexperienced.

They reported that they felt that their status had been raised as a result of the videos

and that they received more respect. Relations with parents also became more

friendly.

I’ve got a better bond with the parents, they treat me more as a friend than a teacher (Teacher Bristol Literacy Strand)

The teacher-researcher also observed that in one school, some parents who had

previously made negative comments about literacy learning in the school became

much more positive in their perspectives. One unexpected impact of the videos was

that pressures for the schools to set homework were reduced as the parents became

aware just how hard the children worked when they were at school.

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Literacy learning was not uppermost in all parents' minds as they watched the videos.

For some parents, it was the opportunity to see their child in a different context when

they were not around, that was important to them

I was really pleased, because it's like.. they showed what they were actually doing in class and the type of things they were doing, which was interesting because you don't.. as a parent you don't get to see actually what they are doing in class, but [daughter's name] sat there yawning through most (laughs) (mimes yawning), I was thinking she must go to sleep earlier (laughs) but you can see you know, the type of little projects they've got, and it was quite interesting to watch, you know to be able to see what they were actually doing in class and how they were behaving in class. (Parent of LG Cardiff LFSM Lit)

even where it was the cause of some humour

Yes, we saw the video. Me and his dad had a great laugh with that one…Well, [son's name] picked his nose and ate it. "Did you see that!?" "Oh, my God!" I thought, great, everybody’s seen it! (Parent of LB Bristol HFSM Lit)

In the numeracy strand, the aspiration of parents gaining more knowledge about the

ways things are done in school was also met in a variety of ways. In some schools,

parents were invited into school so that they could see for themselves. Parents who

attended these sessions were very positive about them.

Mum They’re obviously teaching maths a lot different to the way I learnt maths, which was the main problem, communication. Her form teacher, they had an afternoon where some of the mums went in and they actually taught us for an hour how they teach children. And it helped so much, we got all these sheets and we came home and once I had it in my head, this is how she’s got to do it.. I mean, the answer came out the same, whether I did it my way or her way, but it was nice to know how they’re being taught, how they break it all down. And she really did.. even her teacher said they noticed such a huge difference once I knew what she was doing and was able to give her more help. …Int And you said you found it really useful when you went in…Mum Oh yes, that was brilliant. Probably the best hour I’ve spent at the school actually. (Parent of LG Bristol LFSM Num)

Not all parents responded to the invitation to come into school. Videos were also

made in the numeracy strand to support knowledge exchange. By this point in the

project, many of the target families had made videos on literacy or numeracy at home

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and we had been impressed by the children's facility with the medium. Many of them

had approached the task as if they were making a programme for children's television

and demonstrated good understanding of the genre. We felt it would be advantageous

to involve the children in the school video-making and make them more central to the

knowledge exchange process. In one school, the children made a video for the parents

about the current strategies they were learning concerning multiplying by 100 and by

50. The children were filmed working in small groups with one child taking the role

of teacher, posing questions and explaining strategies, while other children played

themselves as students, answering the 'teacher's' questions and explaining how they

had arrived at their answers. Video viewings were arranged in school and those

parents who were able to attend were very positive.

they send me a letter to ask me would you like to watch that cassette and which day you like and which time, I arrive the time and day and I went last.. I think last week. I watched the cassette, I.. I enjoy it… I become glad when I saw them how they are explaining, like a teacher and their talking’s clear and they are working like a teacher, they are working well (Parent of LB Cardiff HFSM Num)

Parents found the video very interesting both as a representation for their benefit as to

what their children were learning and for the form of the activity they saw their

children engaged in, which they recognised as beneficial.

Mum I think it was good, ‘cos it gave the children more chance to explain, rather than listen to the teacher and tell him to explain it. So they will have put into their own.. they will put the maths into their own words, and they did some sums in their own words and showed it, what they think what the teacher been saying…Int Did you feel that you got anything out of the video yourself?Mum Yes, first of all I did enjoy it, ‘cos it was like a whole new different thing what they were doing. And it gave more chance for the children to speak out or have their own self-confidence in front of the video and gave them the chance to explain more things what the teacher’s been saying(Parent of LG Cardiff HFSM Num)

The video was made available on loan to parents who could not attend the viewings.

This was a less successful means of providing access than distributing individual

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copies (as in the literacy strand) but more in line with the resources schools would

have at their disposal.

Some children recorded sessions for the video in their home language. The parents

appreciated this effort and thought it a good idea. However, they noticed that

expressing the mathematics content in their home language did prove to be

challenging for some of the students.

It was in one tape anyway, so they done it in English first and then, [my daughter] and another girl they did it in Bengali, and then there was another one in Pakistani. So it was okay. But I think they find it more difficult when they’re explaining English work in a different language, they can’t explain it properly that time, so they do get confused… cos [my daughter] lived in Bangladesh for 5 years and she’d been going to schools and all that, she’s more experienced than the girl which was beside her (Parent of LG Cardiff HFSM Num)

For some children, then, switching to home languages to express 'specialised' areas of

school learning which are more usually managed in the language of school may not be

straightforward.

Home to school

The project team was very conscious that the flow of knowledge exchange in the

action described thus far was very much in the direction of school to home. This is a

characteristic of much work in the home-school area. See, for example, Marsh (2003).

Edwards and Warin (1999) have suggested that in the schools they studied,

collaboration between school and home had been superseded by what amounted to the

colonisation of the home by the school. As we have seen, the extension of knowledge

about school practices into the home can be at the behest of parents themselves which

may temper the colonisation metaphor somewhat. However, we felt that it was

important to highlight home to school and initiate action that built on that direction

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also in the exchange of knowledge. As with the school-to-home knowledge exchange,

a variety of activities were developed. These were based in part on the views of home

literacy and numeracy events, emerging from the work with the target families. In the

numeracy strand, the children were given disposable cameras and asked to take

photos of the 'everyday' maths they were involved in out of school. They took photos

of a wide range of events including cooking, shopping, playing board games and card

games, setting the timer on a microwave cooker, and consulting timetables.

and there's measuring her bed, …we did take a tape measure out with us when we were buying [my daughter] a new bed, and photographed her measuring it (Parent of LG Bristol HFSM Num)

Once in school, displays were made from the photos with written commentaries from

the children as to the mathematics illustrated in the event. These photos raised

awareness amongst participants of the mathematics that is engaged in and developed

out of school.

The idea was to see the children in action basically doing maths. In their own environment, doing things they do, and see what they think of as maths, you know, activities with their parents or brothers and sisters, playing games, or going shopping. Which I thought was a nice idea actually. And that was popular. (Cardiff teacher numeracy strand)

I think it was the photographs, when they brought the photographs in, I think they were quite a big.. they were a big thing for me because they showed.. gave me insight into their homes (Bristol teacher numeracy strand)

Int why (do ) you think that one (taking photos) is a good idea? Child Because then they know that you are doing maths and learningInt When you say they know that you are doing maths and learning,

who's the 'they'?Child Grown ups (LG Bristol LFSM Num)

Less enthusiasm was shown amongst the target students for the in-school use made of

the photos, however.

When we were doing it in school and putting it together in categories it wasn't that interesting (LG Bristol HFSM Num)

One of the teachers recognised that it might be more advantageous to spend more time

just talking about the photographs as a class

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(It) would have been good fun because they like seeing each other in photographs because they always find it funny. And just other carpet sessions say where they talk about - so what kind of maths do you think they’re doing here, or, you know.. again linking it with school (Cardiff teacher numeracy strand)

A theme which emerged from the work with the photos and with the target families

was the location of a lot of home-based mathematics in games. As a result, games

were given a higher profile at school. Children were encouraged to bring in and play

games with a maths dimension in school and a maths club was set up that focussed on

games. In one school, parents whose home language was not English joined their

children in class and played games with them. One important aspect to the game-

playing was that it provided a context in which students could legitimately use out of

school strategies to accomplish the mathematics required by the game.

A variety of activities were also developed to promote the home to school direction

for knowledge exchange in the literacy strand. In one such activity, the children were

asked to fill a shoe box with artefacts from home. (For a more detailed account of this

activity, see Greenhough et al., forthcoming.) The boxes were used in different ways

across the schools. In one, they contributed to an 'All About Me' topic. In another, the

children used them to introduce themselves to a new teacher who was covering a

period of maternity leave, and in a third, they were put together with the purpose of

providing a motivational stimulus for writing. The parents were asked to help the

children with their selections.

We did the photos together… how old she was in each photo, and what was going on. (Parent of HG Cardiff HFSM Lit)

There was a very high response rate to this activity. As one teacher said "The children

were desperate, absolutely desperate to show you what was in their boxes". They all

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presented items from their boxes to the class. The contents were extremely diverse. A

boy from a traveller family included in his 'About me' box - 12 wrestling cards, 2

Pokémon cards, a Power Rangers model, 2 toy cars, a photo of himself as a toddler

spilling his dinner, photos of him sitting on a large dog surrounded by other dogs,

with his cousin at a fair, with his sisters at home in their caravan and on a site playing

in a model house. A girl included a postcard from her cousin at Disneyland Paris,

glow earrings, seaweed from Weston super Mare beach where she spent part of her

holiday, a ticket from a car park at Weston, an 'Art Attack' collage of a frog, a piece of

writing about going shopping and buying shoes and a Cinderella read-along tape.

The children used their boxes in different ways in their writing. One teacher put

together her own About Me box and included chopsticks as she loves Chinese food

and a tennis ball as she enjoys playing tennis. Over the course of a week, the children

in this class constructed word webs based on their boxes and then wrote an extended

piece about themselves. The word webs were used to develop the children's

knowledge about language and the teacher used her own box to model concepts. For

example, she mimed the various things she could do with the tennis ball to illustrate

the idea of verbs. In the 'motivational' class, children mainly wrote stories, often with

a magic theme. One girl, for example brought in a 'very special' necklace which

belonged to her mother. In her story, the necklace appeared as treasure found by a

little girl out walking in the woods. It had acquired magic powers and warned the little

girl "when I glow you are not saif RUN".

Through the shoeboxes, the teachers found out more about the children, both in terms

of their out of school lives and their abilities.

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You know, hearing [name] talk so animatedly about what he had.. his birds and everything, because he's not one who does often contribute to class discussions… he doesn't have a high profile within the class… but when he had things to talk about that he cared passionately about, it was.. you know he did a very good presentation. There were other people that I thought -yeah, now that's really.. you know that shows they're actually more confident and outgoing in this situation than I'd expected". (Bristol teacher literacy strand)

The children were also very interested in the items in each other's boxes and still

remembered them long after the activity finished. As they talked about their objects,

both at Circle Time and as they carried out their literacy work, they too came to know

more about each other. There were, then, opportunities for class community building

growing from the new perceptions. For example, the status of the 'birdkeeper' (quoted

above) grew as he became acknowledged as the class bird expert and his teacher felt

that he then became more outgoing and responsive as a result. We can see then that

the points for knowledge interchange in this activity are several, including both child-

teacher and child-child. The points of interchange also included parent-child through

the interaction around the initial object selection and parent-teacher, in that the objects

provided teachers and parents with conversational starting points.

The activity had a positive impact on the writing of many of the children. Some wrote

more extensively, others were better able to structure their writing and some were

more inspired and developed interesting ideas.

It was the first time she’d done a piece showing any real imagination, and she’s

then gone on to develop that really well. (Bristol teacher literacy strand)

Positive effects were observed in the writing of both boys and girls.

It is worth noting here two aspects of home literacy events which were incorporated in

this and other home-to-school activities, which may also have contributed to their

success. The first concerns the motivational nature of objects connected with popular

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culture. Children had a free hand as to what they included in their boxes (although

they were encouraged not to include live creatures) and for some children the

opportunity to include media linked artefacts contributed to their enthusiasm.

Secondly, children were not always required to write on their own. We had noticed

that home literacy events were often quite social, involving friends and/or siblings

(Gregory, 2004). In the class using the motivational boxes, children were encouraged

to write collaboratively if they wished. In another school, older siblings joined their

brothers and sisters in a writing workshop based on photographs taken at home. Not

only did this benefit the children's writing but the staff in the school believed that the

decline in bullying of younger children by older children, observed in the school, was

directly attributable to this activity.

Some ways of looking at home school knowledge exchange

In the final section of this paper, we take a look at some conceptualisations which we

feel are useful when we reflect on literacy and numeracy in and out of school and the

possibilities for knowledge exchange. It is in deliberation of these that we may come

to understand more the inherent challenge that lies within the area.

Firstly, in considering the differences between the two contexts, we note that some

home literacy and numeracy activities are not so different from school activities. Not

all the home literacy or numeracy events are what we might term 'vernacular'3 (Barton

and Hamilton, 1998). Rather, some home-initiated events map quite closely onto

school-type activities. Here we might include work with tutors, children carrying out

3 Barton and Hamilton define vernacular literacy practices as rooted in everyday experience and serving everyday purposes. They suggest they are often less valued by society and are not particularly supported, nor regulated, by external institutions.

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calculations set by family members, working through commercial workbooks, playing

some forms of 'educational' computer games, filling in puzzle pages in comics or

children's magazines and the reading of scheme-type books purchased by parents.

Scanlon and Buckingham (2004) have described the expansion of publishing aimed at

this kind of area and suggest that publishers have attributed the development of this

market to the culture of assessment and testing in schools. We should recognise, then,

that not all home-based events are 'home-like' in their character.

The notion of domain and site developed by Street et al. (2001) (from the distinction

made by Barton and Hamilton) has proved useful here, with sites being seen as the

actual places where activities take place, and domains as 'areas of activity not located

in specific places'. The diagram in Appendix A provides an illustration for

mathematics, where the rows represent sites and the columns represent domains.

From this view, the 'non-vernacular' activities listed above could be seen as belonging

to the domain of school whilst being situated at home. However, this raises the

question as to what it is about an activity or event that might determine our intuitive

placement of it within a particular domain. Street et al. list some of the qualities they

see as associated with the two domains. The domain of school is seen as global and

top down with targets being teacher or school driven, while the domain of home is

viewed as local and bottom up and driven by problem or life organising purposes.

Hannon's (1995) tabulation of the difference between home and school learning

suggests that the former often seems effortless, is shaped by interest and need, is often

spontaneous and does not usually require special resources, while the latter often

seems to require effort, is shaped by curricular objectives, is timetabled and is

supported by special resources.

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Whilst these are useful pointers towards differences, we have found the distinction

made by Sfard (1998) between learning as acquisition and learning as participation

helpful when thinking about the school and home domains. She has suggested that the

acquisition metaphor underpins a wide range of theoretical positions on learning.

Researchers have offered a range of greatly differing mechanisms of concept development. First, they simply talked about passive reception of knowledge, then about its being actively constructed by the learner; later they analyzed the ways in which concepts are transferred from a social to an individual plane and internalized by the student; eventually, they envisioned learning as a never-ending, self regulating process of emergence in a continuing interaction with peers, teachers, and texts. As long as they investigated learning by focussing on the "development of concepts" and on "acquisition of knowledge", however, they implicitly agreed that this process can be conceptualized in terms of the acquisition metaphor. (p6)

In her paper, however, she noted the emergence of a new metaphor in some writing

about learning, which she identified as the participation metaphor.

The terms that imply the existence of some permanent entities (like concept or knowledge) have been replaced with the noun "knowing" which indicates action… The talk about states has been replaced with attention to activities. In the image of learning that emerges from this linguistic turn, the permanence of having gives way to the constant flux of doing… Moreover, the ongoing learning activities are never considered separately from the context within which they take place. The context, in its turn, is rich and multifarious, and its importance is pronounced by talk about situatedness, contextuality, cultural embeddedness and social mediation… To put it differently, learning a subject is now conceived of as a process of becoming a member of a certain community. (p6)

Although Sfard's paper suggests that educational theory will benefit from an adequate

combination of both the acquisition and the participation metaphors, we have found

that the ease with which we can map the metaphors onto school and home is useful in

distinguishing between the two domains. Thus the acquisition metaphor is particularly

helpful in understanding the school domain, while the participation metaphor seems

particularly relevant to the domain of home (Hughes, 2001).

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With this distinction in mind, our 'non-vernacular' examples of activities in the home

would be seen as belonging to the domain of school since they are concerned

primarily with the acquisition of knowledge and skills. Their endpoints are literacy-

learning or numeracy-learning even when the skills pills are coated with the sugar of a

game or a comic. Any participation in events that is taking place is in literacy-

learning or numeracy-learning events. By contrast, many of the vernacular events

belonging to home present us with a picture of genuine participation in authentic

activities in which literacy or numeracy are embedded, and learning is a by-product.

A further characteristic of these events is that they are purposeful, often having

everyday goals like making Flake Cakes for tea using a packet mix. As a result,

children learn how literacy and numeracy relate to real purposes, in addition to any

incidental learning of literacy or numeracy knowledge and skills.

The challenge for home school knowledge exchange is that the acquisition

perspective is dominant. Home events are primarily viewed in terms of what they

have to offer in terms of acquiring the sets of skills and knowledge valued in school.

We also considered what are the maths dimensions of these practices (doing jigsaws) e.g. tessellation, shape, matching, again features on which schools could potentially build and which perhaps provide a bridge between home and school that research of this kind could enhance. (Baker and Street, forthcoming)

Home experience is placed at the service of the curriculum. However, the

participation perspective suggests that ultimate home-school knowledge exchange can

only happen when schools are allowed to be places in which events with real purposes

embedded in social matrices take place; where there are actual events to participate in.

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References

Baker, D. and Street, B. (forthcoming) Navigating schooled numeracies: explanations

from the UK for the low achievement in math of children from a low SES

background, MTL

Barton, D. and Hamilton, M. (1998) Local Literacies Reading and Writing in One

Community, London: Routledge

Deakin Crick, R., Broadfoot, P. and Claxton, G. (forthcoming) Developing an

effective lifelong learning inventory: The ELLI project. Assessment in Education

Edwards, A. and Warin, J. (1999) Parental involvement in raising the achievement of

primary school pupils: why bother?, Oxford Review of Education, 25 (3), 325-341

Feiler et al. (forthcoming) Linking Home and School: Primary Literacy. London:

RoutledgeFalmer

Greenhough, P., Scanlan, M., Feiler, A., Johnson, D., Yee, W.C., Andrews, J., Price,

A., Smithson, M. and Hughes, M. (forthcoming) Boxing clever: using shoeboxes to

support home school knowledge exchange, Literacy

Gregory, E. (2004) 'Invisible' teachers of literacy: collusion between siblings and

teachers in creating classroom cultures, Literacy, 38 (2), 97-105

Hannon, P. (1995) Literacy, Home and School: Research and Practice in Teaching

Literacy with Parents, London: The Falmer Press

Hughes, M. (2001) Children learning at home and school, Thirteenth Annual Drever

Lecture, University of Edinburgh, May

Marsh, J. (2003) One-way traffic? Connections between literacy practices at home

and in the nursery, British Educational Research Journal, 29 (3), 369-382

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Moll, L. and Greenberg, J. (1992). Creating zones of possibilities: Combining social

contexts for instruction. In L. Moll (Ed.), Vygotsky and Education, 319-348,

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Scanlon, M. and Buckingham, D. (2004) Home learning and the educational

marketplace, Oxford Review of Education, 30 (2), 286-303

Sfard, A. (1998) On two metaphors for learning and the dangers of choosing just one.

Educational Researcher 27 (2), 4-13

Street, B., Baker, D. and Tomlin, A. (2001). Researching home/school numeracy

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Available from brian.street@kcl.ac.uk

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London: RoutledgeFalmer

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Appendix A

Schooled Numeracy Practices Out-of-School Numeracy PracticesSchool site Working on number bonds Dates, aspects of data and measuring,

Pokemon cards, money, playground games

Home site Homework, commercially marketed texts,counting up and down stairs, patterns on car number plates

Pocket money, time, laying the table, shopping, setting the video, home discipline, 'symbolic' uses of number systems

Emergent Qualities

GlobalTop downTargets are teacher/school drivenextrinsic motivation

LocalBottom upHome purposes, problem/life organising driven,intrinsic motivation

(Street et al, 2001)

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