Relationality in Alternative Provision – towards a more interconnected educational experience?
Event Summary by Dr. Claire Kinsella - C.Kinsella@mmu.ac.uk
Guest Speaker Event Carnegie School of Education, Leeds Beckett University, 11th September 2023
Staff-student relations typically take centre stage in the research on Alternative Provision (AP). This is hardly surprising because many AP settings explicitly set out to cater for students in the aftermath of a breakdown in, or an exclusion from such relations. What is much less understood, however, are other kinds of relations that influence children and young people’s experiences of AP. During this event leading scholars on Alternative Provision shared their insights on three important, but largely underexamined aspects of relations in AP – legal relations, friendship relations and spatial relations.
Our first guest speaker, Dr. Seamus Byrne began with an important reminder that children and young people who are registered in AP not only have a right to education, but, actually have a broader suite of rights through education and within education. Respect for those rights can be seen as important intermediary in staff-student relations as this frame has the potential to move educational establishments beyond the common-sense understandings that access to education for those excluded from school, simply means ensuring that they have access to mandated aspects of the curriculum within regulated timeframes. Schools in all their forms, then, are not simply sites of core curriculum delivery, but important contexts in which life learning and human development occurs.
This more holistic view of the contexts in which children and young people’s learning and development take place was also a key concern underpinning the research presented by our second guest speaker, Dr. Craig Johnston. In this presentation, Craig highlighted that excluding a pupil from a school is not just excluding them from access to a particular set of teaching professionals within a specific kind of school setting, it is also results in reduced access to pre-existing friendship networks where there may have been significant social and emotional investments. Recognising that hidden solidarities often exist between young people beyond the physical walls and professional reaches of AP, is important because research shows that these friendships may actually be experienced by young people as a more supportive and trustworthy way in which to shape their futures.
Our final speaker, Prof. Anthony Maher returned to the physical space in AP, not simply as a backdrop to staff-student relations, but as important focus in its own right because how the AP space is used, by whom, when and for how long, is indicative of state power. Highlighting recent research on resources for physical education (PE) in AP, Anthony noted that few AP settings were purpose-built and so this historical legacy has had an important influence on the ongoing struggle for space that participating PE teachers reported. Compensating for spatial inequalities by either seeking out alternative spaces for PE or by improvising within the confines of the spaces they are given might be admirable, but there are important implications for what is being signalled to students in AP about their status in the wider educational system.
In an era where the individual educators are faced with ever-increasing responsibilities for an ever-expanding definition of student outcomes, there is value in “stepping back” and attending to a wider set of relations that surround AP. While there is no denying that fostering warm staff-student relations is important in the AP context, it is also useful to remember that educators can only ever achieve so much if student access to society’s resources remain deeply unequal. While this series of talks does not absolve educators from a sense of responsibility for student outcomes, it does point them towards a more complex kind of relational consciousness. It is a type of consciousness that extends beyond the confines of the AP classroom and demands a greater attention to what might be on offer when human rights, hidden solidarities and spatial legacies are given a more explicit role in working towards a more interconnected educational experience.
Discussion points:
1. How far can children and young people in AP claim and enjoy a right to an education in the fullest sense of the term?
2. How might educational professionals consider friendships between young people within a strengths-based frame?
3. To what extent do purpose-built spaces foster a sense of belonging in education? What are the implications for Alternative Provision settings?
Suggested Reading:
To find out more on children’s rights as they relate to education see:
To find out more about on friendship relations in the context of AP see:
To find out more on spaces for physical education in the context of AP see:
Acknowledgements
We would like to express our thanks to Joaquim Dias and Rachel Bostwick for their dedicated efforts to the successful hosting and delivery of this event. We are also grateful to Prof. Amel Alghrani who kindly offered her expertise and input during the planning stages of this event.