Dr Howard Williamson - From the local to the global: Is youth work coming of age in Wales?

I became an accidental youth worker as a teenager, when they built a community centre in the corner of ‘our’ park. We had a self-organised Thursday evening youth club with the warning that if there were any complaints we would be closed down. As the articulate member of the ‘lads in the park’, I took responsibility, at the age of 15, in the 1960s.

For many years, I carried on volunteering as a youth worker, wherever I lived. I went to university and did a PhD on young offenders and the criminal justice system. I left university quite unsure whether I wanted to be an academic or a youth worker. For the next 30 years, I was both. And, from the mid-1980s, I got involved in youth policy, first in Wales, then in the UK, and later through the European Commission, the Council of Europe and the United Nations.

Over the past 30 years, I have reviewed youth policies in 21 European countries, written three volumes on ‘supporting young people in Europe’ and edited seven volumes of the History of Youth Work in Europe. The former title is interesting because it draws from the subtitle of Extending Entitlement: supporting young people Wales (National Assembly for Wales 2000), which was the first distinctive youth policy in Wales and, in my view, one of the most impressive and progressive policy frameworks for young people ever produced anywhere in the world. Significantly, it suggested both explicitly and implicitly a role for youth work, both independently and through partnership with other agencies, across a range of policy domains.

At the start of the Council of Europe youth policy reviews, in 1997, there was very little acknowledgement, let alone discussion of ‘youth work’. The first White Paper on youth published by the European Commission in 2001 did not mention it. The Council of Europe did not talk about it. Each institution provided support for what we might consider to be ‘youth work’, though in their different ways according to their institutional missions – the Commission’s programmes focused on learning and mobility, the Council’s projects were concerned with human rights education and conflict resolution. They talked about non-formal education and non-formal learning respectively, not youth work.

Only by the late 2000s did the concept of ‘youth work’ start to be interrogated, through the History of Youth Work in Europe project (2008-2018). Each seminar held revealed the huge disparity in understanding the nature of youth work and the huge diversity in its delivery. In some parts of Europe, it had verged on formal education; in other parts, on therapeutic social work. The 1st European Youth Work Convention, held in 2010, celebrated that diversity.

But, from the outside, that diversity could easily look chaotic. Could everything from street-based ‘detached’ work with young people to the work of self-governed youth organisations or single-issue youth campaigns all be designated ‘youth work’? Could they all really rest under the same banner? Was ‘youth work’ just work directed towards a particular age group, a practice in particular places, a methodology, or something else? The 2nd European Youth Work Convention, held in 2015, sought to establish whether there really was any ‘common ground’, across forms of practice, styles of delivery, geographical locations and issues addressed.

Surprisingly, perhaps, there was broad consensus that all ‘youth work’ (though still ill-defined in terms of practice) was seeking to achieve two goals: to promote and defend spaces for young people (spaces for autonomy, participation, voice and action), and to support bridges for young people to take the next steps towards positive and purposeful futures. In short, youth work was about both helping young people to be young and helping young people to become adult.

Such grand rhetoric rarely converts easily or quickly into grounded reality. At the heart of youth work lies the needs for refined and reflective skills in negotiating different positions between different pressures and expectations. These have been captured in the final chapter of Volume VII of the History series: twelve trilemmas for youth work. It is called ‘Reflective trialogue’, drawing out the lessons from the history project. It is a long way from the simplistic stereotypes of youth work being about ping-pong and pool, though that may indeed be where it starts, as relationships are formed and trust is forged.

Later this year, an online 3rd European Youth Work Convention will be held, looking towards establishing a European Youth Work Agenda through the commitments expressed within both the EU’s new youth strategy (2018-27) and the CoE’s new youth sector strategy (to 2030). [The Council of Europe also agreed a Recommendation on Youth Work in 2017.]

In Wales, as everywhere else, youth work has had to fight for respect and recognition, repeatedly persuade others of its quality and impact, and argue its case for training, competence and capacity building. Non-formal education and learning – delivered through youth work – sits between formal education and informal learning. It remains misrepresented and often misunderstood. Achieving some parity with schooling as a learning environment remains a significant challenge. Indeed, my paper for the 3rd European Youth Work Convention is called Cornerstone Challenges for European Youth Work and Youth Work in Europe. It is available on the Convention’s website. The essential message is that youth work remains conceptually messy, often weak in competence, lacking credibility, and poorly connected to other youth policy sectors.

Wales has the great advantage of being able to anchor youth work within the philosophical framework of Extending Entitlement – the need to extend positive opportunities and experiences to young people, especially to those who are unlikely to get them any other way. Youth work is an eclectic and responsive practice. It is also a reflexive practice, which has been demonstrated particularly during the Covid-19 crisis. With the leadership of the excellent and experienced individuals on the Interim Youth Work Board, which had already broadened the remit of Welsh Government support for youth work in relation to mental health and youth homelessness, digital and online youth work was rapidly developed (learning from other European countries, notably Finland and Estonia) to support young people in very challenging times. That has strengthened the reputation of youth work, provided recognition of youth work, and deepened respect for youth work, in difficult times.

Youth work is written on my heart. But I do not lack a critical perspective about it. It can be a relaxing, recreational set of activities provided by committed but untrained volunteers. If, however, societies want youth work to stand alongside other professional practice, complementary to teaching, social work and other related professions, delivering reflective developmental learning for, with, and by young people, then it requires commitment to professional education and a coherent route of learning for youth work practitioners, paid or unpaid, encompassing theory, policy and practice; knowledge, skills and attitudes; and academic, vocational and community competences. That is our challenge for the future. Extending Entitlement was published 20 years ago. A significant place for youth work within wider public policy for young people may just about to be coming of age in Wales.

Dr Howard Williamson

Dr Howard Williamson is Professor of European Youth Policy at the University of South Wales.  A JNC qualified youth worker, he has also advised many governments on youth policy.  In Wales, he chaired the Wales Youth Work Partnership in the 1980s and was Vice-Chair of the Wales Youth Agency from 1991-2006.  He is a director of Grassroots – Cardiff City Centre Youth Project, and a trustee of the Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award.  He has worked closely on youth issues with both the European Commission and the Council of Europe, and published widely on these issues. He was appointed CBE in 2002 and CVO in 2017.

Professor Mick Waters - Blended Learning: what’s in the mix?

Digital technology, a resource that has held promise since computers entered classrooms in the 1980s, suddenly took a big step forward as schools (along with the rest of society) tried to come to terms with circumstances of lockdown.

Many schools in many countries used technology to support the learning of their pupils using websites to host learning activity or run live online lessons. As schooling anticipates the uncertainty of a near future with possible local lockdowns, quarantined bubbles and faltering attendance patterns, the consideration of digital possibility is gaining pace. Interestingly, the balance between school based and home based, remote learning is now commonly being referred to as ‘blended learning’.

Of course, ‘blended learning’ is a bit more complex than that.

In ‘Successful Futures’, Graham Donaldson listed twelve pedagogical principles which would underpin the success of the new Curriculum for Wales. In the eight pages on those twelve principles, the word ‘blend’ appears just three times and the words ‘computer’, ‘technology’, ‘digital’ or ‘virtual’ not once. Maybe the concept of ‘blended learning’ deserves further examination especially as the conversation on pedagogy is building in earnest as the Curriculum for Wales becomes a reality.

What Graham wrote about was the way our pedagogy needs to bring together, or blend, a range of different teaching approaches, practised well. He was emphasising that those polarised arguments about progressive and traditional techniques or didactic and discovery methods are futile and what we need are teachers with a wide repertoire of pedagogy employing the right approach at the right time with the right learners for the right purpose. That is why the use of technology to link home and school learning is part of a blended approach but not the whole of it.

Of course a ‘blend’ is just a mix. The current blended learning situation is similar to developments in the world of fashion when Viyella was created in the 1890s. The lightness of cotton was paired with the sturdiness of wool to make fashionable and warm clothing; a sort of ‘best of both worlds’. Another notion of blending is used in tea and coffee production, where the aim is to ensure a consistency of flavour for the consumer. The challenge for schools is to blend the various subject disciplines, through Areas of Learning Experience, into a consistent school experience for youngsters that set them well for the future while enjoying their present.

In cooking, as the milk is added to the roux, the use of a whisk to get the air into the blended sauce ensures smoothness and no lumps. In the 1920s food blenders were invented, helping us to make some foods easier to swallow. Should we be blending our curriculum content by whisking it to such a degree that it is liquidised into a puree, a ‘learning smoothie’, or do we need to ensure that there is something to chew on? We know we need fibre; granary bread is better for us than white where the grain has been processed and blended. We need to offer learning that provides ‘something to get the teeth into’ while making sure it is appetising and appealingly smooth. How do we develop a learning experience that builds knowledge and understanding and at the same time develops skills as well as positive attitudes and relationships?

The current interest in blended learning could help us to think about other aspects of the learning blend. Can we take further and more profitably the efforts we are making to engage children at home? Could we take this opportunity to look properly at homework? Though some schools have changed its name, homework remains one of those bits of schooling that we seem to know are not right. Could we make it worthwhile by doing something to create a consistent blend with school-based learning?

It will probably never be researched but there are lots of examples of youngsters who used the web during lockdown to explore the home learning offers of schools other than their own. Similarly, there are many examples of children ‘having a go’ at learning aimed at children in much older or younger year groups than their own. Is it time to address the issue of the way learning is aimed at children born between two Augusts as the best way to organise and instead better blend our learning offer to fit differing maturities in children?

In terms of technology as a vehicle for learning, how do we blend the use of virtual experience with the opportunity for youngsters to engage with others in authentic settings such as employment, universities, schools elsewhere and children in different countries?

The different developments in ‘Our National Mission’ around the curriculum are coming together. The curriculum itself is being supported by all those developments that have been in train for four years: ITE, professional standards, ALN, inspection, the National Academy for Educational Leadership, professional learning and more are the ingredients that have been addressed to blend with the intention and ambition of the new Curriculum for Wales. It’s a heady mix!

As the agenda moves firmly into a focus upon pedagogy for the new curriculum, it is vital that the expertise of all concerned blends together to make the curriculum come alive. Indeed the most important blend in Welsh learning just now is probably the productive mix of teachers and school leaders with the alphabet soup (another blend) of agencies : ITE, HEI, NAEL, ESTYN, WG, NAPL, LA, RSIO, WJEC, EWC and all the others. All these agencies working together, with and alongside schools to blend their own insight and learning will secure the prize we seek for our young: Successful Futures.

Professor Mick Waters

Mick Waters works with the schools in the West Midlands in raising standards. He has also worked at national policy level with the Welsh Government offering advice and support to the education reform agenda and has been instrumental in the development of the professional standards for teaching and leadership and assisting teaching.

Teachers’ professional learning and development

We are at a point of unprecedented opportunity. For teachers, for teacher education, and for schools, reform is a given. And the changes are comprehensive and radical. Will you choose to be part of leading that change? Or will you be a bystander?

The education community in Wales is in the throes of a revolution that, in the words of the Minister for Education, Kirsty Williams MS is ‘unashamedly ambitious’. At the heart of this national reform movement are three stand-out features:

• the overriding concern with learners and learning;
• the coherence of the reforms across schools and ITE; and
• the recognition that the new concept of teacher professionalism embedded in the reforms is the key to the realisation of the blueprint.

For the reforms to succeed, Wales will need teachers who are supremely competent and who are also learners, innovators, curriculum designers and intellectuals who engage in scholarly work. The reforms are changing what it means to be a professional teacher.

At the same time, student teachers on the newly-accredited ITE programmes are being prepared to embrace the educational reforms and to become the agile, adaptive, innovative professionals that the reforms require. And alongside them in schools are teachers who are working to meet the challenges of the new curriculum frameworks. This synergy between school reform and ITE reform fosters collaborative working and knowledge exchange, and means that in both schools and Schools of Education the teaching role is being elevated from operative to strategist.

The foundation for career-long professional learning is established in ITE. Student teachers need not only to acquire the knowledge, skills and understandings that will enable them to enter the profession as competent practitioners, but also the confidence, commitment, analytic expertise and habits necessary for examining their developing practice and pedagogical thinking throughout their careers. One of the many challenges facing university tutors and teachers working with student teachers is to design curricula that meet both of these goals. ITE cannot prepare novice teachers for every challenge they are likely to meet, but it can prepare them to become effective, lifelong professional learners.

The first year of teaching is a unique stage in learning to teach and the importance of professional socialization into the work setting and the profession cannot be underestimated. It is, however, equally important that the induction year, building on the foundations laid in ITE, is seen as part of a broader continuum of learning and development. New teachers have to teach, but they also have to continue learning how to teach. It is critical, therefore, that they are seen and respected by colleagues as learners, but this is unlikely to happen if established teachers do not see themselves as having anything more to learn. For novice teachers to be confident as learners in a school they need to feel that they are entering a community of learners where it is common place for practice to be analysed, for problems to be shared and for teachers to be adept at learning from critical analysis of their own and their colleagues’ practice and thinking. Professional learning cannot thrive in an institution where classroom learning and teaching is seen as a private practice. The opportunity here is for more schools getting more of their teachers actively engaged in ITE and Induction - and removing barriers to open participation and collaborative learning.

Teachers’ engagement in ITE is clearly important because of the distinctive contribution that teachers can make to student teachers’ learning. What is easily overlooked, however, are the many opportunities for their own professional learning that thoughtful, committed involvement in ITE offers established teachers. Mentors and other teachers often find themselves explaining their practices to student teachers – the ‘whys’ as well as the ‘whats’ and the ‘hows’ – which means they have to think about how they go about things in the classroom, which in turn can lead teachers to new understandings of what they do, and provide a real stimulus or platform for professional learning. In education we talk a lot about reflective practice – and for an experienced teacher, knowledge about one’s own assumptions, beliefs and implicit theories is a necessary prerequisite for critical reflection and professional growth. In addition, as full partners in ITE, working closely with the university in the design and delivery of programmes and in collaborative professional inquiry, teachers are encouraged not only critically to examine their existing practices and those of the school, but to consider alternatives.

Encouraging and enabling young people to develop awareness of their learning and thereby be in a position to take responsibility for it, is regarded as beneficial to their development as learners and to the learning itself. In terms of professional learning, I would suggest that at a time when teachers’ development has never been more important, that all teachers – from student teachers through to established practitioners – are given the opportunity to explore and critically discuss ideas drawn from research and practice about the nature, acquisition and development of teaching expertise, that they too might take responsibility for their learning.