Study visit group report

Group 292 Title In-service training for teachers: advisory system,

teacher centres Theme The teaching profession, challenges for teachers and

trainers City, Country Bilbao, Spain Type of visit General education Group reporter All group participants

LIST OF VISITORS BILBAO 2009 NAME CTRY. POST - INSTITUTION

HADJIKAKOU Eleni CY

CYPRUS PEDAGOGICAL INSTITUTE P.O.BOX 12720 CY-2252 Nicosia (+357-) 22 40 23 12 (+357-) 248 05 05

KRAFT Lars DE

SenBWF Berlin 1. Schulpraktisches Seminar Reinickendorf (S) Lindauer Allee 23-25 DE-D- 13407 Berlin (+49-30) 49 87 18 69

ZAORAL Hans DE

Landesinstitut fuer Schulentwicklung Rotebuehlstr. 131 DE-70197 Stuttgart (+49-711) 66 42 -2 52 (+49-711) 66 42 -2 03

TEREPING Mare EE

Tallinna Ülikooli Haapsalu Kolledž Lihula mnt 12 EE-90507 Haapsalu (+372-) 472 02 43 (+372-) 472 02 48

STRUGNELL Tim GB Children"s Services Professional Development Centre GB-NR7 9QL Norwich (+44-01603) 43 32 76 (+44-01603) 43 82 73

SMITH Susan GB

Ethnic Minority Achievement Service Cambridge Education @ Islington Barnsbury Centre GB-N1 1QF London (+44-20) 75 27 58 51 (+44-20) 75 27 55 56

GOTZARIDIS Christos GR

Regional Authority of primary and secondary education of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace Terma Sismanoglou Komotini 69100 Greece (+30-25510) 885 19 (+30-25510) 885 19

HAMILL Dolores IR

Kildare Education Centre Friary Road IE- Kildare (+353-) 45 53 02 00

COLLI Angela IT

Istituto Professionale di Stato Industria ed Artigianato "L. Cremona" P.zza Marconi, 6 IT-27100 Pavia (+39-0382) 46 92 71 (+39-0382) 46 09 92

PERRI Concetta IT

Istituto Comprensivo di Dinami Contrada Balco IT-89833 Dinami (+39-0966) 99 00 12 (+39-0966) 99 00 12

ŠVENTICKAS Algimantas

LT

Vilnius Pedagogical University, Institute of professional Competence Studentu str. 47 LT-LT-08106 Vilnius (+370-) 52 73 53 57 (+370-) 52 63 60 02

VAN LAEKEN Marc NL Open University Netherlands Valkenburgerweg 177 NL-6419 AT Heerlen

MICHALSKI Andrzej PL Kazimierz Wielki University Chodkiewicza 30 PL-85-064 Bydgoszcz (+48-52) 360 82 16 (+48-52) 360 82 16

BAHADIR Şengül TR

TED Ankara College High School Psychological Counselling & Guidance Service İncek/ Ankara Phone: +90 312 586 90 00' 1623 Fax: +90 312 586 90 37

GIDER Mustafa TR Kastamonu Province Directorate for National Education Stadium Arkasi TR-37100 Kastamonu

ARION BILBAO 9th- 13th March, 2009

Martin Casado: Visit Coordinator John Etxeandia: Visit Organiser Loli Vazquez: Visit Organiser Elena Ortega: Visit Organiser

This is indeed a group report. It has been compiled collaboratively by the group members, all of whom contributed. Sue Smith has collated the report, ably assisted by Tim Strugnell and Dolores Hamill however any mistakes or omissions are entirely hers.

All members of the group would like to offer sincere thanks to:

• The Government of the Basque Autonomous Community • The City Council of Bilbao • The organisers of the visit- Martin Casado, Loli Vázquez,

John Etxeandia, and Elena Ortega- who worked tirelessly to ensure that the visit was a success.

• The representatives of the various institutions we visited during our stay who welcomed us with such warmth and openness.

IN-SERVICE TRAINING FOR TEACHERS:

ADVISORY SYSTEM.

Sunday 8

Monday 9

Tuesday 10

Wednesday 11

Thursday 12

Friday 13

a.m.

9:00 Hotel

9:30 Official Welcome. General introduction to the educational system.

11:30 Berritzeguneak (Educational Advisory Centres), Education Dept. Priorities (ICT, Inclusive School Dimentions, Languages...) development. (Martin Casado).

12:30 – 13:30 English Programme. Foreign language teaching in the Basque Country. (Loli Vázquez & John Etxeandia).

8:45 Hotel

9:00 Exchanges of experience & ideas. (Visitors)

11:30 Talk about Educational Services provided by Bilbao City Council.

13:00 Visit to Bilbao City Council, Town Hall.

8:15 Hotel

9:15 – 12:30 School Visit

(Zamakola Primary School)

7:45 Hotel

8:45 School Visit (Artaza-Romo Secondary School)

12:30-13:30 "ICT" Programme (Victor Bermejo, Adviser of ICT Programme)

8:00 Hotel

9:00 School Visit (Astrabudua Secondary School)

11:30 Evaluation: Summing up; report.

Internal evaluation. (Berritzegune B08 Leioa).

13:00 Press and lunch

End of the visit.

14:15

Hotel Nervión Restaurant

(Bilbao)

Catering School (Bilbao)

14:30 Iruña

Restaurant (Bilbao)

p.m. 19:30 Informal welcome meeting at Hotel.

Group work

17:30 Cultural visit: GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM

Groupwork: Final Report.

Group work: Final Report

21: Official

Dinner

Introduction Since the Lisbon Meeting, Europe has been seeking to raise standards, with educational standards being a priority. Each participant meets the challenge in the light of its own particular context; our motivation in visiting the Basque Country was to see how this distinctive European area is creating and fulfilling its educational goals. The historical and linguistic contexts of the Basque Country lead to an original and particular approach. Although each of our own situations differs from that which we find here, nevertheless the Basque Country’s approach offers each of us fresh insights and new paths to solutions within our own systems. We found six particular points of interest:

• The Bilingualism which arises naturally from the position of the Basque language; • The crucial role of the Berritzeguna as an organisation offering training, innovation,

motivation and support to schools; • The introduction of English at an early age; • The emphasis placed on Environmental Education; • The inclusive approach to education for children experiencing special educational

needs; • The involvement of partnerships in education, in the form of local authorities and

private foundations. Monday 9th March, 2009 Official Welcome We were officially welcomed by Mr Andoni Anasagasti, Head of the Education Department in Bizkaia.

Mr. Anasagasti presented a general introduction to the Basque Autonomous Community education system. Of particular interest to the group were the following points of information:

re-school education

re very encouraging with

• The high level of regional autonomy enjoyed by the Basque government;

ts (48% ublic 52% private), 37,000 teachers and 920 schools (55% public 45% private).

The y of Education were: nt

development 5. Quality and continuing education.

the presentation were the following which

p of the school council which is responsible for the running of each

teach through the medium of Basque from 5% 25 years ago to 60% at present.

ts from comments made by the group during evaluation sessions included

could give the answer to the role of language teaching on general

motion of the linguistic and cultural

cause the plasticity of language

period in Basque language for each teacher and a paid substitute is supplied.

• The nature, history and culture of the Basque country; • 90% of two year olds and 100% of 3 to 6 year olds are attending p

in order to secure optimum exposure to the Basque language; • The Basque Autonomous Community was involved in PISA as an entity in 2003 for

the first time and results for language and mathematics weScience highlighted as an area for development in future;

A General Introduction to the Educational System There was a presentation by Mikel Agirregabiria, head of innovation at the Department of Education in Bizkaia. He gave the group a detailed description of the nature of the school system in the Basque Autonomous Community where there are 370 000 studenp

five priority areas for development highlighted by the Ministr1. Moving towards an inclusive school environme2. Language normalisation and multilingualism 3. Social and cultural dimensions of education 4. Science technology and sustainable

Among other interesting points raised duringwere of particular interest to the Arion group:

• the teaching of English through content; • the makeu

school; • the success of the Irale programme in increasing the number of teachers who were

competent to

Selected extracthe following:

• the existence of three linguistic models is an interesting phenomenon. A thorough analysis or research on the influence of a particular model on students´ general performanceeducation;

• the notion of community focussing on the provalues of the Basque Country is interesting;

• it is remarkable that a representative of the town is a member of the School Council; • the B and D models achieve better results, this may be because it is the system of

choice for educationally motivated parents and beis fully exploited and transferred to other studies;

• the money invested in supporting model D is very impressive e.g. the Basque government pays for a three year study

Spain and has higher standards as a result. e explained that teachers are civil servants.

ol usually starts at 3 years of age and many hildren start when they are 2 years old.

f age as to whether they continue ith academic studies or take a more vocational route.

ts’ for all rimary 4 and 2nd year Secondary students for the first time during our visit.

staff ure that all students and staff have access to high standard

they are working towards:

• A High Quality School

oreign Language Teaching in the Basque Country

zquez , English advisor in a Berritzegune on the

of the multilingual education those of the reporter.

he setting, hard to be more “actual”

t of

the utmost interest of the “Linguistic Educational Policy” for the several

olitical parties.

of the third language (mainly English, and in some cases French and German)3

Martin Casado stressed that education is a very high priority in the region. The region spends more on education than other areas of H Education is compulsory from 6 to 16 years of age and there are currently 349.818 students in the system. However pre-schoc Decisions are made when students are about 14 yeas ow It was interesting to us visitors that the region was introducing ‘diagnostic tesP He emphasised the importance of the promotion of the Basque language in the region. Berritzeguneak, the place of innovation, is where in-service training for teachers is co-ordinated. It is led by teachers who either run school-based projects or work with thein school settings to enstraining and resources. There are three priority areas that

• A School for Everyone• A XXI Century School

Multilingual Education in the Basque CountryF We listened to a presentation by Loli Váteaching of English in Basque schools. These remarks do not claim to be a precise rapport of the presentation by Loli Vázquez, but rather try to highlight remarkable and interesting aspectsin the Basque country. The words areT The language teaching is clearly a strong topic in the Basque country. It is at the hearthe historical (cfr. the Ycastolak), cultural, identitarean and thus political concerns on education. During our visit of 9 – 13 march 2009 – which was a week after the Basque elections, and therefore during the coalition negotiations - we followed day by day in newspapers the p The actual system On can describe the Basque language education on several axes:

- the axe of the A (most Spanish), B(mixed) and D (most Basque)-models - the axe of the L3, the teaching

edium of Spanish with Basque and English taught itional languages

del with Basque and Spanish weighted equally as languages uction

he language of instruction with English and Spanish as additional languages.

es concerning teaching English. es ( 4/5 year old)

mals and water (1 term) to my community and famous

eliefs (religion), phy) and deeds (political science) in Sec 4

nd German

e attitude towards English topics

o 7 hours a week

amme

the re piloted in schools by collaborators who gave

edback before full implementation.

ent of children at age 4-5 is an effective way to obtain results in the

gh content, CLIL (Content and Language Integrated

The models

1. Model A o Instruction through the m

as add 2. Model B

o A bilingual moof instr

3. Model D o Basque as t

English She described different models, stages and approach

- the ITI , English at early stag- the Inebi, in primary school

o from topics as ani st

artists (3rd term) - the Bhinebi, in secondary school

o from topics as “Europe, where we live” in Sec 1, to “human bthoughts (philoso

- the multilingual project o English, but also French ao The Inglegoiz-approach

Promote a positivo Schools decides

Some comments Of particular interest to the group was the multilingual programme which creates a motivating atmosphere for the introduction of English language in the early years, age 4-5, by means of contextualised, meaningful exposure to English. The Dip Dip Dip Prograims to provide authentic learning and communicative situations, so that the pupils gradually, as they feel more confident, can begin to produce orally. The programme provides an enjoyable child- centred structure for lessons. This programme is built on during primary education by a thematic approach to teaching English. By secondary level students are taught some subjects through the medium of English. Advisors designedprogrammes and resources which wefe A selection of comments made by the group:

- the involvemlong term;

- the teaching of English throuLearning) is a perfect option

f and for the Basque “civil servant exam” to enter the

promotion of the linguistic and cultural

study period in Basque language for each teacher and a paid substitute is supplied

ring Francismo, and the founding of the secret Ycastolak) even a very

local

ariety) there is the

ucational system that puts a lot of effort in combining the best of these two worlds

roup session, PM.

based on expectations of the visit, were raised by participants, they are isplayed below.

1. How other countries in Europe manage and finance teacher in-service education?

inking hing career – initial training, induction

programmes and on-going CPD?

hich programmes are used in classrooms and what about ‘Distance Education’?

at offered to schools and teachers to cope with constant changes in

practice?

fferences in in-service teacher training in the

- the existence of the Irale programme to increase the number of teachers who are competent to teach through the medium of Basque (from 5% 25 years ago to 82% at present). In the beginning to learn them Basque, now more to refresh their Basque. ( the evident interest oBasque public school system)

- the existence of three linguistic models is an interesting phenomenon - the notion of community focussing on the

values of the Basque Country is interesting - the money invested in supporting model D is very impressive e.g. the Basque

government pays for a three year

Some global reflections

- language is of course at the heart of the building and preserving of a cultural identity, so evidently also in the Basque country. Given the history (Basque forbidden dustrong item

- every modern identity is multilevel , but everyone has to find the best organisation for the teaching of language (own and L3, the immigration issue)

- cultural identity is inclusive, not exclusive - besides the cultural identity (Europe values his richness of v

globalization in which we live, we have to take this into account - we found in the Basque country an ed

G A set of questions, d

2. What is considered good practice in teacher training, in particular when th

about the different stages in a teac

3. What is the usage of ICT in schools both here in Basque Country and other

European countries? W

4. How does the central government assess the impact of teacher training? Wh

support is

5. What are the similarities and di

f individual teachers or schools determined? What is the motivation for teachers to attend further training? How, and when, is the impact of

7. What are the different views on teacher training in Europe? How is it organised?

8. How is in-service teacher training organised across Europe and what could the participants of this study trip suggest as improvements on their own practice?

tly answered by an inter-active session facilitated by Loli and Cristina here the differing systems used in the countries of origin of the participants were collated

t used the considerable expertise of the participants nd provided a shared understanding of the various systems of organising and delivering -service training across Europe.

resentation of Educational Services provided by Bilbao City Council.

orities. The basic moto of the presentation was “Bilbao an educating city”. All programs are

d three dimensions :

of values . Education for integration

3. Facilities

sting and innovating was the project about the

different European countries?

6. How are the needs o

training assessed?

How is cultural and linguistic diversity managed in secondary schools?

These were moswand discussed. This was a very useful exercise as iain Tuesday 10th March, 2009 P Mrs Eugenia Sacterian, representative of Municipal Authorities of Bilbao; presented the educational interventions; promoted by Municipal Auth

included to the below mentione 1. Bilbao city 2

All the presented projects were very interesting, but the most intere

(special) vocational education.

The main idea of the programme concerns Pupils (teenagers) who failed in their compulsory - secondary studies due to “behaviour problems”. Attending this programme; which lasts two years in a

rofitable and dignified profession in the ture; us butcher; waiter/res; cook; pastry etc).

is noteworthy that the pupils of this school prepared a wonderful lunch for our group.

isit to Bilbao City Council

tudents

nds on the river and ouses some fine examples of local craftsmanship in its chambers.

special vocational Municipality’s school; they have the opportunity to have access to vocational education; and most important; to a pfu It V We were met by Ms Ibone Bengoetxea, the Councillor for Education who gave a very informative talk reiterating the determination of the city council to ensure that all sin their region receive the very best education available and their commitment to maintaining the effective in-service training for teachers delivered via the Berritzegunes. Mr Jesus Garcia accompanied us on a tour of the building which stah

Our group on interior steps of Bilbao City Hall

A presentation by Inmaculada Boneta, Director of the Bilbao City Council responsible for education, youth and sports: The City Council provides 23 million Euro in the current annual budget for education services even though they are under no obligation by law to provide more that buildings and maintenance. Inmaculada Boneta outlined a project for students who were at risk of failing before the end of compulsory education. At present they organise 63 workshops supporting over 500 pupils. The numbers of participants involved has increased from 100 to more than 500. This programme provides training in reading competence, social interaction, planning and study orientation techniques. The Council programme involves input from parents, students and class teachers. The council has in the last five years been involved pre-school education. They also provide programmes to integrate ethnic minorities and immigrant children by addressing the aim of living together in diversity and not by separating groups. There were varied responses by participants. Some found many similar features in the relationship between councils and the education system. Others found few similarities. Comments by the group during evaluations included the following

• The council has analysed school failure based on low levels of reading, disorganisation and lack of learning strategies and responded with an innovative project;

• Young psychologists are employed in the projects which seems a good way of offering work experience;

• Local educational authorities in the Basque Country seem to treat education as a priority;

• School and summer schools for parents is part of the project to address the questions

such as ‘ how can I help my children to learn?’ and ‘how can I help my child to solve his or her problems?’- however the participation of parents, particularly those with work commitments continues to be a challenge;

• The partnership and cooperation works towards the aim of helping the child. Results of project evaluation was that 91% of all children in programme are reaching middle or higher levels, 25% increased their levels of social abilities and all students improved their self-esteem;

• School mediators worked under supported by town council to ensure attendance for compulsory education.

The Bilbao City Council provided the Arion group with a much appreciated lunch in the Bilbao Catering School.

Later that afternoon we had a tour of the Guggenheim Museum.

We were able to see the permanent exhibitions and were very fortunate to also visit the Murakami exhibition. Bilbao can be rightfully proud of this world famous establishment.

Wednesday 11th March, 2009 A visit to Zamakola Primary School Context

The school is situated in a deprived area of Bilbao It has 615 children from the ages of 2 to 11 65 children aged 2, 184 children ages 3,4,5 and 366 children age 6 to 11 There are 51 teachers in the school and 36 other staff. Key Features The school is at the heart of the community and works very well with everyone in the locality including the other schools, parents etc. The school regards the social environment as the starting point for their children’s education particularly in developing their social skills. The work with the community starts with work on developing the sense of community with the children. Each class agrees a code of conduct at the beginning of the year so that everyone understands expectations and the aims of the school. The school also uses diagnostic tools such as sociograms to help it to understand the classroom dynamics. This is an important feature in the emotional well being and personal development of the children. The three key groups of parents, teachers and children work well together. The school has developed a project to improve the playground environment and games for the children as they had forgotten how to play. Adults have had to lead them and teach them a wide range of playground activities. This been carefully organised by the school so that children know which area they can play in and when they can play there.

The school have developed multicultural projects so that they can learn about other countries and learn to play the games from there. There is also a carefully coordinated environmental programme where children are involved in growing plants and vegetables as well as recycling materials around the school.

Children in classes 5 and 6 are trained as mediators and their role is to help children to solve their own conflicts within the school at break, lunch and during class time. This project started from work with an adviser who trained a teacher in the school to help the mediators to carry out their work.

A real strength of the school is not only the strong leadership of the head but the very good teamwork of all the teachers in the school. The town council/local government support the school financially in order to develop the following projects. The school is also involved in a range of developmental projects including:-

School co-existence ICT Action 21 – related to the environment Connecting worlds – developing links with Malal, Portugal and South Africa Language reinforcement – for newly arrived immigrants Volunteer experience Reading corner in the playground Developing a fully inclusive school

The school has solar panels and is able to measure the amount of energy it produces and later uses.

The school has many volunteers who help them in their projects such as retired people who help with road safety on the way to and from school and with reading in the classroom. The visit did not include classroom visits part from one room as the children were taking national tests for the first time. It is not possible to make any comment about the way the classrooms support the children in their learning. It would be useful to find out the impact of the many projects on academic standards in the school which the national tests will give the school useful data for. The school seems to be well-supported by the local authority and benefits from a strong working relationship with it. There are many similarities to the projects in this school and the areas for focus in other European countries. Clearly Zamakola is a very happy school and systems are in place to ensure that the children will leave as very responsible rounded individuals with a good sense of right and wrong. The only question we have left is whether they leave the school with an equally high standard of literacy and numeracy.

Thursday 12th March, 2009 A visit to Artaza-Romo Secondary School Artaza-Romo BHI is a Secondary School with about 711 students from 12 to 16 in their Compulsory Education, and from 16 to 18 in Artistic, Scientific and Social Science Higher School. 94 teachers, 5 pedagogical therapists, 2 languages support teachers and 17 non-teaching workers offer a multilingual approach in secondary education. All classes are taught in Spanish and Basque. Special subjects are also offered in English for the students who choose these options. Thus, in post-compulsory secondary education students can choose between different linguistic models in Health & Natural Sciences, Humanities & Social Sciences and Arts. The Health & Natural Sciences Modality leads to vocational studies or degrees related to Sciences. There are two itineraries (Health or Science and Technology) according the optional subjects chosen. Health itinerary is linked to degrees such as Medicine, Biology, Nursing Physiotherapy, etc. Science and technology itinerary suits those who want to do Engineering, Physics, Architecture, Computing, Nautical Studies…

The Humanities and Social Sciences Modality is linked to degrees of humanistic nature (Philology, Humanities), social area and business (Management, Economics, Statistics…). Regardless the optional subjects chosen, this modality leads to degrees such as Journalism, Labour Relationships, Social Works, Psychology….

The Art Modality is linked to degrees connected to Plastic Arts and vocational studies in the field of Plastic and Graphic Arts. Regardless the optional subjects chosen, this modality leads to studies such as Journalism, Fine Arts, Arts History, etc.

The school is an example of the specific Basque trilingual education. The staff is strongly supported by one of the Berritzeguna which provides training in management team formation, in work with the European Portfolio of languages and with other related projects. The school offers special support to immigrant children and their families as reception and guidance, individual tutorship, language support inside and outside the classroom. The school also offers exchange programs with Italy, France, Germany.

We were invited to visit lessons in Arts,

Biology and English as a foreign language.

We also had the opportunity to examine some projects of the students in technology class. We were impressed by the very low teacher pupil ratio and the high grade of self-organized learning processes. After the school we visited the Berritzeguena in Leioa. After a warm welcome they reported about the plan to establish learning with ICT in all public schools. Roberto and Miguel told us in a presentation about “The Educational Centre Technological Maturity Model “, which aims, that all teachers have ICT skills in different levels. The model has five features: Generalness, Flexibility, Measurability, Compatibility with quality models and Solidity. They join the whole educational community: teachers, pupils and families. The pathway to improvement for evaluation and certification is going up in five levels:

• Level 1: “infrastructures and training” in the centre the IT-infrastructure is available for the training and 80% of the teacher will have the basic profile of “Teaching staff using ICT in the classroom”

• Level 2: ” “use” teachers will use the computer resources in the centre and out of classroom they build up the environment for administration and management

• Level 3: “digitalization of the classroom” the classrooms will be equipped with the technology to use it in each subject daily. Students and their parents will get access online. Teachers are working collaboratively

• Level 4: “virtualization of the classroom” the training of students will be permanently supported by the learning platform and therefore the classroom will be opened outside the timetable. The platform enables to communicate with other members of the educational community

• Level 5: “virtualization of the centre” the using of the center will be a general learning tool for the whole society, including students, their families, teachers and other interested members of the educational community

The plan started before two years and will end in 2010. Now the Berritzeguenak is engaged in the training of ICT organizers, which will spread the ideas into the schools. Up to now the diagnostic of the schools showed, that 80% of the 512 schools have completed the survey. It also shows that 126 teachers can be certified for their basic ICT skills and 45 can be certified as `Telematic teacher`. From the 220 target schools made 150 a pre-evaluation. Friday 13th March, 2009 A visit to Astrabudua Secondary School This is a secondary with 50% of pupils from immigrant communities, mostly Spanish speakers from South America. There are a number of projects taking place in the school but the one we focused on was the Bultzatzen project. This is provided to meet the social and learning needs of these pupils It is led by Rosa Santibanez, Deusto University, who works with a multi-agency team. The project is an out-of-school-hours community programme involving sports, computer workstations, cooking, handcrafts, audio-visual workshops and drama. Its aims are to provide:

• opportunities for learning • opportunities for relations • positive outcomes • fun and enjoyment It hopes to avoid: • being alone at home • watching too much tv • wasting time in the streets.

It appears to be very successful in achieving its aims – the students seem very calm and work well together. Conclusions The In-service training for teachers in Bilbao is well organised and appropriate courses are provided for teachers. The schools appreciate the support they receive from their teachers’ centres and they all appear to have a very good working relationship together. This structure implicates, that the advisers are nearby locally, are near by the problems of the schools and the support can be given rapidly. There is also a good collaboration between school advise system and school administration by city council. Otherwise, the development of teaching materials will be done in every Berritzegune and this is expensive. It includes, that one adviser center must work closely with others. And it is complicate to hold the standard agenda in all schools.