Teaching beyond the Test: Low stakes curriculum innovation within a high-stakes assessment framework. The case of Transition Year Poetry in Ireland.
Submitted by:
Jennifer Hennessy
Abstract:
Given the slow and complex nature of educational change combined with the dominance of high-stakes assessment and performance-based accountability in schools, the value of identifying ‘openings and opportunities’ (Schultz 2017) to ‘interrupt’ deprofessionalising practices and performative regimes (Brass and Holloway 2019) is being increasingly recognised. This study focuses on the case of a novel curriculum innovation, The Transition Year programme in Ireland. Drawing on the perspectives of ten secondary school poetry teachers gleaned across a series of semi-structured interviews, it explores the framing of poetry within this space which is set within a regime of high-stakes assessment. In doing so, it explores the relative fortitude or fragility of counter-cultural curriculum innovation within this context. The findings of the study indicate a strong positive disposition amongst poetry teachers to the professional and pedagogical freedoms afforded by the Transition Year programme, noting teaching within this programme to represent a positive contrast to the constraints of exam-based practices. However, the existence of a gravitational pull towards the succeeding curriculum stage terminal exams was also noted by some teachers in this study. Student engagement also emerged as a dominant theme in this study with poetry teachers reporting a level of apathy amongst their Transition Year students towards the more ‘academic’ components of the programme. In the development and reform of future high-stakes assessments guiding the teaching and learning of poetry, the need to consider opportunities to promote ‘liberating’ classroom experiences, such as those discussed by participants in this study is pressing. The case of the Transition Year programme and the complexities of teaching and learning of poetry within this context provide possibilities for reflection and consideration.