Listening to Children in Education

Ronald Davie, David M. Galloway

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781134086054
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

First Published in 1996. This book presents the importance of listening to pupils in classrooms and schools with attention given to historical background and the voice of the child with special educational needs. The title covers pastoral care and personal development as well as assessing how children with emotional and behavioural difficulties view professionals. Aimed at teachers, scholars and parents, the book sets the scene for the voice of a child and provides insight into how practices can further develop.

Part I
Setting the Scene

Chapter 1
The Voice of the Child in Education

Ron Davie and David Galloway

Headteacher Phil Buckley said that giving children a say in policy made it more difficult for them to object. ‘Even at 5 years old they know they have had a voice in it’.

The above quotation from a primary school head in Bolton may occasion some surprise. He was being interviewed by the Times Educational Supplement (TES, 1994) - not directly about the school’s involvement of its pupils in policy-making but about the school’s success in reducing playground aggression. We shall return to this initiative later. However, it illustrates well a number of aspects of this book’s theme which are worth identifying straightaway.

First, giving children a say in helping shape the way their school is run can be effective. In this particular quotation the head singles out initially the fact that children find it more difficult to complain afterwards if they have been involved in the original decision-making. This is not the most positive of reasons but many practising teachers will warm to it!

Second, in the final sentence, the phrase ‘they have had a voice in it’ conveys well something which will recur throughout this book, namely, that giving children a voice in decisions tends to give them some sense of ownership of the final result. Third, the head reminds us that even very young children can be included in this kind of exercise.

Notice that the head makes no reference to his pupils having a right to be heard. He and his colleagues may feel that, too, but this is not revealed. He is here being very practical. This way, he says, works best.

The head makes no reference either to the very good educational reasons why the route the school has taken is good practice. The process involved in reaching a decision in this way is an object lesson in cooperative working which the children will also experience in different ways right across the curriculum. It therefore widens and extends the principle of cooperation from the familiar classroom groups to the wider context of the school as a whole. It can also directly be related, for example, to personal and social education, citizenship and the beginnings of self-discipline. Above all, the exercise conveys that each pupil’s views are listened to with respect.

In this opening chapter we preview some of the themes and issues which are taken up later. The book is written predominantly for those involved in or interested in education but it would have been almost impossible to confine the book’s contents narrowly to the educational field. Indeed, it would have been inappropriate to try to do so for two reasons. First, much of the recent movement in this area has been outside of education, albeit in the related fields of child law and child care. Second, as teachers know well, societal trends of any kind inevitably impact on the microcosm of school life - for better or for worse.

A growing trend

The evidence on how children were perceived and treated in earlier centuries is not easy to obtain or interpret, as Hendrick (1992) makes clear in an interesting review. Not the least of the problems is that historians have not deemed childhood to be worthy of study until quite recent years (see Chapter 2 by Linda Pollock). However, what seems clear is that in western societies at least, children have largely been seen as the chattels of their parents. Children were in a sense ‘owned’ by their parents who therefore had certain rights over them.

The concept - indeed the term - ‘parental rights’ is still with us, of course, although the present-day version tends to stress ideas of responsibility, protection and guardianship rather than ownership. Indeed, as recently as 1989 the British parliament took the step of preferring the term ‘parental responsibilities’ to that of ‘rights’ in legislation (the 1989 Children Act). Notwithstanding this, the concept of parental rights dominates most aspects of educational legislation and practice (e.g., the right of parents to remove their children from sex education lessons in school).

Victorian children, it is said, were meant to be ‘seen and not heard’. However, the movement towards the protection of children from exploitation and abuse also began to gather force in the Victorian era in Britain. Inevitably, this movement encouraged the thought that children had a right to such protection. Interestingly, though, as Michael Freeman reminds us in Chapter 3, child protection legislation was introduced a couple of generations after legislation to protect domestic animals - ‘and even then not without resistance’!

A parallel - although importantly separate - right was that adult or institutional responsibility for children should have regard to their ‘best interests’. However, the ideas of children having the right to make their own choices, to exercise some autonomy, to have a ‘voice’ in decision-making are more modem concepts. Michael Freeman’s chapter importantly highlights and analyses the implicit tension that lies between these latter ideas and the more prevalent, adult-oriented notion of acting in children’s best interests.

Nevertheless, there is now increasing recognition and acceptance that children’s views and perspectives need to be heard both as an ethical imperative and also as a matter of practical utility and efficacy. This chapter and indeed the rest of the book are a testament to that increasing recognition. However, in education especially - perhaps because it inevitably mirrors society - there is a long way to go before teachers as a whole accept either the probity or the value of seeking pupils’ opinions or perspectives. For example, Wade and Moore (1993), in a survey of 115 primary and secondary teachers, found that less than a third of these teachers reported taking any account of the views of their pupils.

Parallels in other services

For many teachers and others in education, therefore, it may be a matter of some surprise to learn that other services concerned with children have been making rapid strides in the direction of heeding children’s views for some years past.

It is always difficult to pinpoint the beginning of a trend but in social services the publication in the late 1970s by the National Children’s Bureau of a slim volume called Who Cares? (Page and Clarke, 1977) seems to have been something of a watershed in this area. The book resulted from a modest initiative by the Bureau in bringing together young people who were in residential care to discuss their experiences. They worked in small groups under skilled group leaders and recounted onto tape how they felt about being in care. The tapes were subsequently transcribed and each group ‘edited’ its own account. All the accounts were fed in to the final manuscript with such professional assistance as was necessary.

As Davie (1993) has set out elsewhere, this publication clearly struck a significant chord in professional child care circles. Furthermore, it led to the formation of the National Association for Young People in Care, which developed some political influence. The title Who Cares? is now also the name of a regular magazine for young people in care and of a new charity which promotes their cause.

On the professional front, practice began to change quite rapidly (see Gardner, 1987). This was further accelerated by the extensive consultations which preceded the 1989 Children Act and the findings of the Cleveland Enquiry on sexual abuse (Butler-Sloss, 1988). Amongst the recommendations of this enquiry was that ‘Professionals should always listen carefully to what the child has to say and take seriously what is said’.

The 1989 Children Act itself embodied the principle of listening to children. Courts henceforth, whether in care proceedings or family proceedings, had to ‘have regard to…the ascertainable wishes and feelings of the child concerned (considered in the light of his age and under-standing)’.

Subsequent Guidance and Regulations made clear that this principle was not simply one for the courts to follow but for all the professionals and agencies concerned. It is thus now common practice for young people who are being looked after by local authority social services departments to be included in review meetings, together with their parents and the professionals involved. Furthermore, since Education Supervision Orders are included in this legislation, education departments are affected, too.

The criminal justice system and children

The critical difference between the law about children, discussed above, and the criminal justice system - in which children may become involved - is that the former is based on the ‘welfare principle’, namely, that the welfare of the child must be the court’s ‘paramount consideration’. In contrast, the criminal justice system in Britain is adversarial, and a child giving evidence can be subjected to the rigours of a hostile cross-examination, and the pressure, when she/he is the victim, of facing the defendant across the court.

The position until very recent years was that children’s evidence was largely discounted in criminal cases. This was certainly true in respect of the younger child, on the basis of her/his assumed competence or reliability (see, e.g., Spencer, 1990). Furthermore, a hostile cross-examination is a harrowing experience for a child, especially the victim of alleged abuse, so that the police or the Crown Prosecution Service, or the child’s parents, might decide not to allow the child to give evidence. In some situations, where the child was the only witness, this meant that the case could not even be brought to court, leaving the perpetrator free to offend again.

However, there has been what many regard as an astonishing revolution in the approach to children as witnesses by the normally very conservative criminal justice system (see Davie op cit.). This is manifest, for example, in an acceptance now that the young child may be able to give very useful evidence, in contrast to a previous dismissal of this possibility, and a readiness to look at measures to protect child witnesses from some of the rigours of courtroom procedure. These measures have included closed circuit television and screens to distance the child from the defendant and, more radically, the proposal to use video-recorded evidence from the child and then to cross-examine the child on videotape instead of at the court hearing (Pigot, 1989). Although this proposal failed by a very small margin in the House of Lords to be incorporated into legislation, it seems likely that it may be accepted in due course. In the meantime the practice of video-recording early interviews with children in abuse cases has increased. Unfortunately, but perhaps predictably, some of this use (and over-use) of the video has been undertaken without sufficient thought as to how precisely it would be utilised to best effect.

Listening to children in the health service

Like education, health has been slow to respond to current developments elsewhere. Ross (1990) was in some difficulty in finding evidence of progress in taking account of children’s views in the child health field and conceded that ‘there remains plenty of room for improvement’. Naish (1994) concluded that ‘within health care, [children’s] views are not routinely sought’. Nevertheless, she reported a number of specific initiatives as well as a major project by the Royal College of Nursing to identify and promote good practice in this area, with the support of funding from the Gulbenkian Foundation.

Further confirmation, if this were needed, of the shortcomings of the health service in this respect came at a conference on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which was chaired and led by young people themselves. One young delegate with sickle cell anaemia declared:

On visits to hospitals you get different nurses each time you go. No friendships are built up, and doctors don’t listen to you. I wish hospitals could be more human. (NCB, 1994)

(It could, of course, be said that the above complaints are not exclusive to the young!)

However, one of the most significant formal decisions to clarify and endorse a young person’s right to make her own decisions - given her understanding of the issues involved - emerged in the field of health. Many will recall the controversy which surrounded Victoria Gillick’s appeal against her 15-year-old daughter’s right to have contraceptive advice from her GP without her mother’s consent. The House of Lords rejected Mrs Gillick’s appeal (Gillick, 1986) in a judgement which has far-reaching implications, not yet fully thought through or tested. Again, Michael Freeman discusses this point in his chapter. Hodgkin (1994) also discusses some of the implications of ‘Gillick-competency’ in the context of a consideration of a young person’s right to consent, or not to consent, to medical treatment.

The code of practice

We do not have to look far on the educational front for a clear indication of future trends in this area. The seminal Code of Practice on the Identification and Assessment of Special Educational Needs (DfE, 1994a) is, as its title indicates, concerned centrally with the 20 per cent or so of children who have significant learning difficulties. We shall return to this, too, in later chapters but for the moment it is sufficient to mark the fact that Parliament, in approving this statutory instrument, set its seal - at least for pupils with such difficulties - to the principle of involving the child, wherever possible, in decisions about provision to meet her/his special educational needs.

1993 Education Act

The absence of any reference to having regard to children’s views in the educational legislation on which the Code of Practice is based is both illogical and, frankly, baffling.

First, we should recall that the Children Act some three years earlier, as we have seen above, required that due account be taken of the ‘wishes and feelings’ of the child in care proceedings. This means that local authority officers have to embody this principle into their work in respect of children whom they are - or may be - looking after or supervising. Part 111 of the Education Act specifically deals with children who, by definition, need some kind of special care or consideration, namely, children who have special educational needs. It is even incorporated in the legislation that joint assessments by education and social services be undertaken in appropriate cases. And yet despite representations to DfE officials and to ministers, the government remained opposed to including any reference to listening to children’s views in the new Education Act (see Davie, 1994).

Second, this rationale evinced only months earlier was overturned by the declaration in the Code of Practice that children’s involvement in decision-making was an important matter of principle (‘Children have a right to be heard’). Further, as Michael Freeman quite rightly argues, if this is an important principle in paragraph 2.35 of the Code, why is it not listed with the other principles at the beginning of the Code?

Third, the Special Educational Needs Tribunal must, like all other agencies, have regard to the Code and therefore to the principle of involving children. This is clearly reflected in the booklet for parents (SENT, 1994) which gives an answer to the question, ‘Will my child have to answer questions at the hearing?’ as follows:

Your child does not have to attend the hearing. But if you or (our italics) your child want his or her views to be taken into account separately from your own, your child can attend the hearing and answer questions as a witness, or make a written statement.

For present purposes we shall ignore the question as to how the Tribunal can be sure whether or not the child (or, more likely, young person) wants to make her/his views known separately from the parents if s/he is not present. It suffices here to note that the Tribunal acknowledges the child’s right to express a separate view and yet the legislation which established the Tribunal did not incorporate that right.

Finally, there is the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which is quite clear on this point. Thus, Article 12 reads:

1. States Parties shall assure to the child who is capable of forming his or her own views the right to express those...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Notes on Authors
• Part I Setting the Scene
• Part II The Historical and Legal Background
• Part III The Voice of the Child in School
• Part IV The Voice of the Child with Special Educational Needs
• Part V Conclusions
• References
• Index