First Draft...

I have finally fully completed my first draft and sent it to Paula to have a look at. 

The whole inquiry really has been insightful and what has surprised and impressed me most is my place of work are so supportive of the Arts in education! They completely agree that the arts should be used more to improve children's learning. However, the issues surrounding why there is a lack of performing arts within the curriculum come from much higher up in the education system. 

These issues that have arisen from my inquiry have helped me to think about how I should present my artefact. During an online session, Paula asked us why our inquiries were important. One of my reasons was that this inquiry would (hopefully) give me a leg to stand on in the ongoing debate of the importance of Performing Arts in education. Therefore, I am thinking of doing my artefact not too dissimilar to a political manifesto. 

My inquiry explored growth mindset and how it is being used within my school and the affects it is having. I spoke to my boyfriend's Mum (who is a primary school teacher) and she said that her school have just recently began implementing a growth mindset also (bare in mind her school is in a different part of the country). It is clearly something that is taking off and having the desired benefits. During my inquiry, I discovered that performing arts have a very similar use in education. They encourage, motivate, build resilience and enstill a positive attitude to learning. That being said, I hope to use growth mindset to support my argument for advocacy in performing arts. If so many schools can implement Growth Mindset, why are performing arts not being given the same chance? 

Using the research and evidence I have gathered from my inquiry, I would like to create a short video where I discuss and debate my reasons for supporting arts in education; much like a politician would pose their policies. I am still developing this idea so any feedback is greatly welcomed! 

General Tips and Advice On Planning/Writing Critical Review

I am now over half way through my first draft of my Critical Review. Therefore, I thought it might be useful to share some advice with you all on things that I have found helpful.

Firstly, due to the nature of my job as a Teaching Assistant in a school I have been extremely fortunate to have had two weeks off. This time I have completely dedicated (almost) to the collaboration and analysis of all my data as well as beginning to write up my Critical Review. I would highly recommend that if you can get some time off then go for it. I've found it more beneficial to have the day to focus my brain solely on my inquiry, rather than when I get home from work when my brain is in other places.

I've tried to structure my days like any other working day, by starting and finishing at a similar time to when I'm at work and also taking breaks of similar time frames. This method has really worked for me and has helped me focus for long periods of time. I have forced myself to work at the table rather than on the sofa to help my brain and body differentiate between 'work' time and 'relaxation' time. I often find that when I try to do work on the sofa it is much less productive.

My next tip would to be to organise all your references first. It took me about three days but it's been so much easier to write up with them all in order. I had already made pages and pages of written notes and page numbers, so I chose to type all of these out into a document. I  organised the different sources into the themes within my inquiry and then typed out the quotes that I had picked out initially. I then highlighted them different colours depending on what section of my review I planned to use them in. Like I said, it took me a good few hours but it made better sense in my head when it came to using them and writing. It will also be much more time efficient when it comes to my bibliography and I already have the information of each source already typed up and properly referenced.

I made an initial plan using the Module 3 Handbook to help with my subheadings and what information was needed where. I typed notes into these categories to remind me what points I wanted to cover in each segment. I then began to write my first draft! When it came to my literature review, I sectioned it into the topics of literature I would be discussing. I then copied the references I wanted to quote or paraphrase into each section. This really helped me structure the debates within each topic and helped me remember to use everything relevant that I had found.

With my interview analysis, I had already transcribed my interviews into documents. As I'm using thematic coding, I used different colours for different themes/sub-themes to highlight relevant quotes. I then put these into a table that made it easier to get a collective thought for each theme/question.

Due to this planning and preparation, I am happy to say I am 4500 words through my critical review and confident that I will have finished this draft by the end of the week. This will allow a fair amount of time to check it over, receive feedback and tweak as well as allowing for more time to plan my artefact and presentation.

I hope this has helped anyone who's struggling and not sure where to go next with the progression in their inquiry.

Coming Together...

So, the Easter Holidays have begun and I now have all my data ready to analyse!

It's amazing how much has emerged from my interviews and I'm now really looking forward to bringing all my research together to analyse. I'm hoping to use my time off to make a really good start on writing everything up so I can begin focusing on my Professional Artefact (this will also allow time for feedback and tweeking). I have an idea that I need to get onto paper and mindmap to get it all out of my head. Once I have done this, I hope to share it on my blog and with my SIGs to get more thoughts and ideas how my initial idea could be developed. 

I'm feeling very organised currently and have been really pleased with my planning and time management so far. I hope I can continue this through the more difficult areas of the inquiry.

Where is everyone else at with the stages of their inquiry? How has everyone managed fitting in their interviews?

New Year, New Module

Christmas was a really wonderful break with lots of time to spend reflecting on the past year and looking forward to the next.

Although I'm nervous about the work load and managing my time around a full time job, I'm really excited to get going with my Professional Inquiry. The inquiry will be really interesting and is extremely relevant to my practice right now. 

I am also very excited to announce that I have been given a conditional offer to complete my PGCE: Dance Teacher Training with QTS at The Royal Academy of Dance. This has been such a great way to kickstart the year and given me even more of an insensitive to work really hard. 

I've already had some more books delivered from Middlesex University Library this morning and can't wait to get my teeth into them. It is an excellent system being able to browse and request books online and have them delivered straight to you. 

On a more negative note, I've been off work for a week and a half now with a very nasty lung infection. I was rushed into hospital last Thursday with what doctors thought could be a blood clot! After lots of needles, scans and waiting around feeling unwell, the results came back to reveal no blood clot but an infection on the lungs. Bittersweet results! But I am starting to feel much better and plan on returning to work and normality on Monday. 

Since starting the Outline Plan of the Inquiry, I have found myself reflecting much more on my practice which has been really eye opening. My journal is going to be so interesting to read and analyse for my final write up. Alongside all this, I will be revising to pass my QTS skills tests in English and Maths in preparation for my PGCE. This is really nerve wracking! 

Looking forward to hearing about everyone else's progress in their Professional Inquiries when we start back in the next week. 

Outline of the Inquiry

I had an excellent tutorial with Paula this afternoon that's given me a 'lightbulb' moment and provided me with a lot more direction. We had had a discussion earlier in the afternoon about not making my inquiry so child centred. My original idea was almost like an 'experiment' on the children. Given I am not currently a qualified teacher I don't have the authority to do this. If I wish to observe the children in anyway, it must only be during my normal working day. From this, I have decided to do general observations that will go in my reflective journal (alongside interviews with colleagues within my professional practice).

I next gave myself an hour deadline to bullet point each section of the inquiry. Working under this pressure fuelled me to work quickly and get to the point with my thoughts. After doing this, it was time to call Paula to review and discuss what I had written.

We then spent an hour reading through the inquiry plan and taking every point further and more in depth. She challenged me to question my ideas in more detail and explained that my inquiry isn't there to prove something but to ask how and why? I need to keep a neutral stance but discuss both sides of the debate within my inquiry (in my case, for or against a Growth Mindset in education). Paula explained that I need to really look into theories and explore all the ideas behind the questions I ask to add depth to my inquiry. Where did these ideas come from? What other theories inspired them/are along similar lines? Which theorists disagree and why?

My task now is to take all these ideas and put them into my plan in full including gathering literature and references to support my thoughts. This process has really helped.

Unpick everything you can and keep questioning how and why.

Paula wanted to remind everybody that it is infact week 9! So these draft inquiry plans need to be sent to her to give written feedback ASAP! (Ideally by the end of this week!).

(I will be adding a document of what I had written before my conversation with Paula, but have not had time on first post of this!)

Module 2: Task 5c - Reader 5 and Online Session on Ethics

Before taking on Reader 5 my views on ethics were very straight forward and simple. I knew the importance of privacy and keeping personal information confidential (a lot of this coming from when we looked at ethics online). However, now I've read Reader 5 in depth there is much more to ethics than I first thought. Not only is it about protecting yourself, but being certain that the discovery you are trying to make won't harm others.

When taking in all this information on ethics, I attempted to relate all the theories to my place of work or inquiry ideas.  For example, 'Immanuel Kant (1779) believed that moral rules are absolute and he based this on reason rather than religion. He argued this from a categorical imperative stance whereby you should help people no matter what your desires are.'

I tried to think of different practices to compare to my own where this ethical stance might not be appropriate. For example, within a school environment it would be morally and ethically wrong for a teacher to lie to a parent about their child. However, in a different line of work such as retail; in an effort to sell a product, staff might be encouraged to lie about using the said product themselves or exaggerate it's benefits. The latter would not have a damaging affect on anyone involved.

I personally feel that given the fact I work with young children, Kant's (1779) deontologist viewpoint is how I should approach my inquiry. There is a huge amount of responsibility given to teachers with the amount of time they spend with their students and the impact they have on their learning and development. I hope my inquiry will benefit children and their education. Therefore, anything that I come across during my inquiry that I deem ethically or morally wrong, I will immediately act to change this.

Reader 5 definitely allowed me to see ethics from different perspectives in general and with regards to my inquiry ideas. When reading the case studies within the reader, the different ethical viewpoints allowed me better grounds on which to make a decision to whether the action taken was morally right or wrong.


On Wednesday 25th October, I took part in an online session with Paula and a group of my course colleagues. This session cleared up any confusion I had with ethics and opened my mind to some ethical problems that may arise during my inquiry.

• Originally, I wanted to interview the children but as the session brought to light, this would involve having parents permission as the children are under the age of 16. As well as this, I would have to explain to the children that they could opt out of the inquiry at any time. However, due to the young age of the children I currently work with, I feel their understanding would be limited and would therefore affect the results of my investigation. I have decided that I will observe the children instead, as this will just involve me being in my normal position as a Teaching Assistant among the students. This will hopefully provide me with more accurate discoveries. 
• I will need permission from the Headteacher at my school and will explain to them the investigation I am carrying out as part of my degree. With that, I can also interview practitioners that I work alongside in order to deepen my investigation and collect information from another perspective. Those that I interview will need to sign an Ethics Release Form. 

Module 2: Task 5b - Codes of Practice and Regulations

In order to find the exact codes of practice and regulations, I referred back to my staff handbook that I received when I first started my most recent job. Obviously having read these not long ago, a lot of what I posted in Task 5a was relevant and in the handbook in some way. I discovered that the policies were in greater detail than what I previously posted. 

The legislation I found that will be most relevant should I choose to take my inquiry into school will be confidentiality and safeguarding and child protection procedures.

Confidentiality - The school is very small and therefore the community surrounding it are naturally always interested in the goings on. So it is the responsibility of the staff to keep the correct information private. With regards to my inquiry, this would mean not using children, staff or the school's name in any interviews or investigations. 

Safeguarding and Child Protection - This is the policy that if any concerns occur with regards to the children's welfare or safety, that it should be reported to the designated Inclusion Manager. Therefore, if I feel any information that I gather during my enquiry should be reported and therefore not used in my final conclusion, I must follow this policies procedure.