Community Cohesion in the Classroom

This paper is based on a presentation given at the conference “Developing Community Cohesion in Schools”, at the Institution of Engineering and Technology, on 26th February 2008. It links to presentations given by June Bam-Hutchison and Jude Smith Rachele, who led successful workshops at the same event.

The conference brought together an audience of 150 teachers from across the UK, seeking to learn more about the UK government’s new priority of Community Cohesion, which from autumn 2008 will be a component of OFSTED inspections. My invited keynote talk was to be concerned in particular with learning and teaching. Other talks provided perspectives from head teachers, the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust, OFSTED, and concerned researchers.

My core argument was that the issues of community cohesion in school are not new. My classroom examples covered the period 1975-2008, based on personal experience as a teacher. A radical version of my argument would be that learning and teaching in the classroom have to make sense in terms of community cohesion. This involves a departure from conventional models of learning and teaching.