Between chair and bench

A child spends around 10,000 hours at school until the end of compulsory schooling. It is therefore no exaggeration to say that school is a second home for the child - like the parental home, it will also shape his or her life. In the best case scenario, this is what primary school has set itself as its goal: By providing children with a basic education that prepares them for the social challenges of the 21st century, regardless of their background.

The «PISA shock» is followed by measurement

The question of what is needed to achieve this is the subject of a debate that has resulted in numerous reforms to primary schools. «The first PISA study provided the impetus for many of these innovations,» says educational scientist Margrit Stamm. Some people remember: in 2001, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) published the results of the programme for international student assessment for the first time, in which 180,00 15-year-olds from 32 countries took part. The survey examined skills in reading, maths and science and determined how well the participating countries were preparing children for the demands of society. The results were not exactly flattering for Switzerland: it only made it into the midfield.

The «PISA shock» was followed, among other things, by the harmonisation of cantonal school systems, national educational goals that specify binding basic skills and standardised performance tests that test these basic skills across classes and schools. What was intended to improve educational quality has led to a «test culture» that makes her uncomfortable, says educationalist Stamm. «In many cantons, kindergarten children are already assessed on the basis of multi-page catalogues. If there are a few crosses at the undesirable end of the scale, parents often feel obliged to practise with the child,» she criticises. «In primary school, further assessments follow, which are said to be strength-oriented, but are in fact tests.»

A bone of contention and a beacon of hope: Curriculum 21

This pressure to perform is problematic. It leads to children only cramming for the minimum grade point average or exams, says Stamm: «This focus on the product distracts from independent thinking. It leads to many young people not knowing what interests them, but simply doing what is expected of them.» Personal initiative or self-organisation then often fall by the wayside. In this context, Curriculum 21 is a step in the right direction, as it gives more weight to such skills, at least on paper. «I hope that this will also increasingly be the case in practice,» says Stamm.

Switzerland only made it into the midfield in the PISA ranking. That was a shock

What is new about Curriculum 21 is its supra-regional orientation, but also its focus on competences, many of which go beyond the cognitive. For example, dealing with diversity, self-reflection and constructive conflict resolution are among the interdisciplinary skills that children should acquire at primary school. Curriculum 21 is both a beacon of hope and a bone of contention. «With this ideologically overloaded focus on competences, the school has laid an egg for itself,» says Allan Guggenbühl, youth psychologist and former lecturer at the Zurich University of Teacher Education. «What bothers me is that we are based on target expectations from the adult world, some of which we can't even fulfil ourselves. Who can claim to resolve conflicts constructively, accept criticism without making a fuss and always argue objectively? It's not wrong to harbour such expectations - it becomes problematic when they become qualifications that are relevant for success at school.» And anyway, Guggenbühl thinks: "Who can keep track of over 350 competences?

Setting new priorities

You could argue that there are too many, says Beat A. Schwendimann, Head of the Pedagogical Centre of the Swiss Teachers' Association: «But the direction is right.» In times of automation and algorithms, schools need to set new priorities. «It needs to promote what machines can't do,» says Schwendimann, «communication, empathy, creative approaches to solutions, the ability to look at things from different perspectives. These are skills that the future demands, and Curriculum 21 is on the right track with its interdisciplinary competences.»

According to Curriculum 21, teachers should meet each child where they are based on their level of development.

Not all school reforms in recent years have been aimed at improving performance. Many are also an expression of an increased awareness that children learn better when they are encouraged with a view to their personal strengths and weaknesses. Accordingly, the school of the future, as envisaged by Curriculum 21, will be characterised by individualisation. Teachers should therefore meet each child where they are based on their level of development and organise their personal learning process accordingly. Individualisation also means giving children some of the responsibility for learning, for example by allowing them to set certain learning goals themselves and implement them independently. The individualised school also sees itself as an inclusive school. This means that all children and young people - including those with special educational needs - attend the mainstream class together.

While some criticise that such paradigm shifts are like a castle in the air, others do not go far enough. «Curriculum 21 is like a small refurnishing in a house that needs a complete remodelling,» says Dani Burg, a secondary school teacher in Niederlenz in the canton of Aargau and former head teacher. Although the focus on competences makes it possible to move away from the subject matter somewhat, the basic system is not called into question: «This cramming in of content that has to be reproduced at a certain point in time and is then forgotten.» The heterogeneity of society has become more pronounced and schools are still not doing justice to this reality.

Criticism of the school system, as expressed in bestsellers by paediatrician Remo Largo, who died in 2020, brain researcher Gerald Hüther and philosopher Richard David Precht, is fuelling the debate about the meaning and purpose of our educational institutions. This sometimes creates false expectations, says education researcher Urs Moser from the University of Zurich. For example, learning landscapes or project-based lessons are often stylised as a panacea, while face-to-face lessons or homework are seen as the root of all evil. «But these are all just methods,» says Moser, «and we know that No method works in pure culture.» The popular concept of self-organised learning is also fraught with misunderstandings. «Self-organised learning is not a method, but a pedagogical goal,» says Moser. «Schools can't take independence for granted, they have to work towards it.» This not only means allowing children to make their own experiences, it also requires the teacher to have a sense of direction at the right moment.

Equal opportunities as a perennial issue

Educational scientist Stamm confirms this: «When children realise projects on their own, many of them are dependent on intensive support. They need a watchful eye in the background that recognises the need for support in good time.» This applies all the more to children from socially disadvantaged families. Stamm believes that the school's most urgent task is to prevent them from falling even further behind: «We are dealing with a considerable number of children who are unable to realise their intellectual potential because the conditions at home are not right. Measures to combat this injustice are not given the priority they deserve.» Although children from educationally disadvantaged backgrounds have a hard time in all German-speaking countries, studies show that the social inheritance of education is particularly pronounced in Switzerland. «This,» says Stamm, «is the biggest challenge for the school of tomorrow.»

Margrit Stamm: «Equal opportunities are the greatest challenge for the school of tomorrow.»

Politicians have high hopes for day schools in terms of equal opportunities: It is hoped that children from disadvantaged families will be able to compensate for deficits, at least to some extent, if they can learn, do their homework and spend their free time in a school environment. More recent studies, such as those conducted by the University of Bern in 2017, have put a damper on this hope: they provide no evidence that all-day structures reduce educational inequalities and emphasise in this context that it is not enough for children to simply be looked after without receiving targeted educational support.
Day schools are becoming increasingly important with regard to the compatibility of family and career. The Swiss Conference of Cantonal Ministers of Education stipulates that all compulsory schools should provide «a needs-based range of daytime structures». However, their use remains voluntary and subject to a charge for parents/guardians. In recent years, the range of day-care centres or schools - names vary from canton to canton - has been continuously expanded. However, a survey at cantonal level from the 2019/20 school year shows that implementation is rather sluggish overall: Outside of French-speaking Switzerland, where day schools are standard, the majority of services are found in densely populated cantons dominated by large cities such as Zurich, Bern and Basel-Stadt.

How does school succeed?

Psychologist Fabian Grolimund is convinced that a lot has been achieved on the road to a child-orientated school. To reach the goal, commitment is needed at all levels.

Recorded by Virgina Nolan

Fabian Grolimund via...... the future-orientated school
Schools today see themselves as places of learning and living, and many of the latest reforms are focussed on making schools child-friendly. The problem is that their success depends heavily on the commitment of individual teachers, who act out of conviction but receive little support. People want a lot from schools, but are not prepared to invest at a political level. For example, special schools are being closed in the name of inclusion, but public schools are not adequately prepared for children with special needs. Individualisation is also not thought through to the end: teachers are supposed to support children according to their level of development, while at the same time everyone is expected to be able to do the same thing at the same time during examinations. There is a widespread lack of forms of assessment that enable genuine individualisation - and of teaching materials that are geared towards different levels of performance. To ensure that a future-oriented school does not get stuck halfway, politicians need to realise that it cannot be achieved for free.

... individualised teaching
In Switzerland, the population has a great deal of influence on the school system and was able to vote on the curriculum, for example. Schools and teachers in this country also have more room for manoeuvre than in Germany, for example. This should be utilised, as it offers schools the opportunity to adapt to their individual circumstances, given their location, pupils and teachers, and to develop their own profile.

The more a school engages with its members and their needs, the more actively it follows this path. What makes a good school? A good school asks itself this question and develops an idea of what the next steps are on the way there. It is advisable not to get bogged down in topics, but to agree on a thematic focus. For example, individualised teaching can be the five-year goal that school management and teachers work towards together - in the knowledge that this requires a continuous development process.

... Social skills
Schools are becoming more and more individualised and the diversity practised there is increasing. Teachers are therefore reliant on children being able to integrate themselves into a community: that they can empathise with others and sometimes put their own needs aside, that they can compromise or accept criticism. To ensure that learning together continues to be successful in the future, it is important that parents do not delegate the topic of social skills to the school, but instead give their children repeated opportunities to practise these skills. It is also helpful if mums and dads have realistic expectations: School doesn't have to be perfect, it has to be good enough. Children thrive even if the conditions are not completely ideal.