The After School project run during the 2012-2013 academic year at the Second Model Experimental Primary (B’ Πρότυπο Πειραματικό Δημοτικό Σχολείο Ιωαννίνων) school of Ioannina, in Greece. The school had recently launched a range of extracurricular activities and ‘excellence-oriented’ initiatives, including a English for Young Learners club, and they were keen to appraise their effectiveness and identifying how to further improve. To address this, and at the same time empower the school staff, an action research cell was formed, which aimed to look into the various activities.
What did the project involve?
A case-study approach was used to generate and analyse data about the expectations of students participating in the after school clubs, their teachers and other stakeholders. This involved creating a task group for each after school club or initiative, which generated quantitative and qualitative data for one area of the schools’ activity. The task groups used a variety of methods to do this, including questionnaire surveys, observations, focus group discussions and the content analysis of documentary evidence. Next, the groups compared the emerging findings with existing pedagogical provision and the regulatory framework, in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the current provision and making recommendations for further iterations of the programmes.
Following that, the data from the action research task forces were aggregated and synthesised in order to generate more holistic findings. This involved three strands, as follows:
- Strand A delivered a holistic appraisal of the after-school programmes;
- Strand B took an in-depth look at the excellence-oriented programmes;
- Strand C focused on the provision for Foreign Language Learning.
Dissemination of findings
The project provided relevant and actionable feedback to the school, in the form of an internal report. In addition, members of the action research cell shared some of the findings in two conference presentations (see below).
Assessing the effectiveness of the project
Ευθυμίου, Σ. και Βέργου, Β. (2013, Απρίλιος). Εκπαιδευτικοί όμιλοι: πρώτες διαπιστώσεις. Προφορική παρουσίαση στο 1ο Πανελλήνιο Συνέδριο Πρότυπων Πειραματικών Σχολείων. Εύοσμος Θεσσαλονίκης.
Eftymiou, S. & Vergou, V. (2013, April). After school clubs: Initial insights. Paper presented at the 1st National [Greek] Conference of Model-Experimental Schools. Thessaloniki, Greece.
The TEYL group
Κωστούλας, Α. και Γκουρογιάννη, Ι. (2013, Απρίλιος). Όμιλοι Αγγλικής γλώσσας για μαθητές πρώιμης παιδικής ηλικίας: μια μελέτη περίπτωσης. Προφορική παρουσίαση στο 1ο Πανελλήνιο Συνέδριο Πρότυπων Πειραματικών Σχολείων. Εύοσμος Θεσσαλονίκης.
Kostoulas, A. & Gkourogianni, I. (2013, April). English Language clubs for very young learners: A case study. Paper presented at the 1st National [Greek] Conference of Model-Experimental Schools. Thessaloniki, Greece.
Related materials
Image: © PhotoIoannina, used with kind permission.