Introduction: The health-promoting school (HPS) approach was developed by the World Health Organization to create health promotion changes in the whole school system. Implementing the approach can be challenging for schools because schools are dynamic organizations with each a unique context. Many countries worldwide have a health promotion system in place in which healthy school (HS) advisors support schools in the process of implementing the HPS approach. Even though these HS advisors can take on various roles to provide support in an adaptive and context-oriented manner, these roles have not yet been described. The current study aims to identify and describe the key roles of the HS advisor when supporting schools during the dynamic process of implementing the HPS approach. Methods: The study was part of a project in which a capacity-building module was developed for and with HS advisors in the Netherlands. In the current study, a co-creation process enabled by participatory research was used in which researchers, HS advisors, national representatives, and coordinators of the Dutch HS program participated. Co-creation processes took place between October 2020 and November 2021 and consisted of four phases: (1) a narrative review of the literature, (2) interviews, (3) focus groups, and (4) a final check. Results: Five roles were identified. The role of “navigator” as a more central one and four other roles: “linking pin,” “expert in the field,” “critical friend,” and “ambassador of the HPS approach.” The (final) description of the five roles was recognizable for the HS advisors that participated in the study, and they indicated that it provided a comprehensive overview of the work of an HS advisor in the Netherlands. Discussion: The roles can provide guidance to all Dutch HS advisors and the regional public health organizations that employ them on what is needed to provide sufficient and context-oriented support to schools. These roles can inspire and guide people from other countries to adapt the roles to their own national context.
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Though there are different interpretations in the scholarly literature of what a social learning is: whether it is an individual, organisational, or collective process. For example, Freeman (2007), in his study on policy change in the public health sector, conceptualised collective learning of public officials as a process of epistemological bricolage. In his interpretation, the new policy ideas are the result of this bricolage process, when the “acquired second-hand” ideas are transformed into “something new”. The literature on (democratic) governance points opens another perspective to the policy change, emphasising the importance of public engagement in the policy-making process. Following this school of thought the new policy is the result of a deliberative act that involves different participants. In other words, the ideas about policy are not borrowed, but are born in social deliberation. Combining the insights gained from both literatures – social learning and governance – the policy change is interpreted, as a result of a broad social interaction process, which is also the social learning for all participants.The paper will focus on further development of the conceptualisation of policy change through social deliberation and social learning and will attempt to define the involved micro mechanisms. The exploratory case study of policy change that was preceded by a broad public debate will help to describe and establish the mechanisms. Specifically, the paper will focus on the decision of the Dutch government to cease the exploration of natural gas from the Groningen gas field. The radical change in national policy regarding gas exploration is seen as a result of a broader public debate, which was an act of social deliberation and social learning at the same time.
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Het steeds terugkerende dilemma voor schoolleiders is dat van ‘sturen en loslaten’. Vanuit het Rijnlandse denken wil je docenten als vakmensen zoveel mogelijk verantwoordelijkheid geven. Maar waarop stuur je dan? Wanneer geef je ruimte? Voor schoolleiders die nog een managementniveau boven zich hebben, is dat dilemma extra ingewikkeld. De centrale kaders kunnen soms behoorlijk knellend zijn. Waar zit nog je eigen beleidsruimte? En hoe hou je ruimte voor initiatief van de docenten in je team? In dit artikel beoog ik aan de hand van de verbinding tussen Policy Governance®1 en het Rijnlandse denken een paar aanknopingspunten te bieden om met deze paradox om te gaan.
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his paper develops a new, broader, and more realistic lens to study (lacking) linkages between government policy and school practices. Drawing on recent work in organization theory, we advance notions on cluster of organization routines and the logic of complementarities underlying organizational change. This lens allows looking at how schools do (not) change a cluster of organization routines in response to multiple, simultaneous demands posed by government policies. Thirteen purposively selected Dutch secondary schools responding to three central government policies calling for concurrent change were analyzed, taking the schedule of a school as an exemplary case of a cluster of organization routines. Five distinct responses were distinguished, which can be sorted according to their impact on the whole organization. The study fnds that ten of the thirteen schools did not change anything in response to at least one of the three policies we studied. However, all schools changed their cluster of organization routines, which impacted the whole organization in response to at least one of the three government policies. Therefore, looking at combinations of responses and considering the impact of change on school organizations qualifes ideas about schools being resistant to policy or unwilling to change and improve.
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Continuing professional development approaches such as professional learning communities (PLCs) could help schools to sustainably work on school improvement to meet the rapid changes in the world around us. Sustainability is achieved when the core components of the approach become a self-evident and functional part of the school (or: organizational routine), which is flexible and adaptive to ongoing work, and aimed at regular improvement. Achieving sustainability has been found to be a challenge for a lot of schools, however. Leadership is assumed to be crucial for sustainability. We studied leadership through a distributed leadership lens: all activities tied to the core work of the school that are designed by the school’s staff members to influence the motivation, knowledge, or practices of other members of the school organization were considered. As research into sustainability of professional development and leadership was scarce, this dissertation focused on the following question: What is the role of school leadership in schools that work sustainably on school improvement with PLCs? A case study design was used to gain in-depth insight into what leadership and sustainably working on school improvement with PLCs looks like in five Dutch secondary schools. The schools were intensively observed (approximately 160 hours per school), school (policy) documents were collected, social network questionnaires were administered, and the school leadership was interviewed. Based on four studies, that focused on leaders’ practices, knowledge brokerage, and beliefs, the role of school leadership appears to be threefold. They 1) adequately designed the organization for working with the PLC, 2) managed the teaching and learning program while considering the PLC, and 3) helped and supported the staff members’ development for working with the PLC. The way in which leaders carried out the triple role of leadership seemed to be related to different factors. These factors are situated at the personal, interpersonal, and school contextual levels. The dissertation shows what leadership practices were carried out in what way and provides practical implications resulting from that. The insights could inspire schools and school leadership to work sustainably on school improvement with PLCs too.
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In considering how to better support teacher and school leader careers, the ET2020 Working Group on Schools has redressed the balance by understanding better the lived experience of individual teachers and school leaders. The starting point was to focus on what teachers may want from their careers as they enter the school education profession, and how these ambitions may change as their career is sustained.Importantly for policy makers, the Group has considered how support mechanisms can benefit these individuals and, at the same time, benefit schools and the wider system in a coherent manner.It is hoped that education systems, by virtue of their policy makers, can engage and support stakeholders to take a new approach to teacher and school leader careers: one that genuinely nurtures individual motivation and abilities (competence), whilst providing a range of opportunities in which all teachers and school leaders can grow and progress.There are two core ideas explored in this Guide: the need to recognise and support diverse career paths; and the need to take a coherent approach to that support.
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Active transport to school is associated with higher levels of physical activity in children. Promotion of active transport has therefore gained attention as a potential target to increase children’s physical activity levels. Recent studies have recognized that the distance between home and school is an important predictor for active travel among children. These studies did not yet use the promising global positioning system (GPS) methods to objectively assess active transport. This study aims to explore active transport to school in relation to the distance between home and school among a sample of Dutch elementary school children, using GPS. Seventy-nine children, aged 6-11 years, were recruited in six schools that were located in five cities in the Netherlands. All children were asked to wear a GPS receiver for one week. All measurements were conducted between December 2008 and April 2009. Based on GPS recordings, the distance of the trips between home and school were calculated. In addition, the mode of transport (i.e., walking, cycling, motorized transport) was determined using the average and maximum speed of the GPS tracks. Then, proportion of walking and cycling trips to school was determined in relation to the distance between home and school. Out of all school trips that were recorded (n = 812), 79.2% were classified as active transport. On average, active commuting trips were of a distance of 422 meters with an average speed of 5.2 km/hour. The proportion of walking trips declined significantly at increased school trip distance, whereas the proportion of cycling trips (β = 1.23, p < 0.01) and motorized transport (β = 3.61, p < 0.01) increased. Almost all GPS tracks less than 300 meters were actively commuted, while of the tracks above 900 meters, more than half was passively commuted. In the current research setting, active transport between home and school was the most frequently used mode of travel. Increasing distance seems to be associated with higher levels of passive transport. These results are relevant for those involved in decisions on where to site schools and residences, as it may affect healthy behavior among children. https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-14-227 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sanned/
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This paper investigates whether encouraging children to become more physically active in their everyday life affects their primary school performance. We use data from a field quasi‐experiment called the Active Living Program, which aimed to increase active modes of transportation to school and active play among 8‐ to 12‐year‐olds living in low socioeconomic status (SES) areas in the Netherlands. Difference‐in‐differences estimations reveal that while the interventions increase time spent on physical activity during school hours, they negatively affect school performance, especially among the worst‐performing students. Further analyses reveal that increased restlessness during instruction time is a potential mechanism for this negative effect. Our results suggest that the commonly found positive effects of exercising or participating in sports on educational outcomes may not be generalizable to physical activity in everyday life. Policymakers and educators who seek to increase physical activity in everyday life need to weigh the health and well‐being benefits against the probability of increasing inequality in school performance.
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In this chapter, we discuss the education of secondary school mathematics teachers in the Netherlands. There are different routes for qualifying as a secondary school mathematics teacher. These routes target different student teacher populations, ranging from those who have just graduated from high school to those who have already pursued a career outside education or working teachers who want to qualify for teaching in higher grades. After discussing the complex structure this leads to, we focus on the aspects that these different routes have in common. We point out typical characteristics of Dutch school mathematics and discuss the aims and challenges in teacher education that result from this. We give examples of different approaches used in Dutch teacher education, which we link to a particular model for designing vocational and professional learning environments.We end the chapter with a reflection on the current situation.
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The central aim of this thesis was to increase understanding of designing vocational learning environments at the school–work boundary. Four studies were conducted, focusing on learning environment designs at the school–work boundary and on design considerations of the actors involved in their construction, both from the world of school and the world of work.
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