Maria Brown

This paper synthesises a group of educators’ engagement with an action research project endorsed by the Council of Europe’s Pestalozzi Programme’s Action Research Group 2013 – 2014. Educators fulfilling duties at Giovanni Curmi Higher Secondary School (GCHSS) collaborated within the context of a think-tank by engaging in action research on professional development for teachers at Giovanni Curmi Higher Secondary School (PDGCHSS). Data that emerged from the foregoing research indicate that professional development (PD) should be grounded in, and not disconnected from, the school-context, and must be relevant to the teachers’ everyday teaching. In addition, knowledge gained from PD training should not be sporadic or disconnected, but transferable to everyday practice. A highly bureaucratized system and lack of resources, such as time, financial resources and technological skills, are detrimental to teachers’ motivation for PD.

This paper synthesises parents’ and guardians’ engagement with a non-formal educational initiative sponsored by Fundación Mapfre that took place between October 2014 and February 2015. Parents, guardians and carers of students’ recruited from a sample of state and Catholic Church primary schools in Malta engaged with graphical representations related to select health and fitness issues prioritised at the time by the World Health Organisation (WHO) (2014) to trigger collaborative and interactive activities and discussions. These activities fed into a critical engagement with the codifications, i.e. decodification (Kirkwood and Kirkwood, 2011; Freire, 2005). Participants presented main themes / issues emerging from the workshop activities. In this manner, workshops yielded to participants’ grassroots, in-depth, critical and inquisitive ownership of and engagement with health and fitness concerns. The main findings of the study show that, during the workshop, participants manifested a successful thematic, self-critical and reflective engagement with the select health and fitness concerns; they also linked the workshop discussion to their family and community contexts, as well as to broader socio-economic, cultural and global dynamics – with special reference to water supply; availability of public and recreational spaces; work-life balance; globalisation and technology. Thus, the workshop pedagogy provided democratic, dialogical and reflexive engagement; enhanced social capital and a grassroots’ approach to knowledge and education. Recommendations stemming from these research findings include the possibility of parent and child workshops; holding a series of workshops and forming a core-group of family members who have a more active role in future ‘Ċaqlaq!’ and other health and fitness campaigns.