Since 1996 the Australian Government has supported the development of enterprise education through a number of mechanisms, including funding of the Enterprise Education Action Research (EEAR) project which identified approaches to and best practice in enterprise education. This project followed earlier initiatives aimed at supporting teachers and schools to develop enterprising qualities in young people. These initiatives included the development of resources, such as Making it Happen – An Introduction to Enterprise Education, published in 1998, and the professional development package published in 2002 by the Curriculum Corporation. This package comprised material on The Enterprising School; Enterprise Education in Primary Schools; Enterprise Education in Secondary Schools; and Enterprise Education in Schools Professional Development CD-ROM.
This report summarises the outcomes of the project aimed at disseminating the insights developed from the EEAR project, and considering appropriate future directions for enterprise education in schools.
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The project has considered ways in which the future implementation of enterprise education can build from these experiences, can become more firmly embedded in all schools, and, can sustain interest and enthusiasm for this area of learning over the longer term.
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Findings from the Project: Action Research to Identify Innovative Approaches to, and Best Practice in, Enterprise Education in Australian Schools
The project, Action Research to Identify Innovative Approaches to, and Best Practice in, Enterprise Education in Australian Schools was conducted in approximately 200 primary and secondary schools over the period of April 2002 to April 2004. This action research is the first comprehensive national analysis of enterprise education in Australian schools and demonstrates the key elements for successful implementation of enterprise education.
The research is underpinned by a wide variety of actual school experiences. Some schools embraced the project as an opportunity to review, analyse and document their enterprise education experiences, whilst other schools document ways to introduce enterprise education into their school.
The final report outlines innovative and best practice models of enterprise education. The Enterprise Education Action Research project found that approaches to Enterprise Education capture the enthusiasm of students and teachers when the learning enables students to be truly enterprising by:
- applying their wider school learning in real life situations;
- making decisions about their learning, rather than having decisions made for them;
- having opportunities to exercise individual and group initiative, in and outside the traditional boundaries of schooling;
- exercising personal and shared responsibility, rather than being dependent on the teacher to solve problems and resolve issues; and
- developing and applying, in authentic situations, knowledge and skills that will underpin successful transition to the world of economic and social participation.
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Case Study Booklet
Case Studies from the project: Action Research to Identify Innovative Approaches to, and Best Practice in, Enterprise Education in Australian Schools. This publication documents case studies of thirty-two project schools who participated in the project. This document includes the 16 case studies previously sent to all schools in June 2003 - Enterprise Education Case Studies.
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Tools
This Draft Learning Framework Tool for Enterprise Education was used by some schools in the Project
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This series of monographs sets out the findings of the project in the areas of best practice in: learning, teaching, leadership, engaging parents, the role of the community, primary schools, assessment and reporting, student transitions, sustainability as well as best practice with Indigenous students and other targeted groups. The series also includes an overview of the project and an implementation guide.
Over a two year period, consultants assisted almost 200 schools as they undertook action research to develop understandings about innovation and best practice in enterprise education.
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Evidence gathered and analysed throughout the project points to the reality that the ‘learning dimension’ must be the core focus through which enterprise education is conceptualised and developed. Through learning in supported, authentic situations, students acquire the qualities and characteristics to be enterprising people. Concurrently, they learn how to maintain their well-being through positive relationships that have value both in the context of schooling and in the community.
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The Project evidence indicates that schools can be places where teachers are enterprising in ways that affect deeply the learning of students, the quality of the learning environment and the reality of school and community connectedness.
Where the work and individual journeys of teachers connect with others – students, principals, colleagues, parents and community members – the school is laying the essential foundations for best practice in enterprise education. An outcome for many teachers is a heightened sense of professional engagement and a deeper drawing on their talents and capacities than may have been the case with more traditional approaches.
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At best practice levels, school leaders such as principals and senior teachers, have responsibilities to establish a broad base of engagement and support for enterprise education. This base needs to be both inside and outside the traditional boundaries of the school. In whatever ways the base is constructed, its focus is on the opportunities that enterprise education affords to engage students more fully in their learning and connect them to the world around them.
There are some key phases that school leaders are acutely aware of as they seek to establish and embed enterprise education. At the outset, school leaders articulate the key values and beliefs that underpin enterprising learning. They ensure that there develops, across all stakeholder groups in the school community, a shared understanding and endorsement of these values and beliefs. School leaders build a critical mass of engagement and support to ensure that approaches become integral to learning rather than inconsequential, one-off activities. At the same time, they ensure that the school has the capacity to implement enterprise education in ways that embed it within and beyond the school.
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Where the school provides parents with access to the ‘language of enterprise education’ parents are more likely to support enterprise education as a desirable and preferred approach to learning for their children. In addition to supporting the school’s work, at the level of best practice, schools ensure that parents have opportunities to be actively involved.
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The concept of authenticity in students’ learning was a continuing theme over the course of the Project. The Project evidence makes clear that authenticity is difficult to achieve unless there exists a partnership between the school and the community, focused on students’ learning. At the leading edge of practice, enterprise education is a shared endeavour between school and community, expressed in practical realities that extend the learning environment beyond the school.
Student involvement in their community, including its commercial aspects, provides the adult standards that act as reference points against which students can measure their progress and achievements. The fact that the learning environment is an adult one appears to be a matter of great significance for many students, irrespective of age. They genuinely respond to the opportunities that enterprise education affords to relate to and work with community members who, in other contexts, may have little or no association with the school.
However difficult it may be for schools to extend the learning environment into the community and to make it more authentic, the benefits that arise for students are real and substantial. Where schools have developed more flexible approaches to enable student movement back and forth into their community, they quickly see that students develop enterprising qualities and characteristics to a level that surpasses normally held expectations.
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The Action Research Project demonstrates that enterprise education ‘works’ in primary schools. It is as relevant for primary-aged children as it is for those in the secondary years. Primary-age children can derive great benefits in their learning from opportunities that connect school and the wider world. Enterprise education appears to make a significant contribution to building children’s sense of optimism about the future. They come to see that the enterprising qualities and characteristics they are developing and applying are relevant for both school and for the wider world.
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To be able to assess the student learning outcomes of enterprise education, there is a need to clearly identify what enterprise education is, and what it is that students can and should achieve. The evidence from the Project shows that, at best practice level, the learning which derives from enterprise education underpins the qualities and characteristics of students that are essential for living a full and satisfying life. The Project indicates it is possible to assess and report the extent of student achievements in this domain of their school life.
Growth and change in enterprising qualities and characteristics is not easy to measure precisely, and even more difficult to attribute to a single programme such as enterprise education. However, it is possible, through gathering and reflecting on a range of evidence, to make observations about what students know, think and can do as a result of their learning.
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Enterprise education offers a cohesive approach which gives priority to, and strengthens the quality of, student transitions through school and between school and community. By having opportunities to learn in ways that are truly enterprising, students are more likely to see the relevance and applicability of their learning.
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While findings from the Project indicate strongly that enterprise education is an approach that impacts positively on the learning of all students, the evidence also shows that enterprise education ‘works’ for many Indigenous students. In best practice situations, learning environments are more flexible and open compared to many traditional school approaches. There is an emphasis on opportunities for the immediate application of learning in the ‘real world’. Students are encouraged to exercise high levels of self-direction and resourcefulness. Enterprise education is purposely connected to Indigenous culture, and through this reinforces the aspirations that many families and communities hold. At the same time, enterprise education may provide an approach to the achievement of substantial outcomes in literacy, numeracy and technology that are identified as absolutely essential for successful lives and participation in communities and the wider society.
However, for enterprise education to have the greatest impact on the learning of Indigenous students, the approaches need to be ones that are ‘owned’ by the nation’s Indigenous communities, wherever located, working together with school leaders and teachers. It is ‘ownership’ arising from such partnerships that will truly constitute best practice in enterprise education for Indigenous students.
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A major implication of the Project findings concerning targeted groups revolves around the extent to which schools are prepared to restructure the learning environment so that students’ learning in enterprise education explicitly connects them to a wider, more authentic world.
The evidence from the Project indicates that enterprise education is a successful approach to engaging students in targeted groups in learning in ways that may not be possible in some traditional approaches. Further, the evidence indicates that enterprise education can develop and maintain a level of student connectedness to school and community that may be difficult to otherwise achieve.
However, the Project also found that the success of enterprise education in engaging students from targeted groups is reinforced when the principle of inclusivity is prominent in the approach. Where enterprise education is developed, on the basis that it is wherever possible, for all students, the evidence indicates that outcomes for students from targeted groups are increased rather than diminished.
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The Project shows that, as schools introduce enterprise education, they need to purposefully plan for its sustainability. Leadership teams have a critical role in building shared understandings and providing direction. There needs to be the widest possible base of engagement, extending across the traditional structures of schooling, but also into the community. Sustainability is most likely to be achieved when enterprise education is a core and overt aspect of the school’s broadly defined curriculum, linked to jurisdictional requirements and priority areas.
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There is no recipe to follow in implementing enterprise education.
However, school leaders, informed further by readings and discussions based on this series of brochures, will build on the knowledge of their colleagues that was developed during two years of action research.
The Project has found that enterprise education is one key coordinating approach to the development of a modern school curriculum.
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In order to disseminate the findings from Phase 1 of the Enterprise Education Action Research project, a series of seminars was successfully conducted across Australia between 7 March 2003 and 2 May 2003. The aim of the seminars was to encourage and support school principals and other practitioners in the implementation and/or development of enterprise education in their schools.
The structure of the seminars was a mixture of interactive and plenary sessions, and included enlightening and informative presentations by schools (students and teachers) participating in the action research project.
The seminars were conducted by Erebus Consulting Partners with the support of the Australian Principals Associations Professional Development Council (APAPDC). The seminars were very well received, with many participants feeling that enterprise education could be effectively implemented into their school curriculum. There was also mutual feeling amongst the participants that many students would benefit immensely from enterprise education.