Abstract:

Schools2030, funded by the Aga Khan Foundation, is an action research programme working with 1,000 schools in 10 countries to identify the most effective ways to improve learning and access to quality education for all children and young people. This is being done by implementing a bottom-up model in schools that empowers and encourages teachers to develop innovative solutions to the learning challenges faced by children and young people in their classrooms. In Portugal, the programme is being developed in 17 school clusters, representing around 100 schools, and the research team represented by the authors is responsible for monitoring and external evaluation of the programme.

A central concept of Schools2030 is the quality of the educational environment. In this sense, the aim was to (re)create what constitutes a quality educational environment as an essential dimension in the relational and educational development of all those who "inhabit" the school, namely its pupils. This is a key object of analysis and intervention - improving the quality of educational environments - within the programme itself.

To better understand the different perspectives around this concept, we conducted focus groups with head teachers, teachers, and students. In this paper, we choose to focus on the students' perspective and their perceptions of school and their relationship with school. Our data came from two focus groups held in 2023, one with 10-year-old students and the other with 15-year-old students, a total of 19 pupils from schools participating in the programme in Portugal. The aim of these focus groups was to obtain in-depth information and contributions to the analysis of learning processes and educational environments, based on reflection and debate among students.

In this way, we emphasise the "voice" of the students, which allows us to enrich, among other things, the definition of what quality educational spaces should be. Some of the dimensions of this characterisation, based on these results, can be summarised as spaces of well-being, spaces of autonomy and involvement, and spaces of participation and equity. The focus groups with pupils also allowed to explore the meanings of learning in schools, more specifically learning in school and with teachers, time (for learning), evaluating what has been learnt and emotions and attitudes.

One of the most important conclusions is that pupils perceive the importance of the way teachers manage to build close, empathetic relationships and pay attention to their problems in their school results. Pupils' awareness of this dimension in their performance and relationships at school is very high. Pupils also feel that curricula and teaching content should be made livelier and more illustrative, using examples and stories that are more in line with their own experiences. They also emphasise the need for more personalised educational models, participatory, practical activities, in contact with nature and innovative compared to lectures, and for the transmission of values and socio-emotional skills in addition to cognitive skills.

The testimonies collected make it possible to establish a more precise baseline for the intervention. The analysis of the results is intended to contribute to a deeper understanding of 15 and 10 year olds' perspectives on school, its functions and educational environments that are conducive to better learning, and to provide indications for possible changes.

Keywords:

Quality of educational environments, educational models, learning, focus group.