The intensive nature of teachers’ work did not provide many opportunities for informal conversations with them. During the duration of the fieldwork, I did not come across a teacher drinking a cup of tea and chatting to a colleague in the staffroom. This was in contrast to the commonly painted picture by previous studies about teachers’ and their work. For instance, Nias (1989) demonstrated the importance of staffroom chats to teachers’ experience of work explaining how teachers went to the staffroom for support from colleagues in order to deal
114 better with the classroom stress. In this research, my observations and the teachers’ accounts confirmed that staff room was not commonly utilised by teachers. For instance, in the interview, Ms Clark explained that teachers did not seem to use the staff room at Bricklane Primary and she contrasted her observations with her previous experience of working at another primary school:
‘No one really uses the staffroom really apart from for photocopying which is the only time when you see other people. (…)The school I was at before, everybody went to the staffroom at lunchtime. At that school, the head teacher timetabled that lunch hour of the day to be in the staffroom. (…) So if you needed to catch her, you catch her there (…) and she really worked hard to make sure that everyone came and if you didn’t go then, she wouldn’t tell you off about it but she would invite you along and get you into conversations. She obviously put a lot of importance on like staff just kind of socialising.’
Ms Clark, teacher
In her account, Ms Clark clearly demonstrated the importance of the use of staffroom to facilitate staff interactions in her previous workplace. Another teacher, Ms Dixon also presented her different experience of staffroom in her previous school where the staffroom provided a place for socialisation with other teachers:
‘In my other schools, everybody would be in staffroom at break times having a cup of tea (…). You would spend a half an hour in your classroom doing your marking and setting up for the afternoon and then you’d go to the staff room for half an hour and you would have a chat and have a cuppa. And everyone was great friends and got on very well. In here, it’s not like we don’t get on, we just don’t see each other.’
115 My observations at Bricklane Primary indicated that every minute of teachers’ working day was filled with various tasks preventing them from taking breaks in the staffroom. These observations were corroborated by staff accounts during interviews. For instance, Ms Dixon compared her experience of socialising with other teachers at Bricklane Academy with her experience in her previous workplace, concluding that:
‘You are in your classroom and you work in your classroom, and you are forever running around getting stuff done eating on the go. (…) You never have time to see anybody.’
Ms Dixon, teacher
Teachers were also expected to accompany their pupils during lunches at least twice a week. However, when they stayed in the classroom for their lunch break, they were preoccupied with marking, preparing for the afternoon classes and looking after the children who stayed in the classroom to either complete the work they did not manage to finish during the lessons or as a punishment for misbehaving during classes (field notes).
Due to the limited opportunities for informal chats, ethnographic semi-structured interviews and focus groups with various staff members were conducted. These included teachers, teaching assistants, executive principal and principal of Bricklane Primary Academy (Appendix 4 includes details of interviewed staff). Ethnographic interviews were conducted with sixteen teachers, the executive principal and the principal of the Academy between January 2015 and July 2015 (see Appendix 4). Further to this, two focus groups were conducted with TAs. There were six TAs in the first focus group and three TAs in the second focus group. The ethnographic interview and focus group sessions took between 17 minutes and 1 hour 23 minutes. All interviews and focus groups were recorded on a voice recorder allowing to focus my attention on the participants’ accounts. However, during the interviews and focus groups I also made notes. All
116 ethnographic interviews and focus groups were conducted in Bricklane Academy.
Fetterman (2010) argues that interviews and focus groups are used in ethnographic research as supplementary methods during the post-survey phase when a researcher has identified significant themes of interest. In relation to this, the interview (Appendix 5) and focus group schedules (Appendix 6) were created based on the observational field notes and my informal conversations with staff. When observing situations, interactions or events that required to be explored in more detail, notes were made to support the process of designing interview questions aiming to elicit insights regarding the events of interest. For instance, I witnessed a situation when Mr Peters walked into Ms Taylor’s classroom and questioned the teacher about the WAGOLL (What a Good One Looks Like) display. The WAGOLL display demonstrated pupils’ best work and served as an example for other children. What Mr Peter was concerned with was whether Ms Taylor changed the display regularly. This unexpected questioning left the teacher distressed and it prompted my interest in the various classroom displays and the requirement for the teachers to adhere to the display policy. On another occasion, I marked a number of students’ workbooks during the lessons and after the classes. Having experienced marking and learning about the complex regulations that governed this task, I questioned teachers about the impact of marking on their work. These examples demonstrate how my observations provided a context for the development of the interview schedule.
Additionally, there was also a need to explore retrospective events in order to better understand the context of teachers’ work and the setting. Both interviews and focus groups allowed me to gather information about past events that had shaped the school and teachers’ work. They also gave the participants an opportunity to reflect on and express their views that would not be otherwise heard during periods of observation (Greener, 2011).
117 There were numerous advantages of ethnographic interviewing. One of them was the genuine, on-going relationship that was established with all the participants because of the duration and frequency of contact with them. Due to my prolonged presence in the Academy, all staff members were familiar with me as well as with my research. Additionally, to develop better rapport with the participants, spending time in the researched setting provided me with the opportunity to familiarise myself with the jargon used in the school allowing to understand better the meanings the participants placed on certain events taking place in the Academy (Heyl, 2011).
Focus group interviews were used in order to learn about teaching assistants’ views on the changing nature of teachers’ work as well as the changing nature of teaching assistants’ responsibilities in the Academy. For instance, as explained in section 4.4, I observed teaching assistants working with students, in particular with those who struggled in their learning. Therefore, one of the main duties of teaching assistants was to lead booster groups and to provide one-to- one support during lessons to the children who needed extra support with completing their tasks. However, on one occasion I observed a teaching assistant stepping in for the teacher during the teacher’s absence. Such observations led me to enquire about the teaching assistants’ duties and responsibilities in the school as this helped me understand better the nature of teachers’ work.
Further to this, during the course of my research I learnt that nearly all of the teaching assistants had strong ties with Bricklane Primary Academy. This was due to them residing in the Oakcroft Valley and therefore attending the school as students. Most of them also had more years of experience of working in the school than any of the teachers employed in the Academy. Having such a long work experience in the school meant that the teaching assistants were able to provide comments about the changing nature of their work, the teachers’ work
118 and also to share their observations about the changes that took place in the school following the school’s conversion to an academy. Thus, my observations as well as informal conversations with teaching assistants guided the construction of the focus group schedule. All questions asked in the focus groups aimed to elicit information that developed further my understanding of teachers’ work.
In line with Schensul’s (1999) argument about efficiency of focus groups, nine participants were interviewed during two group interview sessions. Therefore, this form of interview allowed to elicit information from a larger number of participants in a relatively shorter period of time as opposed to individual interviews. Another advantage of focus group discussions was the opportunity to gain insights into multiplicity of opinions possible due to the interaction found in the groups (Morgan, 1998). Robson (2002) points at the group interaction as being a particular strength of group interviews. Participants made their comments while being stimulated by comments of other participants in the group. This encouraged lively group conversations in which the participants shared and compared their views between themselves as well as with me as the moderator of the discussion. In addition, focus group sessions provided teaching assistants with the environment in which they felt comfortable to talk about their views. This was due to the fact that the focus groups took place in the teaching assistants’ room as opposed to unfamiliar location. In addition, teaching assistants expressed their reluctance to being interviewed on their own (Robson, 2002). Therefore, the experience of being involved in a group discussion with their colleagues enabled them to voice their opinions in a friendly setting. Thus, focus groups appeared to be preferred to individual interviews.
The executive principal of the Academy was the first interviewed member of staff. Prior to the interview, he requested an interview schedule justifying his
119 request with a wish to prepare beforehand. Therefore, he was provided with the interview schedule outlining the questions and themes to be discussed in the interview. Following his positive comments on the experience, the interview and focus group schedules were provided to all staff prior to the sessions. This allowed them time to reflect on the questions and recall past events. This was particularly appreciated by more apprehensive participants. For instance, Ms Williams commented:
‘I liked it that you gave me the questions before because although I didn’t plan exactly what I was going to say, I was just prepared for what you might ask. And I feel as if you would have asked me these questions and I didn’t know them beforehand, I might have been put on the spot actually. So that time to think.’
Ms Williams, field notes, February 2015
Ms Williams’ comment indicate the benefits of familiarisation with interview questions in advance of the interview. However, despite this there were also teachers whom Adler and Adler (2003) would call ‘reluctant respondents’. For instance, during the interview, Ms Kelly frequently repeated that she could not comment on many questions as she did not have long experience of working as a teacher whereas Ms Taylor was very apprehensive about being recorded.