T HE PRACTICE REPERTOIRE DEVELOPED

Interviews with school managers and teacher teams have aimed to map properties of the repertoires in action within teams, between teams and in negotiations with the working life counterparts. Group interviews of teachers, for example, describe that they proactively use this professional network, often strengthened by prior career linkages, in order to incubate the students to the workplace field. Since the teachers also have a layer of flexible core teams close to the students at their disposal, these informal ties create connections between the operating core of the school and its workplace environments. The patterns enables a set of guidelines, negotiated principles for training, informal rules, sub-routines, joint agreements and shared understandings to evolve. This body of practice-based framework guides, at least to some extent, both in-school instruction and socialization and training on the job.

104 In Norwegian: NHO

193

8.8.1 The team practice – a decoupled instructional routine

The core of the team practice is a model that enables teams to decouple their work from the centralized timetable routine when needed. The model intentionally empowered the team layer to determine the utilization of some amounts of the time resources of the teacher members. Consequently, autonomy at the team level is a central element. Instead of calling for administrative support, the core team as a group is enabled to discuss problems, recall possible solutions, make choices and try them out in a practical setting within a short period. Furthermore, this repertoire is strengthened by the tight coupling between the team and their students, because the students belong to a team, and therefore have mutual access to each other. The practice repertoire of the teamwork is summarized in table 8.3.

Table 8.3: A model of the team practice

PRACTICE

ELEMENT EMPIRICAL DESCRIPTIONS Adaptation

and tailoring • Individualizing of curricula and plans for students with special needs

• Level-differentiation of instructional provisions within fixed periods

• Tailored in-depth work periods that are pre-defined Decoupling • Decoupling locally governed instruction periods from

the central time-table Coordination

of workplace socialization

• Gradually incubating students to a workplace organization through the praxis rotation

• Agendas more focused on motivational and behavioral sides of the future apprentice job situation Integration of

workplace demands

• Workplace demands on the agenda of the teams

Collaborative projects with working life partners

• Coordinating of tasks related to joint projects

• Tasks related to supplier jobs for the working life partners and cooperative branch agencies

194

School managers and teacher team members were all asked about their perception of the students’ situation in a team-based working technology. A major perception brought up during the interviews, is the image of reduced dropout, less problems with student absence, alongside increased teacher job satisfaction. As the team members have a defined responsibility for a group of students, this construction is associated with a stronger common ownership for the students’ learning, and tighter follow-up of the students.

8.8.2 Constructing a shared practice with the workplaces

The informants describe that the pattern of collaboration between school actors and workplace partners has contributed to a shared repertoire that spans both in-school instruction and on-the-job training. The large number of joint activities, meeting places and projects are perceived as having contributed to a relatively shared conception of vocational training among the involved actors. Elements of such a shared repertoire are adjusted to organize the in-school instruction, so that the progress of the students fits better to demands from the workplace. Similarly, a shared repertoire also grips into routines of how to incubate students more effectively into the workplace reality, so that they are better prepared to master the challenges that they meet there. The repertoire comprises for example interview sessions with the candidates at the end of their school program. As described by the associate principal:

The workplace institutions carry out interviews informing the students what it will mean to be at the workplace in their organization, and what an apprentice is expected to contribute with, how they are supposed to dress, behave and treat clients and customers. The workplace managers assess absence strongly. Behavioral and motivational factors are also weighted during the assessment, as well as what kind of attitudes the candidates display during the interviews.

(Informant No 16, associate principal)

Shared repertoire also comprises adaptation and tailoring of didactical conditions in the job-training context, conditions that may help the students to overcome some of the barriers. The descriptions from the interviews portray a set of informally grounded paths of mutual influence that over time has elaborated shared conceptions and understandings, including mutual respect for the particular roles and considerations each part of the training chain has to take into account. The important point is that this practice repertoire makes contributions towards integration of in-school activities with training in the workplace.

195 8.8.3 Perceived outcomes

The major perception described during the interviews is that most students that want an apprenticeship contract are offered one, even in cases where students have not fulfilled all the advanced courses. They are allowed to come back to the school to do their exams during the apprentice program.

The informants also claim that this remarkable ratio is positively affected by the social investments and endeavors in working life collaboration.

However, not all students want to go into apprenticeship. Some prefers to continue a third advanced course, and get their general certificate that ensures them the right to apply for further education instead. As the administrative manager describes it:

We find it satisfactorily that many of the students are offered an apprenticeship contract from the same location where they have had their on–the-job praxis periods. The apprenticeship is a continuation of the schooling, and an integrated part of the program, accordingly, the linkage between school and working life is very important.

(Informant No 20, administrative manager)

The most severe barrier for raising achievement is represented by the dropout cases, where students finally drop out of school during the first two years, most typically after a period of lagging behind the normal study progression. The main reason for this phenomenon is perceived to be lack of prior capacity, and this problem is, not surprisingly, most severe among the special intake students.

8.9 The middle manager’s work context