8 From Little Things Big Things Grow: The Fair Go Program – Moving From Teachers to Whole School

Katina Zammit

School of Education, Western Sydney University, Australia

Abstract

The Fair Go Program (FGP) of research investigates "What makes classrooms work for students in low socioeconomic schools?", focusing on student engagement in learning and education. This chapter will consider the move from individual teachers to larger groups of teachers and whole schools that support not only students to feel that school is a place for them and that education is a potential in their life, but also makes teachers feel that the school is a place that supports their learning, and that teaching is a career for them. It begins with a brief introduction to the FGP student engagement frameworks, followed by an outline of the FGP projects that contributed to our understanding of engaged classrooms and how the frameworks informed teacher action research. It then considers how the FGP has influenced school culture, conceptualised as the Insider School and Engaging Messages for teacher frameworks, ending with an overview of the FGP Chile Pilot Project.

Keywords

student engagement, Fair Go Program, pedagogy, action research, school leadership

Classrooms can be sites where students see education as a resource that they can profitably deploy in their current and future lives. Alternatively, they can be places that convince students that school is not for them (Munns et al., 2008; Zammit, 2011). The FGP student engagement frameworks and pedagogical approach have been influencing teaching practices in the disadvantaged schools of Sydney for many years across different projects. Through mentorship and teacher action research, teachers have used the FGP student engagement frameworks of engaging experiences, the Insider Classroom and Engaging Messages (The Fair Go Project, 2006) to frame their classroom inquiry and research question, inform changes to their teaching practices, and guide their data collection to determine if the changes they implemented were having an impact on their students’ learning and engagement in learning (Sawyer et al., 2018). As a result of the teachers’ changes, the community of practice (Wenger et al., 2002) that ensued also promoted shifts in the whole-school culture, promoting an Insider School and Engaging Messages for Teachers.

The Fair Go Program

The FGP began in early 2000 as an equity project within the NSW Department of Education Priority Schools Program, which resulted in the School is for Me publication (The Fair Go Project, 2006). Our research focus was on "What makes classrooms work for students in low socioeconomic schools?" It has also been informed by the work of Newmann and Associates (1996), Haberman (2010), Bernstein (1996) and Hayes et al. (2000) on "productive pedagogies". The different projects within the FGP have utilised the FGP student engagement frameworks of engaging experiences, the Insider Classroom (Figure 1) and Engaging Messages (Table 1) (The Fair Go Project, 2006) as tools to understand engaged classrooms and as the basis for driving pedagogical changes to teachers’ practices through action research projects.

Figure 8.1

Engaging Experiences

These projects focused on teachers researching their practices to change them, with the goal of improving student engagement in a particular curriculum area in their classrooms (Zammit, 2021). Their research question might focus on the Fair Go definition of student engagement, such as designing learning experiences that were challenging (high cognitive), emotionally rewarding (high affective) and/or actively involved (high operative) so students were in-task not just on task, or the Insider Classroom learning processes within the class, such as student self-reflection, teacher inclusive conversations, community of reflection or teacher feedback (Figure 8.1). Their research question might focus on an aspect of the Engaging Messages framework to recognise and design learning and teaching that valued students’ knowledge, ability, control, voice and/or place (Table 8.1). Changes to the academic team and COVID-19 halted further school-based projects.

Table 8.1

Engaging Messages Framework 

^{Note. Adapted from Fair Go Project Classroom Changes Table 2 – Engaging messages for low SES Students © 2006 Fair Go Team and Western Sydney University. Licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.}

Understanding Engaged Classrooms

Teachers are messengers of what counts as educational practice and who is viewed as a "good student" as they control the curriculum, pedagogy and assessment within a class (Bernstein, 1990, 1996), guided by the scope and limitations of mandatory syllabi. From the initial FGP project (aka School is for Me), in which FGP team members co-researched projects, we began to understand what makes an engaged classroom where students were successful learners in ways that were different from other classrooms.

The next two FGP projects, Motivation and engagement of boys (Munns et al., 2006) and the ARC-funded Exemplary teachers of students in poverty (Sawyer et al., 2018), provided further confirmation of what constituted an engaged classroom, reinforcing the Insider Classroom processes, engaging learning experiences and Engaging Messages frameworks. An outcome of the former was the acknowledgment that, in addition to teachers’ classroom practices that were reflective of components of engaging experiences and the Insider Classroom processes, which disrupted the negative discourses shifting them to engaging messages to students, teachers also included strategies that supported the motivation of individual students (the addition of the M component to the FGP student engagement frameworks). In Exemplary teachers of students in poverty (Munns et al., 2013), case studies of 28 exemplary teachers, from preschool to year 12, who had classrooms where students were successful and highly engaged in learning, further supported the FGP student engagement frameworks (aka MeE framework). Further validation of the MeE was undertaken using a mixed methods approach (Munns & Martin, 2013).

Encouraging Changes in Pedagogical Practice

The next phases in the FGP included three projects employing the MeE framework to inform teacher action research projects to increase student engagement with learning in their specific classroom context, with support from academic mentors and/or teacher mentors. It was proposed to teachers that three changes needed to take place: (1) a change in the pedagogic discourse: the what and how of teaching (Bernstein, 1990, 1996); (2) concurrent changes in practices in the classroom (the recontextualisation practices); and (3) the messages that students receive about themselves (Bernstein, 1996; The Fair Go Project, 2006). With teachers investigating their own practices, it was considered possible that the changes would disrupt the reproduction of the disengaging messages to which low-SES students had been repeatedly exposed (see Zammit, 2011).

The Fair Go from the Get Go project involved early-career teachers in a school, supported through professional learning and mentoring of academic partners, depending on the individual teacher’s research question. The Engaging Rural Boys project (Cole et al., 2010) involved year 5 and 6 primary school teachers and high school teachers based in three regional towns in NSW. Professional learning was provided with ongoing support from each academic team (two academics per region), with teachers designing their research around what they wanted to change in their own teaching to enhance the learning of boys.

The Engaging Schooling (Sawyer et al., 2018) project was a 3-year longitudinal project that began with teachers from the Exemplary Teachers project mentoring a colleague within their school, who then became a mentor to another colleague within the school, while the original mentor supported a teacher at another school in the area. The project also grew to other teachers within the initial schools, to include a large proportion of the teachers or the whole school.

Individual FGP team members also worked in co-researching roles with teachers using the MeE frameworks to guide their research (McGuire & Cole, 2008; Munns et al., 2008).

Influencing School Culture

The Insider School project investigated the changes that occurred at a school level when teachers were involved in FGP-informed action research (Zammit, 2020; Zammit, 2024). Data were obtained from two schools in the Engaging Schooling project (Flatland and Grassland Public Schools) (Zammit, 2018a, 2018b). Both schools implemented the approach with many classroom teachers and specialist teachers (librarian, ESL, support teachers) within the school (Flatland), and across the whole school (Grassland).

I had people on staff saying "How did those two teachers get on that program?… We were never asked". That made me think ‒ obviously other people were also seeing that this (FGP) was a fantastic thing. (Sheena, Deputy Principal)

We wondered…

What if the key to student engagement was in substantive teacher engagement?

What would happen if our teachers believed our school was a place they were valued, a place they belonged?

Designing opportunities that led to teacher engagement?

Would engineering learning opportunities that had our teachers dancing along the edges of their comfort zones be key to transforming classroom practices? (Michelle, Coach and FGP coordinator)

Interest spread from individual teachers to other teachers because they could see the changes in student engagement, participation, behaviour in and out of class, and attitude to school. Through the commitment of the leadership in each school and teachers’ desires to improve their students’ engagement, the enriched support network also made gains in staff confidence, motivation and morale (Grice, 2019). Each school in its own context:

• provided professional learning and focused on teacher action research based on FGP student engagement frameworks, that is, MeE;
• supported teachers on a regular basis with professional learning, to reflect on what they had trialled, to take risks, and to revise their action research;
• provided time off class for teachers to work together or with a mentor, reflect on lesson/s, and discuss readings, strategies and next steps with a mentor;
• shared their learning: the good, the bad and the ugly, within their community of practice digitally and/or in staff meetings.

Figure 8.2

The Insider School 

Table 8.2

Engaging Messages for Teachers

^{Note. Adapted from Fair Go Project Classroom Changes Table 2 – Engaging messages for low SES Students © 2006 Fair Go Team and Western Sydney University. Licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.}

Teachers within the two schools found that investigating their own practice with a view to improvement renewed their feeling of pride and excitement about teaching, revitalised their sense of being a teacher, reminded them of their intellectual capability and its importance, recognised that the work they did in school matters, reconnected them to their colleagues and their initial commitments to teach, expanded their sense of what they could and ought to do, and restored their sense of professionalism and power in the sense of having a voice (McLaughlin, 2004, p. 15).

It was just really nice to know that there’s another 17 people that’s doing the same thing as you, that’s going through the same set of challenges and setbacks and successes. It was nice because we were able to share it within the Edmodo forum. And that way we were able to share resources, … [and] our stories of success. I remember straight after our perseverance lesson, I was really proud of our achievement so I posted it up on Edmodo straight away … It wasn’t to show off, … it was just to say, hey, this is what we’ve achieved… And it’s just been really awesome because you feel like you’re part of a team, a really tight knit team. (Classroom teacher, Flatland)

The culture of the school encourages you to make mistakes, "fail forward" and learn from them. (Classroom teacher, Grassland)

It’s my sixth year of teaching and you know it’s tiresome and just teaching with a focus on engagement was much more beneficial for me. It wasn’t just giving them the School is for Me message, it was giving it to me as well, you know because any other time you’re just struggling for how are you going to get through this content and all the rest of it, whereas because they were engaged and motivated … it works hand in hand. So for me as a teacher it’s really rejuvenated me. (Classroom teacher,  Grassland)

Wilkinson and Kemmis (2015) similarly found that "build[ing] a community of practice among its learners (including executive, teachers and students) and its adoption of an enquiry approach to learning" (p. 349) resulted in shifts to teaching practice and students’ learning. However, in the FGP schools, the teachers and leadership had a framework (Figure 8.1, Table 8.1) upon which they could ask questions about their pedagogy, their teaching practices, the selection of curriculum and how students were assessed based on what they wanted to change in their classrooms and school to promote student engagement.

While many teachers in Flatland and all teachers in Grassland Public School were involved in investigating their teaching practices and shifts in the school culture, they implemented a diversity of strategies across their classroom research: some worked, some did not, and some were modified and trialled again. However, while the FGP’s whole-school approach was designed as self-sustaining, it still requires further input from the academic team or the FGP Champion in the school. Individual teachers and leaders move schools, and new ones join, which reduces the sustainability. COVID-19 also impacted their ability to continue to research their own practices, even though they did attempt to maintain students’ engagement (Fairbairn et al., 2021), as the challenge of emergency remote teaching for many was overwhelming. More recently, system-based curriculum changes and mandates around how to teach have further confounded teachers’ capacity to investigate their own practices and teach for the needs of their students.

Moving Beyond the Local: FGP Chile Pilot Project

The FGP student engagement frameworks are now being trialled in a pilot project in the Biobío region of Chile in collaboration with colleagues from the Universidad de Concepción. Two teachers from three schools in vulnerable communities have received professional development on the FGP engagement frameworks, designing research questions based on a perceived problem in their classes, and undertaking action research, including data collection. Students in these communities, especially post-COVID, have disengaged from schooling as they don’t see that school or education is a place for them or their futures. Teachers and colleagues speak about the poor attendance, behaviour and participation of the students. They perceive that the parents and caregivers also do not value education.

Each school has two academic mentors supporting them and meets monthly to share their projects: the good, the bad, and learn from each other. Anecdotal evidence after only a few months implementing their action research projects points to shifts in students’ attitudes and participation in class, which has been noted by other teachers in the school. Teachers have also seen changes in students’ perceptions of themselves.

Refinements of the FGP engagement frameworks are also being made to make them contextually relevant to Chilean teachers and leaders. Exciting times are ahead with the pilot expanding within each school in the next stage (2026) and to all interested teachers in the final stage. The FGP Chile Pilot project has the potential to improve educational outcomes and engagement in education for highly vulnerable communities.

Author Note

Katina Zammit https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0078-6245

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Katina Zammit. Email: k.zammit@westernsydney.edu.au.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Associate Professor  Geoff Munns for his feedback on the chapter and Emeritus Professor Wayne Sawyer for their support. I’d also like to acknowledge the work of all the Fair Go Program’s academics, teachers, schools and consultants for their contributions across the different projects over the years and for their continued efforts for equity and social justice.

SDG Alignment

Goal 4: Quality education

Goal 10: Reduced inequalities

Cite This Chapter

Zammit, K. (2026). From little things big things grow: The Fair Go Program – Moving from teachers to whole school. In L. Naidoo, S. Gannon, C. Woodrow, C. H. Díaz, V. Lopez, & J. F. Salazar (Eds.), Sur-Sur Southern knowledges: Education, sustainability and social transformation. Western Open Books. https://doi.org/10.61588/HGMT4758

Attribution

Research Integrity Statement

This publication reports research involving human participants. Ethics approval was granted by the Western Sydney University Human Ethics Committee (approval number: H11551).  Informed consent was obtained from all participants.

The author declares no known competing financial or non-financial interests that could have influenced the content of this publication.

References