Developing Agency in Primary Education

What is agency?

Pupils have agency when they have ownership of their learning. They are active participants in the learning process with awareness of their achievements and needs. They understand why they are learning the current information and make decisions during the learning process including about what to spend time on and how to learn most effectively.

Agency involves choice, but does not equate to pupils making every decision about their learning. Teachers possess the expertise and experience needed to structure the curriculum and set tasks to enable development. Similarly, at some point in the learning process, pupils will need to trust the advice of educators that particular methods are more effective, striking a ball in sport, performing a calculation in maths or structuring a sentence as examples.

In her article, Pupil voice and agency: Exploring the evidence-base, Dr Julia Flutter explores research on pupil voice and agency in primary schools. She recommends that the curriculum contain 'opportunities for pupils to experience choice, ownership and agency in their learning', as well as 'opportunities for active engagement in collaborative, real-world problem solving.' Through exploring research on agency, Dr Flutter addresses benefits to motivation, enthusiasm for learning and the ability to self educate.

The paper, 'Student Agency for 2030', OECD Future of Education and Skills 2030 Conceptual learning framework, explores the concept of agency and interestingly, how this can vary between different cultures.

Fundamentally, expecting pupils to demonstrate agency means treating them like young people, with different needs, but not entirely different to adults. 'Student Agency for 2030' states, 'Some have considered pupils to be the most ignored members of society.' Many adults who have been subject to learning without agency will have found this a frustrating experience, agency recognises that this also applies to children.

How can schools leverage technology to provide agency?

Any use of technology in schools must be based on needs, and a decision that the technology is the best solution to address that need.

Technology is not the only way to provide agency for children in primary education. Children can achieve agency through simple tracking sheets in their books, keeping track of their times table progress, vocabulary used or success criteria shared with them by the teacher. It is always worth bearing these simple approaches in mind before selecting any technology to address an identified need.

Technology that provides children with agency often offers them speed and convenience in making their own choices.

Book Creator - creating eBooks, portfolios, recordings and flashcards

Book Creator is a simple, but powerful app for iPads, also available through the browser. Using Book Creator, children can collect photos, videos, voice recordings, drawings, maps and test and add these to an eBook. This can give ownership of the things they choose to collect relating to their learning, whether things that make a sound for phonics, or photographs and commentary of a scientific experiment.

Children can use the simple voice recorder tool in Book Creator to rehearse sentences before writing them, making decisions themselves about the effectiveness and quality of their writing. (Children can also use other tools life the Voice Memo app on iPads for this purpose).

Book Creator is also an excellent tool for making flashcards. Children can make a page with a concept that they wish to learn, adding an explanation on the next page that they can flick between. This can be useful for vocabulary, number facts or more complex concepts. By making their own flashcards, children choose what to focus on and take ownership of reviewing and learning the content.

Book Creator is a simple, but effective tool that can be used to give even young children agency over their learning

Digital portfolios - pupil self assessment

Teachers can share slide decks with children as templates for them to store and organise their learning. By providing headings for slides, teachers can make expectations clear to children, who then add to the slides to meet these expectations. Teachers can easily share copies of presentations using Google Classroom and choosing 'make a copy' when attaching slides to an assignment.

Children could also add to their own portfolios using other tools, such as adding to a Google Site, or adding their work to an iMovie or equivalent.

Project-based learning

As Dr Julia Flutter observed, offering pupils opportunities to contribute to meaningful projects with real-world applications can be an important means of giving them agency over their learning. Pupils who work on projects are often highly motivated. They see the purpose for the writing they are doing, the maths they are using or the coding they are working on. They also have opportunities to apply their learning, communicate and collaborate and shape the direction their work is going in.

I would offer a couple of caveats to advocating project-based learning (which I wholeheartedly do!). Firstly, children must have the skills and knowledge in the first place. They must have practised calculation before undertaking a maths project, or scientific method before carrying out an investigation. Secondly, children must be taught how to engage in projects. They must be taught how to research, communicate, prioritise, manage time and all other aspects of project work.

The Apps for Good project is an incredible opportunity for school children to engage in project-based learning. I have written about Apps for Good separately here.

Apps for Good is a challenging, but highly motivating course, suitable for children in upper key stage 2 and secondary education.

Accessibility

Children can often use the built-in accessibility features of technology to remove barriers for themselves and increase their role as active participants in their learning. Most web browsers have built in accessibility tools, such as the 'reading' mode in Google Chrome, which can filter out text, change background colours and read text aloud. Google Chrome also features translate tools, giving children who speak English as a second language ways to help themselves when reading.

Teaching children to set up and use bookmarks in a browser is another way of helping them to simplify the process of using technology and accessing resources.

Teaching children to use accessibility tools, such as those found in browsers like Google Chrome, or in iPad settings helps them to remove barriers themselves and make decisions to facilitate their own learning.

Google Classroom - sharing resources of different types

Teachers can share resources using a virtual learning environment (VLE) such as Google Classroom. Resources can include examples, prompts, vocabulary, quizzes for self-assessment and instructional videos. Organising resources by topics helps children access resources easily, at their own pace.

AI-generated content

Teachers can harness the power of AI tools like Google Gemini to offer students new ways of making choices about their learning.

Generative AI tools like Google Gemini give teachers ways to quicky create different types of content to address the needs and preferences of learners.

Teachers can ask generative AI tools to create different ways for children to learn and review content, from quizzes based on online videos, to audio content based on learning materials, to flashcards and differentiated texts. With careful consideration, teachers may choose to give children a choice over which method they choose to use for independent practise, allowing children to use personalised content as much as is needed to understand a topic or concept.

Self-directed learning

There are many online learning platforms and courses available for children to use, which can guide them through learning at their own pace and allow them to repeat topics as needed.

One of the most effective that I have experienced has been the coding courses on code.org. Once teachers have created a class and assigned a unit to a class, children can practise computing concepts at their own pace, supported by excellent videos and tasks.

Children often enjoy the freedom to work at their own pace and take charge of their learning using online platforms. Of course, use of such platforms will always be balanced with teacher input and interaction.

The courses on code.org are engaging and well designed and can give children agency over how they learn concepts in computing

Conclusion

As ever with technology, it is easy to become confused with so many tools available, wondering which to choose and whether the benefits justify the investments.

In this case, we always return to the issue at hand, the need for children to have more agency in their learning; to be active participants who value and understand what is happening to them at school.

Having established this, schools should feel confident in selecting one, or none of the types of technology mentioned above to offer students greater agency, with the benefits of agency that we have explored.