Infrastructure

 

The project as a whole was administered from Lancaster University in close collaboration with Barry Jones of the Cambridge University Faculty of Education, the British Council and the Centre International d'Etudes Pédagogiques. Apart from assisting in the placement of students in schools, the two governments' agencies and departments of education actively supported the project by providing the venues for workshops, promoting the project's findings and inviting the team's participation in the Franco-British video discussion forum Café Education organised in November 2005 on the occasion of the centenary celebrations of the Assistants programme.

There were three phases of the project: the setting up of the infrastructure and the preparation of the participants, the collection of the data and the final phase of analysis and research.

 

Involving LEAs and Academies

In order to secure the participation in the project of schools and regional educational authorities in France and England, we enlisted the support of the French Ministry of Education, the CIEP, The British Council and a number of universities on either side of the Channel.

Discussions were held with the French Inspectorate for Schools which committed itself to the project, together with the Direction des Relations Internationales et de la Cooperation (DRIC).

 

 

Agreement was also reached with the Recteurs of seven French académies - Nantes, Paris, Versailles, Créteil, Rennes, Poitiers and Toulouse. Schools participated either by order of the Rectorate or voluntarily.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

With the help of the British Council and Barry Jones of the Faculty of Education at Cambridge University , six local education authorities (LEAs) - Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire, Essex, Peterborough and Suffolk - agreed to take part in the project and invited schools in their regions to participate voluntarily.

 

Involving mentors/ responsables

In both French and English schools, we wanted the staff designated as mentors or responsables to attend at least two workshops, one before the start of the assistantship and one towards the end. Like the students, we also wanted the mentors or responsables to offer an account of their experience of the relationship, in writing or at the workshops, so that both points of view could be taken into account.

 

Selecting students

We made contact with three French universities with which Lancaster had Erasmus partnerships: Lyon III, Poitiers and Rennes II. We wrote to all prospective French language assistants from the three universities who had applied to go to England and, of these, 34 agreed to take part in the knowledge that they would consequently be posted to one of the participating LEAs.

The same principle was applied in selecting English students to go to France. Year abroad coordinators were contacted at the Universities of Cambridge, Durham, Exeter, Lancaster, Leeds and Warwick; students were notified and 37 came forward. The students identified themselves as PIC participants when they applied to the CIEP and British Council and were allocated accordingly to the appropriate académies .