School group view over the fence

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The school network Blick über den Zaun (abbreviation BüZ) is a school network in Germany. The association of reform pedagogical schools was founded in 1989. The aim of the association is to change the school from “inside” and “below”. Around 130 schools are currently represented in 16 working groups, whose educational work is based on a “model of good school” and on jointly developed standards.

History and structure

The school association was founded on November 9, 1989. The office of the school association 'Blick über den Zaun' was set up in 2008 (spokesman: Hans Brügelmann , office: Axel Backhaus). With its current headquarters at the University of Hamburg (school pedagogy department; Prof. Dr. Dagmar Killus), the office coordinates the network and helps expand it. The office is managed by Dr. Franziska Carl.

Today the association works with the following structure:

  • Central are the working groups of eight to ten schools each, which visit each other twice a year ( peer reviews ).
  • A coordination group made up of the speakers from the working groups is responsible for the further development of the school network.
  • A spokesperson team represents the school association internally and externally. The team currently consists of four people.
  • The schools in the school association are members of the non-profit association based in Siegen, “Schulverbund Blick über den Zaun e. V. ". They largely finance the activities of the BüZ themselves with their membership fees. Sponsors (e.g. the Robert Bosch Foundation, the Heidehof Foundation or the Montag Foundations) provided support in setting up the workplace, financing conferences and other projects.

Forms of work

The central working form of the 'look over the fence' is mutual school visits ( peer reviews ) as a special method of school evaluation . School visits are organized twice a year within the currently 15 working groups, each with eight to ten schools. One school in the working group is attended by two people from each of the other schools in the working group. These come from the school management and other staff. The visitors see themselves as critical friends who “look over the fence” and communicate at eye level about what they have seen. For the visits, the association has established a procedure in which presentations, as well as observations and discussion groups find their place. The visits lead to several feedback rounds (to the teachers visited, the school management and the school public). The aim is to make a contribution to school development at all participating schools through mutual stimulation, encouragement and support . The schools visited receive direct feedback and thus impulses for further work; the visiting schools take ideas with them from the visiting schools and contribute suggestions to their own school through reports on the visits. This form of external evaluation and suggestion for further school development is therefore also an alternative to the state school inspection of many state authorities.

Every two or three years, the school association holds meetings that bring together all member schools or their representatives. These conferences serve the purpose of internal understanding and advice on future strategic direction. The appeal, the mission statement and the standards were adopted at previous meetings. Experts are invited to the conferences, which each have an area of ​​the standards on the topic, who provide impetus for the further development of the school network. Workshops, which are usually offered by colleagues from the member schools themselves, provide a lively exchange of experiences about the respective school practice. Time is always reserved for discussions between the individual working groups.

As an intermediate level between the school visits and the conferences, the school association "Blick über den Zaun" offers the educational workshop "Individualization". In five training events lasting several days, three to four representatives from each school work together to develop individualized lessons. They try out the ideas and materials between the individual modules in their own school and allow the findings from these testing phases to flow into the next module. So far, five educational workshops have taken place, in which 40 schools have already participated.

Principles

The school association has developed its own standards. These process or input standards describe the image of a good school. At the same time, there are open standards that enable different implementations. They make demands on three levels: this is how standards for concrete educational action are described, but also, at the same time and always related to one another, those for the school and systemic framework conditions. The standards are also the basis and common basis for understanding when attending school. They are based on a mission statement, which is based on four basic convictions. These relate to the recognition of the individuality of the individual child (“doing justice to the individual”), the need to enable “different learning”, the will to see “school as a community” (living and learning democracy) as well as the insight of one “School as a learning institution” (reforms “from within” and “from below”).

Members

The school association currently has around 130 member schools. These include both “well-known” schools and those that have set out to develop themselves. The working groups are deliberately made up of heterogeneous groups: Free schools (e.g. Montessori , Walddorf , Freinet , Jenaplan ) work together with state-sponsored schools as well as schools of different school types and levels (e.g. high schools, comprehensive schools, elementary schools). The largest school has around 1,800 students, while the smallest school has far fewer than 100 students. The schools come from almost all federal states as well as from Switzerland. Numerous member schools have successfully participated in the German School Prize , have been nominated or have been awarded (main) prizes.

Selection of members

literature

  • Backhaus, A./Kroeger H. / 2018: School association, view over the fence '- Support through the cooperation of critical friends. In: Maren Gronert, Alban Schraut: Handbuch Vereine der Reformpädagogik , Bibliotheca Academica Pedagogik, Volume 13, Ergon, 2018, ISBN 978-3956504594 , pages 537 to 548, limited preview in the Google book search
  • Heike Papenfuss: There is another way to learn - reform schools are the better alternative . 1st edition. Patmos, Düsseldorf 2009, ISBN 978-3-491-40147-1 , school association "View over the fence": School is our business - an appeal to the public. Declaration by Hofgeismar (November 14, 2006), p. 185-193 .

Publications (selection)

  • Looking over the fence: schools learn from schools; Suggestions for the planning and organizational design of peer reviews by critical friends . 2009.
  • Looking over the fence: What is a good school ?: Mission statement and standards . School network look over the fence, 2007.
  • Annemarie von der Groeben: We want to go to school! An educational pamphlet , 2010, Budrich Verlag.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Axel Backhaus, Hans Kroeger: School association, view over the fence '- support through the cooperation of critical friends . In: Maren Gronert, Alban Schraut (Hrsg.): Handbook of associations of reform pedagogy . Reform pedagogical associations working supraregional as well as educational development initiative institutions with bridging function in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, South Tyrol and Liechtenstein (=  Bibliotheca Academica . Pedagogy, No. 13 ). 1st edition. Ergon Verlag, Baden-Baden 2018, ISBN 978-3-95650-459-4 , pp. 537-548 . limited preview in Google Book search
  2. ↑ School group view over the fence »The schools of the BüZ. Retrieved on September 19, 2019 (German).
  3. ↑ http://www.blickueberdenzaun.de/?page_id=529

Web links