Over the past 10 years, there has been a drive towards “opening up” education. Between 2017 and 2020 the EU project Open Schools for Open Societies (OSOS) contributed to this direction by campaigning for open schooling across Europe involving over 1000 schools. However, much to the success of this project, as noted by Bloomfield Science Museum Jerusalem, one of the partners in OSOS, it became clear that there was something missing. Schools shared interest but sought materials, content and clear guidance on open schooling and how “opening up” could work in practice.
For the past year Make it Open has been working on a series of information packs, that as one of the authors states, "is designed to speak to new entrants as well as those who have experience with Open Schooling". The information packs were created using service design, which is a methodology that respects users as experts in their own experience and equal contributors to the design process, encouraging user ideas, needs and concerns to flow easily. In total, 60 people from teachers, policymakers, local governments to parents across 5 countries were involved in this process. This was done to ensure these packs were grounded in reality. The goals of these packs are threefold:
- Clarity: Provides clarity on what open schooling is, the benefits it can bring, and what open schooling requires
- Accessibility: Attempts to provide an easy entry point for new and experienced teachers, making open schooling more accessible
- Stimulate: Aims to stimulate interest in open schooling by providing a structured framework on how one can get into open schooling from finding resources, getting interest from leadership to how you can evaluate and share your journey.
The main intent here is to provide a starting point for new and experienced teachers to delve into the practice of open schooling, giving schools a scaffold to “open up”.
The open schooling information packs can be downloaded here.