Learning walks: making sense of school through prompts from the physical environment

ABSTRACT

This article explores the use of learning walks with children as a participatory research method to make sense of school experiences through prompts from the environment. The method was utilized as a tool to build relationships with the research participants and provide insight into their experiences of school. Seven children learning English as an additional language (EAL) participated in three learning walks and debriefing activities. Key concepts from Laura Lundy’s participation model (2007, 'Voice' is not enough: conceptualising Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, British educational research journal, 33 (6), 927–942. doi: 10.1080/01411920701657033) were utilized to elicit and amplify children’s voices. The learning walks offered space and time for dialogue outside of the classroom and pedagogic structure, an audience that informed the research and influence communicated back to teachers. Children’s experiences of school included accounts of language, belonging and relationships with peers and adults. Offering children the tools and conditions to explore and share their experiences leads to empowerment and a sense of being ‘seen’ within school contexts.

KEYWORDS:

• English as an additional language (EAL)
• participatory research methods
• learning walks
• school experiences
• voice
• walking methods

Introduction

The right to a voice and the opportunity to articulate school experiences are crucial within education contexts. However, too often children’s voices remain silenced or not fully understood because of adults’ overarching assumptions or interpretations that do not reflect the intended message (Messiou and Jones 2015). Research methods that are participatory and child-centred provide scope for children to share views by creating enabling and non-threatening spaces for reflection and knowledge construction. This approach to research demonstrates respect for participants and their unique knowledge whilst reducing hierarchical barriers between children and adult researchers (Harris et al. 2015). It also maintains the need to build trustworthy relationships with children as participants.

This article draws on material from the initial stages of a doctoral research project investigating the experiences and engagement of learners of English as an Additional Language (EAL) as they transition from primary to secondary school. The exploratory and participatory nature of the research called for openness to children’s ideas and a flexible approach to developing shared understandings of their school experiences. Learning walks were used as a preliminary research method where children were encouraged to reflect on their primary school experiences and were followed up with debriefing activities, observations and additional interviews with children and teachers. Seven children self-selected to participate in group or individual walks. Their choices were informed by existing friendships and individual preferences. The school environment served as a discussion prompt to elicit children’s views in collaboration with an adult researcher by providing a ‘space’ for conversation and an ‘audience’ to listen to their voices (Lundy 2007). In this paper, I draw upon Lundy’s (2007) model of participation as a framework to explore the learning walks’ potential to evidence children’s sense-making of school. I begin by situating the learning walks into the wider methodological literature before discussing the emphasis on children’s voices in research and education contexts.

Walking methods as a tool enabling participation

The learning walk as a data generation method is inspired by walking methods and participatory research as means to enable participation beyond traditional research methods. Walking methods are widely used in human geography and health, particularly where the focus is on studying local communities and participants’ relationships with physical spaces (e.g. Kussenbach 2003, Capriano 2009, Evans and Jones 2011, Garcia et al. 2012). Mobile methods are recognized as having the potential to elicit specific conversations that would not occur naturally (Mason 2018). Examples of such methods are ethnographic go-alongs (Kussenbach 2003, Capriano 2009), walking interviews (Clark and Emmel 2010), mobile methods (Ross et al. 2009, Evans and Jones 2011). At the core, these involve researchers accompanying participants while exploring their experiences by asking questions, listening and observing (Anderson and Jones 2009) and developing a better overall understanding of participants’ lived experiences of their context (O’Neill and Roberts 2019). Such movement makes visible interactions with the physical and social environment which in turn elicit unanticipated information through perceptions, spatial practices and social relationships within natural settings and social interactions (Capriano 2009).

Walking methods are highly flexible when combined with more traditional methods such as interviews and observations (O’Neill and Roberts 2019). Traditional methods’ limitations can be redressed by building rapport, increasing participation and gaining insight into the research site (Capriano 2009). The environment informs discussions leading to more dynamic conversations, and the method captures a multitude of perspectives contributing to knowledge construction (Garcia et al. 2012). Additionally, they offer opportunities to rethink power dynamics between researchers and researched. Researchers are typically in positions of power because of their methodological expertise and decision-making about research design and delivery, including its contents and location. Walking interviews enable participants to shift the power balance through their expertise of the setting where research is conducted (Garcia et al. 2012) and decision-making about where and how research activities take place. The emotional relationships that participants have with spaces in their environment and the dynamics of a group activity can thus be explored (Clark and Emmel 2010). Anderson and Jones (2009) argue that space and place in the context of walking methods make a difference to research in providing insights of lived experiences ‘in the moment’ instead of recordings or recollections of past events. This contributes to knowledge constructions and heightens focus on emotions and reactions in the moment.

Ross et al. (2009) emphasize the importance of mobile and walking methods when researchers are concerned with getting to know local contexts from a participant’s standpoint. The practice of walking while talking provides stimulus for reflections on present experiences while potentially uncovering significant incidents relevant to the research. The multimodality of such interactions enables researchers to grasp the world of participants in its context and in connection with their daily experiences. Through discussing the meaning of a participant-led walk, the final accounts are co-generated mixing inputs from both participants and researcher (Ross et al. 2009).

Participatory methodology is qualitative in nature with specific research procedures employed to generate and interpret data (Bergold and Thomas 2012, O’Neill and Roberts 2019). Commonly utilized are non-traditional methods that position participants as central and active in generating knowledge about their specific contexts (Åkerström and Brunnberg 2012, Harris et al. 2015, Wiederhold 2015, Brown 2022). Participants thus become involved in the construction and co-construction of knowledge about their experiences, practice and positioning. At the core are their voices and lived experiences, alongside their active contribution in shaping the research design and reporting.

Children’s participation in research

Involving children in research foregrounds their right to a voice according to Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) (UN 1989). It encourages children to inform decision-making by emphasizing their competence on the issues that are researched and facilitating their voice through appropriate means of engagement (Lundy 2007). Adults oftentimes assume competency in the world of children because of their positions of power and intentions to safeguard children’s best interest (Kellett 2014). As a result, research with children claiming to provide an insider understanding of children’s experiences and views can still remain shaped through the adult gaze (Punch 2002). Within educational contexts, adults and children occupy different hierarchically organized positions (Messiou and Jones 2015), and so they do not share the same perceptions of context and experience. Participatory research can thus redress the power imbalance in exemplifying children’s voices and providing a safe space to express views (Bergold and Thomas 2012, Cassidy et al. 2019, Brown 2022) that are taken seriously and have an impact (Lundy 2007).

Lundy (2007) posits that to implement children’s right to share their views and impact decision-making, four conditions, namely space, voice, audience and influence, must be considered and enacted in practice. Space and voice are interrelated, whereby space relates to the opportunity to actively express a view in a safe and inclusive environment, and voice relates to facilitating children’s expressions through appropriate means. Audience refers to the listening skills employed to tune into what is shared by children, while influence places emphasis on actioning children’s views as appropriate. Lundy continues that ‘children’s perspectives should be viewed as an integral part of school discourse’ (2007, p. 942). Adopting this stance in methodological terms, calls for the use of research methods that are flexible, creative and aligned with children’s modes of expressions, including non-verbal cues. Findings are to be shared beyond the research space in order to exemplify the voices of children and achieve a degree of influence. As a research method, learning walks hold potential to uncover new levels of understanding of children’s experiences in school contexts.

In education contexts, learning walks are a tool for school monitoring, improvement and continuous professional development processes by sharing best practice beyond the immediate space of the classroom (Baker and King 2013), rather than a research method. The aims of such walks are to provide insights into teaching practice with observers spending snippets of time in places of learning within a setting, to generate data and reflect on the learning that has occurred (DfES 2007). A learning walk thus provides snapshots of classroom practice and school culture as an opportunity to guide and further develop the learning conversations of teachers through ideas from different departments and classrooms. They are also used in Ofsted inspections (Ofsted 2018, 2023). In this context, learning walks are a highly structured exercise of evidence gathering and providing feedback to the adults involved in the observations without directly engaging with children’s experiences or voices. As an alternative, involving children in research by conducting learning walks could offer different perspectives on practice and school culture and shift power dynamics. Ainscow et al. (2012) used learning walks as a research method to find out about students’ perceptions of learning and experiences at school. Children led walks around the school and set the direction of discussion. These snapshot discussions were followed by focus groups to explore the topics in depth.

In this project, learning walks were used as a research method to explore children’s perspectives within a school in combination with prolonged researcher involvement over the course of nine months and additional methods to generate data both with children and adults. Shifting the focus on children as ‘experts’ (Hammersley 2017) of their school environment was a powerful way to enable participation and position children as active participants in social processes (Mazzoni and Harcourt 2014). This project was developed around working ‘with’ the children to shape the research by facilitating children’s right to a voice through appropriate methods and developing implications for practice based on the findings (Kellett 2014). This approach aligns with Lundy’s (2007) four conditions: voice, space, audience and influence. Positioning children as agents capable of shaping the research by choosing the methods, activities and their mode of participation led to high, yet specific to individuals, levels of engagement.

Research design

A case study design involved nine months of researching a Year 6 class (10–11 years old) in a primary school in a socially and economically diverse urban area in North West England and into their new secondary schools the following academic year. The class almost exclusively comprised of children learning EAL who used at least two languages consistently – one or more languages to communicate at home and English at school, sometimes mixing languages with their peers. Researching with children at different stages of learning English (Table 1) required adjustments by moving away from reliance on verbal language and communication in an abstract conversational context. The Bell Foundation’s Levels of Proficiency in English guidance (2018) is used as a broad guide to illustrate children’s academic proficiency in English. Hessel and Murphy (2019) emphasize that children learning EAL appear to have smaller vocabulary range and depth in the language being learned. This view is further compounded by Evans et al. (2019) who argue that progression in learning a new language is non-linear whereby children learning EAL utilize direct speech that represents concrete engagement with the focus topics. I opted for learning walks instead of interviews to provide concrete contexts to the discussions with children. School spaces served as physical prompts within the environment that supported our conversations. These materialized as further opportunities for non-verbal expression related to the spaces and objects explored, for example by capturing silences, emotions and new ideas.

Table 1. Sample characteristics.

	Background	Years in England	Years in research school	Languages spoken	English level (Bell Foundation 2018)	Learning walk
Ayanna	Somali born in Sweden	7	3	Somali, English, Swedish	Competent (band D)	Group 1
Decca	Somali	2.5	2.5	Somali, Amharic, English	Developing competence (band C)	Group 2
Jamilla	Somali, lived in Germany and the Netherlands	8	7	Somali, English, Dutch, German	Competent (band D)	Group 1
Naadiyo	Somali, lived in the Netherlands	3	3	Somali, Dutch, English	Developing competence (band C)	Group 1
Nafisa	Somali born in Kenya	8	8	Swahili, English	Fluent (band E)	Group 2
Seyhan	Pakistani	2	3 weeks	Urdu, Arabic, English	Early acquisition stage (band B)	Individual
Subira	Somali, born in Kenya	9	8	Swahili, English	Fluent (band E)	Group 2

Participants

Seven children took part in one individual and two group learning walks lasting between 15 and 30 min.

The children self-selected to participate in the learning walks and decided whether to do so individually or in a group with their friends. Three walks took place at the initial stages of fieldwork to build a rapport and explore children’s primary school experiences. To involve children in decision-making and ensure participation (Shier 2001), I shared the research plans so that they could define their role and develop ownership of the project, including how to engage with the different research methods. This approach demonstrated an interest in the children and acknowledgement of their competence in sharing their views.

Procedures

The walks were informal and flexible to accommodate unplanned events and discussions (O’Neill and Roberts 2019). They fostered a greater sense of ownership by the children who planned and directed the walks. A clear objective to focus on children’s experiences prevented the walks becoming an aimless wander or a disruption for others. Children were given the following instructions:

I am interested in getting to know you and your school, so I would like you to take me on a tour of the building. I would like to see where you enjoy being. You can show me places where you don’t go as often or never go. We can stop and talk anywhere you choose, and we can look at displays or classrooms which are not used so we don’t disturb lessons.

Children’s familiarity with the space prompted reflections enabling me to get to know the environment and participants and consequently deepen understanding through follow-up research engagement (O’Neill and Roberts 2019). Building on the idea of co-creating meaning (Ross et al. 2009), the learning walks provided opportunities for supported talk by exploring displays, photographs, corridors, outdoor spaces and specific classrooms that were not occupied. This took place outside of the classroom deliberately to avoiding the structuring context of classroom-based activities and interactions with adults (Trell and van Hoven 2012). The children guided the walks and conversations to specific classrooms, corridors, the playground, while pointing at objects of importance such as students’ work, awards, photos.

The discussions were recorded as fieldnotes which were expanded into detailed accounts immediately afterwards. Later, these accounts were typed up, completed with as much detail as possible, and annotated to link with the rest of the data (classroom and playground observations, children and teacher interviews). Additional questions arising from the walks were highlighted for later exploration. Following each walk, the children took part in debriefing activities collating an overview of the walk and places visited, and journaling activities, such as creating timelines of their journeys, maps of how they navigated their linguistic diversity, and drawings of school, classrooms, friends. Continuing work in the learning journals, they crafted follow-up stories about themselves as verbal narratives and drawings.

Limitations of walking in school spaces

Unlike mobile methods within communities, walking in school spaces meant that access was limited to the school premises during the school day and expectations of no disruptions to other students. Finding time in a structured environment was facilitated by choosing a relaxed period of the school year in the summer term after the formal assessments had taken place. The walks and follow-up discussions were completed in the afternoons so that participants did not miss core teaching. The children were asked to decide whether they wanted to participate as they would miss other activities taking place in that time. Some children were very eager to participate, perhaps attracted by the novelty and perceived fun (Mason 2018) or because of my ‘least adult role’ (Clark and Moss 2011, p. 77), which required careful balancing of who takes part and for how long.

Practically, the learning walks posed challenges around recording and confidentiality. Audio recording was not possible due to the impact of background noise and accidentally recording others’ conversations. The fieldnotes preparation from the walks was a time consuming and laborious process, however what emerged from it were co-constructed accounts representing both children’s and researcher’s input and interpretation.

Ethics

Ethical clearance was secured through the university. In line with BERA’s ethical guidelines (2018) informed consent was obtained from all parents and the headteacher. Children’s written consent was also sought through child-friendly information and consent forms. Willingness to participate was checked at different stages to ensure that participants were aware of their right to withdraw. All names of children, teachers and schools are pseudonyms.

Data analysis

Data from the three learning walks, follow-up discussions, learning journals, teacher interviews were organized and coded while developing a set of themes (Miles et al. 2014). The emergent themes related to children’s sense of identity and belonging; route into England; friendships; experiences and understandings of the school environment and its purpose; relationships with peers and adults in the school, and are reported elsewhere (Kaneva 2015). Here data from the learning walks has been further analyzed in light of Lundy’s (2007) participation model to exemplify how the method enabled a focus on children’s voices through consideration of voice, space, audience and influence.

Findings: children’s walking encounters within school

The learning walks were a method to ease the children into the research and to establish our working relationship. They eagerly led each walk, following different routes and signposting to spaces, places and objects of significance. It was evident that their emotions were influenced by the physical environment (O’Neill and Roberts 2019) as approaching certain areas made them visibly excited or sad, prompting them to share stories. I use data from the learning walks to illustrate in action the concepts of space, voice, audience and influence (Lundy 2007) as means of evaluating the potential of learning walks to encourage and document the voices of children within research. The concepts are discussed in pairs in recognition of their interconnected nature in understanding children’s voices.

Space and voice: children’s introductions and positioning

During the learning walks children enjoyed talking about themselves and their backgrounds prompted by the environment. Upon seeing her image in the pictures lining the corridor walls, Jamilla began introducing herself in the third person:

‘This is Jamilla, a girl in Year 6. Her favourite food is pizza and her favourite drink is fizzy drinks.’

‘This is you!’ interjected Naadiyo.

‘I erm … love swimming … and basketball. Because I’m really good at them both!’ (Jamilla)

She shared her likes which shifted her account from third to first person expression. By talking about the person in the picture, rather than herself, Jamilla initially detached herself from the explanation, then re-inserted herself when talking about activities that excited her. Here the environment and method offered a space for introductions. Walking with me within the school, Jamilla incorporated commonplace activities, such as class swimming lessons and basketball on the playground, into her introduction.

In another walk, Seyhan introduced herself focusing on language:

I am from Pakistan and in Pakistan I can speak Urdu with my whole family and some English because in our country we should teach some English. Our teacher will teach us English very well so I can speak Urdu in here with my sister and my friends. (Seyhan)

Seyhan was new to the school and in the early stages of learning English (Bell Foundation 2018). She did not have a language in common with classmates. She continued:

[…] in England we should not forget our language.. because that’s very important for us. (Seyhan)

Seyhan’s voice in this excerpt is evident; she states the importance of language in establishing her background and identity. The focus on ‘us’ nods towards her belonging to a wider group of children sharing a background and a language, although none were within her class. The learning walk thus provides a space to capture Seyhan’s voice about belonging and the importance of language.

‘These are words in my language’, Seyhan points to a picture display of classroom objects and words printed in different languages attached to the wall. ‘It’s really difficult for you when you come. This helps us to know what to say to classmates, like hello, table, books.’ (Seyhan)

Representing children’s languages within school environments is a commonplace approach to literacy development, celebrating children’s diversity and heritage (Bailey and Sowden 2021). The primary focus in the classroom is to support children to learn English in order to access the curriculum. Yet, Seyhan’s comments about the difficulties for children who are new to the school, country and language expose her personal experience of the tension between adapting to the school through knowing the language and ‘school vocabulary’ and developing a sense of belonging. ‘When you come’ indicates the need for relationships in addition to learning a language as language alone does not lead to feelings of belonging. The research, specifically the learning walks, created a space for Seyhan to reflect on her experiences. She voices tensions around multilingualism, belonging and school experiences for children who are new to the school. As a very recent arrival, she had not had any prior opportunities to share her experiences of school.

Language was significant in other instances of how children identified themselves and informed their school experiences. Subira also reflected on navigating multiple languages:

I speak English in school, but with my friend Nafisa I use some Swahili words. (Subira)

Similarly to Seyhan, Subira acknowledges the importance of learning English while maintaining home languages to affirm identity. This is a widely used strategy by EAL learners and their families (Crick 2023). Our learning walk discussions opened up a space to learn about the children’s everyday experiences of managing multiple languages and school. These are conversations that do not naturally emerge in pedagogic contexts, yet they offer insight into how children from diverse backgrounds navigate school and balance their multiple identities and belonging.

Seyhan continued to share her emergent understanding of the school. It became apparent that she was actively trying to make sense of it through the physical environment:

‘There’s some more interesting things in my class that I want to show you!’, she leads me into her classroom to a display divided into rows, each beginning with a picture of a planet next to labels listing children’s names. Seyhan explains, ‘Children who are the best in literacy and numeracy get their names on there’. When I ask why her name is not there, she explains she has been at the school for just two weeks and this board is ‘from before’. (Seyhan)

On the face of it, Seyhan discusses her understanding of ability grouping in the classroom prompted by my interest in her experiences. She willingly takes the opportunity offered by the research to show me places and objects of interest and significance. The environment and questions about it, while we walk in the school building, create the space needed for discussion and reflection on her experiences. This enables her voice to inform the experiences that are shared. The child’s own sense-making is evident in the explanation of the display’s purpose and her own positioning in relation to the practice in saying the display is ‘from before’ she joined the class. In this instance, with a very new student, the learning walk provided further insight into school experiences from the child’s point of view.

Audience and influence: being ‘seen’

The exchange about the classroom display prompted a rethink of the link between children’s experiences and teachers’ understandings, even awareness, of these. Following the learning walk with Seyhan, further clarification was sought from the class teacher:

They are just from my group, that’s just my way of grouping children according to their ability so that will determine how I differentiate the work […] She’s only been here a couple of weeks, so she’s not been involved in any of that at all. (Mrs Fay)

This enhanced my understandings of Seyhan’s view of her environment and how she had positioned herself and other children in the class. She tries to make sense of a teaching approach that she has not experienced herself due to her recent arrival, which affirms lack of belonging, yet demonstrates her emerging understanding of ability groups. Sharing our conversation with the class teacher provided further audience, in addition to the research. The teacher found it useful to know what sense children make of displays around the classroom, even more so when they had been created with a different purpose. She drew conclusions about Seyhan’s understanding reflecting on how ‘she’s done it’ by utilizing her immediate peer group and perceived status of children in the class. Consequently, the teacher also had an opportunity to reflect on how she used displays, who was involved and to what extent in order to create learning spaces where everyone belongs. Relating to Lundy’s participation model (2007), this reflection illustrates the influence of Seyhan’s voice documented in our earlier discussion.

On a different occasion, walking past a display of framed headshot drawings lined on the wall of a staircase, Decca explained:

These are all the children in our class, but some have now left. (Decca)

Children joining and leaving the school was a regular occurrence. This state of flux experienced by children learning EAL was embedded in the ways they perceived their own journeys of arriving at the school at different times, and the temporality of relationships with peers and adults. The learning walk provided an audience for Decca’s experiences of a school where children were constantly on the move. Similar comments were made about teachers in another walk. On entering what was their classroom the previous year, children went quiet. Naadiyo explained:

Miss Trip was pregnant and she left to have her baby. Miss Fay [current teacher] is getting married this summer and then she will have a baby too. All the good teachers leave us! (Naadiyo)

Jamilla joined in:

I don’t like some teachers but I like some too but all the teachers that I like got to leave the school. (Jamilla)

She explained further:

I like Miss Fay because she really tries hard to help us learn more because I was at her numeracy set and I knew nothing when I first started at the set but when she tries and teach me, teaching me all the day I became higher and higher and higher so now I’m proud of my level in numeracy. (Jamilla)

The physical environment prompted the discussion about former and current teachers, which given an audience, led to a discussion about understandings of ‘good teachers’ as those who set clear boundaries but remain caring and attentive to the needs of individuals (Bhatti 2007). Children’s perception was that ‘good teachers’ leave. This was key in understanding children’s experiences beyond the classroom and how different events impacted their schooling.

I would like you to know that … I like kind teachers, I don’t like mean teachers for shouting at me for no reason. (Naadiyo)

The children valued consistency and the security of a constant teaching team and presence in their educational journeys. They developed relationships with individual teachers that influenced their educational experiences positively or negatively. The events of teachers leaving emerged to have a major impact for children who already had unstable educational experiences due to their own migration journeys. The research thus provided an audience for children’s experiences as an opportunity to be ‘seen’ by focusing on non-pedagogic contexts and interactions. A next step is to consider how such experiences and children’s voices can inform wider school practices around EAL, settling in and belonging, to increase the influence of the discussions more widely and beyond the context of this research.

Discussion

The learning walks enabled children to share experiences of their school by walking and exploring familiar spaces with an outsider researcher. Pre-existing friendships informed the choice of group or individual walks, highlighting the different status of children who were new and the belonging of those who had been in the school longer. The key concepts from Lundy’s participation model (2007), namely space, voice, audience and influence, were utilized to illustrate the potential of the method to elicit and amplify children’s voices through prompts from the school environment.

Given children’s different English language competency levels, the learning walks were intended as an enabling method to utilize prompts from the environment and create spaces for shared talk. No other languages than English were used during the walks. However, they exhibited further potential in utilizing cues from the environment to explore feelings not routinely considered in relation to children’s school experiences. The learning walks offered space and time for dialogue outside of the classroom, had an audience that informed the research and influence being communicated back to teachers. Reflecting on the method, the four conditions to enable children’s voices to be heard were in place, which aided me as a researcher to understand their lived experiences through direct engagement with interests, experiences and routines. It transpired that children experience and make sense of their school through the environment in unanticipated ways (Kussenbach 2003). The environment and objects within it led to unique insights that may not have emerged otherwise. For example, past and present experiences were shared. This included a focus on children introducing themselves here and now and recollections of their past experiences of settling in, language use, relationships with friends and teachers. The consequent focus on ‘being seen’ within the school illustrated in children’s perceptions of relationships with teachers, led to follow-up explorations of their dispositions towards school beyond classroom teaching and learning and an audience through the research.

The ‘here’ and ‘now’ focus (Ross et al. 2009) of the method offered space for reflection where children explored the perceived familiarity of the school context. Having the opportunity to stop, think, explain and reflect on daily practices and memories, they became engaged in a process of making the familiar unfamiliar (Delamont 2002) to generate fresh understandings, especially in the case of children who were new. Their voices thus informed better understanding of the shared experiences that were prompted through the school environment. Children worked out aspects of their context through prior knowledge and observation of who does what – a practical way of making sense of a new context, and its consequences when intentions were misunderstood, or actions and actors not noticed. This knowledge was utilized in the later stages of the study when children were developing and interpreting new relationships in their schooling, further translating audience and influence in the context of research practice.

Children felt a sense of belonging within the school. While they experienced categorization related to gender, ethnic background (Einarsdottir et al. 2022) and ability, among other categories, they applied the same categories to position themselves in the school environment and their relationships. For example, friendships spanned across similar ethnic and cultural backgrounds, and coincidentally, ability groupings. Friendships were an important factor in determining lived experiences and associations, as well as relationships with past and present teachers. The social roles of teachers beyond classroom learning were emphasized, illustrating that children liked ‘kind’ teachers with firm but fair boundaries (Bhatti 2007). This exemplifies the importance of supportive relationships that go beyond the curriculum and school routines. Building an understanding of children’s wider school experiences can be achieved by listening to their voices to support their journeys into, within and between school contexts.

In this project, I consciously adopted the ‘least adult role’ (Clark and Moss 2011, p. 77) aiming to obtain a child-like perspective of the school. To achieve this, I shared control over the direction and content of the walks with the children which led to involvement in decision-making and redressing of the power dynamics between researcher and researched. Children’s agency was enacted by being able to guide the walk and inform the discussions. They shifted the focus away from schools’ and teachers’ pedagogic function into a more holistic perspective capturing the complexity of social relations and belonging in school contexts. In classrooms, the focus on the curriculum and academic learning does not allow such social relations and experiences to emerge. However, they inform children’s wider experiences and should be taken into consideration.

This marked a move away from hearing children talk about their experiences, to a shared experience of the school. I experienced the school myself through the environment, the conversations initiated by the children and the feelings they shared. I also shared contextual positioning as a newcomer and while it is doubtful that an adult can truly experience the world as a child again, this method brought me as close as possible.

In terms of methodological advances, using the school environment as a prompt provided space, visibility and an audience for the children in non-pedagogic circumstances. This was useful in the research but has greater potential in relation to school practice. Teachers have access to a wealth of knowledge about the children they teach if they can invest time and curiosity in capturing and understanding wider school experiences. This knowledge, in turn, can inform classroom practice related to children, and those learning EAL in particular, through encouraging positive relationships with both peers and adults. Many children learning EAL have disrupted educational journeys resulting from frequent moves between countries or cities. Facilitating their voice and agency in sharing such experiences and recognizing their impact on identity and belonging is an opportunity to listen and ‘see’ the child and their world.

Learning while walking: final thoughts

The learning walks provided rich information about the children, their understanding of and experiences at school. They proved to be an effective tool in accessing children’s views in informal, yet enabling ways. The reliance on prompts from the environment through spaces, rooms, objects and non-verbal cues, uncovered unexpected focus on children’s relationships and identity in school. These prompts were beneficial for all children, especially those not confident with English. The ownership demonstrated by the children while walking and guiding the research through the school was remarkable, and so was their openness about both positive and negative experiences. The learning walks enabled children’s stories to emerge in context and made the conversations specific and relevant with no sense of demand for contributions. In the context of my wider doctoral study, the learning walks led to a more reflexive, flexible and enabling research with children’s input into both process and outcomes.

Researching children’s experiences of school has powerful implications for school practice and staff, not least because of the insights into what children see as important in their educational journeys (Kaneva 2015). Communicating children’s experiences back to their teachers creates a shared understanding and acknowledgement that assumptions are not an accurate representation of how children experience school, especially as teachers’ focus reflects the pedagogic focus of schooling. Offering children the tools and conditions to explore and share their experiences, such as space, voice, audience and influence (Lundy 2007), leads to empowerment and a sense of being ‘seen’. Including children in the design and conduct of research not only increases their confidence by being positioned as experts, but also enables researchers to reflect on the relationships and power dynamics with participants (Shier 2001). Facilitating activities and supportive spaces that allow for children’s expression is crucial for ‘seeing’ with children and empowering their voices to be acted upon. The potential of learning walks to open up such discussions emphasizes the need for researchers and schools to engage with children’s experiences, understanding and voice.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council [award number ES/J500094/1].