Going Global: The

The Barker Institute will celebrate its tenth anniversary next year, continuing to build on the School's intentional research-engaged mindset which emerged some fifteen years ago, bringing together and working with Barker’s rich intellectual resources to facilitate learning and growth. An exciting part of the Barker Institute’s story for this year has been the growth in active interest in its own research by educational practitioners, leaders, and researchers here in Australia and further afield. In April, through the generosity of the Barker Foundation, Dr Tim Scott was able to travel to Europe to help promote the Institute’s work, grow its global network, and present at a conference for leaders of international schools.

Shortly after his return, Dr Matthew Hill spoke with Dr Scott about his time away and on how the interest in close-to-practice educational research is a phenomenon not limited to Australia.

MH: Tim, it’s great to have you back. A month away working, most of it over the school holidays! Perhaps we could start with how you ended up travelling overseas for Barker and the Barker Institute?

TS: Thanks Matt. It is great to be back. Four weeks was definitely a long time, but it was an excellent trip. I was fortunate to be awarded a Barker Foundation Travelling Fellowship. I'm very thankful to the Barker Foundation for that. It allowed me to travel to Europe and visit schools, connect with a variety of people, and share about Barker and the work that we do at the Barker Institute.

MH: Your trip didn’t start off being a month long, though, did it? It grew from an initial invitation to visit a school in Switzerland.

TS: Yes. That’s right. Leysin American School in Switzerland (LAS) had invited me for a two week stay as one of their Visiting Scholars. LAS has an educational research centre very similar to the Barker

Institute so the opportunity to learn what they do and about the place of close-to-practice research in their context, and how it helps their teachers in their professional learning was very attractive. But the trip itinerary continued to grow. I was also fortunate enough to visit Black Forest Academy (BFA), an international school in the south of Germany, and to be invited to speak at the Educational Collaborative for International Schools (ECIS) Leadership Conference in Düsseldorf.

MH: That sounds interesting. First tell me some more about your time at the LAS research centre and school?

TS: I was able to observe classes, which is always a great form of professional learning for teachers – to see how others teach at other schools. I collaborated with LAS’ Director of Educational Research on one or two articles on educational research, as well as planned several future projects, including an exciting one where we are globally mapping other researchengaged schools, so practice can be shared and even lead to some combined projects.

MH: What drew you to visiting BFA, an international school?

TS: Their Head of School, Dr Philip Dow, wrote an important book on character education called Virtuous Minds about the development of intellectual character, which I know we both have appreciated. Character education is an important focus at Barker. So, with LAS being reasonably close to BFA, a visit to talk about character education and what that might look like was perfect!

Results and reporting on the Barker Journey Study, Year 3-6 from 2019-2022.

MH: And the conference at Düsseldorf? What was the purpose of your time there?

TS: To take to the global stage the Barker Institute’s flagship project, The Barker Journey Study, which gives voice to Generation Alpha through their schooling experience. There has been quite a lot of interest in that project from international school leaders over the past couple of years and ECIS was keen for their membership to hear about what we were doing with that project and how our findings might help school leaders in their work.

MH: What would be a main takeaway from your time away?

TS: The important place of close-to-practice research in informing the development of learning, teaching, and schooling, and how Barker is a leader in this area. As you know, the international community is inquiring of the Barker Institute not only regarding our research, but also in the methodologies that we use and how they might be applied to different schools and their contexts to help them serve their students even better. As much as there was some personal professional development with my time away, I found that I fulfilled a coaching and consultancy role in the use of close-to-practice educational research, consistent with our vision in the Barker Institute.