Services

Services

Group 8 has as its mission to assist in the transformation of our organisations (public and private) to support the emergence of a society based around the productive use of knowledge. 

In meeting this mission, we have developed a range of programs shaped to engage schools and educational authorities, not-for-profit (third sector) and corporate organisations in substantive and sustainable positive change. 

In the background to the development of our work, Group 8 has a substantial body of research around student engagement achieved through the agency of classroom teachers. When combined with our education systems’ current focus on creating engagement through interesting and stimulating content this gives an environment ideal for the full range of higher order learning, an ideal environment in which our children can thrive (see the Appendix for an overview of this research in context). 

However, research indicates that only about 10% of teachers in secondary schools fully engage students in this way today, these teachers are often outstanding in their performance. Thus there is considerable scope to create sustainable improvement in student outcomes through shifting the attitudes and behaviours of the majority of teachers to those attitudes and behaviours that fully engage students. 

Further action research has shown that school culture has a major influence on teachers’ ability to engage students, on the attitudes and behaviours that they hold in the classroom. Changing a school’s culture becomes a central means of achieving sustainable improvement. 
This research also highlights the importance of a school having an over-riding moral concern and a culture based on the attitudes and behaviours consistent with this concern – a learning or invitational culture. This work highlights that senior leaders – through the exercise of leadership – have the greatest effect in changing a school’s culture. 

Our work has now broadened to include leadership of any organisation, the principles of our core research underpinning the universality of its application.