ABSTRACT
Chris Argyris and Donald Schön’s (1978) concept of ‘double-loop learning’ offered us a lens through which to view the process of learning at school level, as we indicated in Chapter 2. Through ongoing critical inquiry, they argue, an organisation can develop new ways of thinking about the quality of its members and the nature of individual and shared learning. Applying this concept to our study, it implied an ability and disposition on the part of school staff to stand back from the conduct of classroom learning in order to reflect more deeply on their experiences, to learn more about themselves, individually as well as collectively, through the activities in which they were participating (see Box 4.1). John MacBeath (2006) argues that while this might be characterised as a form of self-evaluation, it goes beyond the formulaic, single-loop approach, advocated by the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted), for example.
