Abstract
The article describes the development of a project-based approach to learning in seven Scottish prisons. It argues that the project-based approach is ideally suited to prison education due to its flexibility and ability to enrich the relatively narrow prison curriculum and create meaningful links with wider society, reducing the isolation of prisoners. The approach also empowers staff and encourages interdisciplinary working. The project-based approach is well placed to support and reinforce desistance-based practice in education and fits well with both the new Scottish Prison Service strategy, Unlocking Potential, Transforming Lives and with Scottish Government's education policy, Curriculum for Excellence.
Highlights
The article describes the development of a project-based approach to learning in seven Scottish prisons
The impact of Inspiring Change demonstrated that the arts had a significant role to play in raising aspirations and enlivening the curriculum, and created an atmosphere conducive to collaborative working and new ideas, encouraging and reinforcing a creative approach to the curriculum: We present in what follows numerous examples of prisoners enthusiastically embracing the challenges that Inspiring Change programme offered them, acquiring new skills and developing an appetite for learning, discovering talents of which they and others had previously had little inkling and perhaps most significantly, reflecting on their past behaviour, future possibilities and their relationships with their families and others. (Anderson et al, 2011: 7)
Learners reported feeling that they were all ‘tarred with the same brush’, perceived to be violent/thuggish.To engage with this, we propose a creative exchange between a set of learners in the prison and a set of learners at Glasgow School of Art (GSA). (GSA student, project proposal for HMP Glenochil)
Summary
The article describes the development of a project-based approach to learning in seven Scottish prisons. It argues that the project-based approach is ideally suited to prison education due to its flexibility and ability to enrich the relatively narrow prison curriculum and create meaningful links with wider society, reducing the isolation of prisoners. The approach empowers staff and encourages interdisciplinary working.The project-based approach is well placed to support and reinforce desistance-based practice in education and fits well with both the new Scottish Prison Service strategy, Unlocking Potential,Transforming Lives and with Scottish Government’s education policy, Curriculum for Excellence
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
