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The Cambridge Primary Review Research Surveys is the outcome of the Cambridge Primary Review – England's biggest enquiry into primary education for over forty years. Fully independent of government, it was launched in 2006 to investigate the condition and future of primary education at a time of change and uncertainty and after two decades of almost uninterrupted reform. Ranging over ten broad themes and drawing on a vast array of evidence, the Review published thiry-one interim reports, including twenty-eight surveys of published research, provoking media headlines and public debate, before presenting its final report and recommendations. This book brings together the twenty-eight research surveys, specially commissioned from sixty-five leading academics in the areas under scrutiny and now revised and updated, to create what is probably the most comprehensive overview and evaluation of research in primary education yet published. A particular feature is the prominence given to international and comparative perspectives. With an introduction from Robin Alexander, the Review's director, the book is divided into eight sections, covering: children's lives and voices: school, home and community children's development, learning, diversity and needs aims, values and contexts for primary education the structure and content of primary education outcomes, standards and assessment in primary education teaching in primary schools: structures and processes teaching in primary schools: training, development and workforce reform policy frameworks: governance, funding, reform and quality assurance. The Cambridge Primary Review Research Surveys is an essential reference tool for professionals, researchers, students and policy-makers working in the fields of early years, primary and secondary education.

Why do so many pupils in Years 7, 8 and 9 ′switch off′ and make very little progress in the core subjects such as English and mathematics? What can teachers and schools do to improve pupils′ attitudes and motivation? Maurice Galton and his team have collected examples from various schools of what works in re-energising demotivated pupils. This book presents practical advice and strategies for improving lower secondary school classrooms, ranging from reducing class size, to innovative induction programmes emphasising the development of core study skills, and developing effective procedures to train pupils to cooperate rather than confront each other during lessons. Chapters cover: - Making a Good Start to Secondary Education. - Creating a Cooperative Classroom Climate - Improving Communication between Pupils and Teachers - Why are some classrooms more successful? - How can school structures influence positive relationships? The book is a much-needed resource for all secondary teachers, and is particularly useful for year and subject heads.

• What is'interactive teaching'in primary classrooms? • What do primary teachers and children do to interact effectively? • Are there benefits in such interactions to both teaching and learning? A research partnership of tutors and teachers strives towards answers to these key questions. This book is the story of this intriguing and exciting research project.The authors examine the practical and theoretical aspects that are key to understanding and undertaking interactive teaching in primary classrooms. The project is unique in using its own interactive processes,'Reflective Dialogues', to help teachers make sense of their own teaching. This process includes capturing and analysing classroom sessions on video; and cameos of these classroom interactions are discussed throughout the book. The research context is the Literacy Hour in Key Stages 1 and 2.This new title is key reading for academics, researchers, teacher educators, policymakers and primary school teachers.

The ORACLE (Observation and Classroom Learning and Evaluation) and its follow-up study address the following questions:Has teaching in the primary school changed over the past twenty years?Has pupil performance improved or declined?Are the links between certain teacher approaches and pupil achievement still the same?Has the National Curriculum had any important consequences for the way in which transfer is conducted?One of the main claims of the National Curriculum is that it has provided greater continuity through the various stages and this should be reflected in smoother transition from one school to the next. This book focuses on the issue of transfer from the primary to the secondary school, using data from the ORACLE project.This study which took place from 1975 to 1980, followed by'Son of ORACLE', the study of group-work in the primary classroom 1980 to 1983, has had an enormous influence on the debate on primary education. The studies described in detail what took place in primary classrooms, the teaching styles used by teachers and the responses made by pupils. It linked these processes to pupil performance. Finally, it followed the pupils as they transferred out of the primary school into the secondary phase of education. At present a new research project is being carried out in Leicester. It involves studying primary schools for one year and then following the children as they transfer to the secondary phase or to a middle school. The project involves two thirds of the schools used in the original ORACLE research. In addition, the same observation instruments and the same tests, modified for cultural differences, are being used.

In recent years primary education has been the subject of continuing debate with questions of standards and their apparent decline being raised with alarming regularity. Central in informing these debates has been the ORACLE study of groupwork in primary classrooms. Published during the 1980s, the study described in detail the daily life of the primary classroom, the teaching styles used by teachers and the responses of pupils. That research has now been replicated - with over two thirds of the schools originally studied being revisited, using the same tests and observation instruments. This book presents the findings of this second round of research, and is therefore unique in being able authoritatively to document the changes - or lack of them - in primary education and teaching practice over the last twenty years.

This book is concerned with the relationships and tensions in education between children's needs and societies'demands, questions which primary teachers everywhere face on a daily basis, such as: • how does society's view of children and childhood affect teaching and learning? • how do the dictates of the education system, including a national curriculum, shape teaching practice? • how do the conventions of classroom practice fit with teachers'own beliefs and values? The first part of the book offers a basic framework for thinking about primary curricula from the perspectives raised by these questions, whilst the second part presents a range of international views on the primary curriculum from Australia, New Zealand, South-East Asia, Europe and the USA.