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Despite extensive research on attainment grouping, the impact of attainment grouping on pupil attainment remains poorly understood and contested. This paper presents evidence from a study conducted with 2944 12–13 year olds, from 76 schools in England, who were allocated to between-class attainment groups (‘setting’) in English and mathematics over the first 2 years of secondary schooling. After controlling for prior attainment, pupils in the top set performed significantly better than pupils in the middle and bottom sets in both English and mathematics. The findings indicate a widening gap in attainment, especially in the case of English. Findings, especially in the case of mathematics, provide more evidence of a relative benefit for pupils placed in top sets than a relative detriment for those in bottom sets. Education Endowment Foundation (EEF)

Wellbeing declines during adolescence, for which the reasons are unclear. This analysis explored associations between wellbeing and multiple lifestyle, socioeconomic and school-level factors in young people. Data were collected as part of the Wellbeing in School (WiSe) survey of adolescent school children in Northern Ireland at age 13–14 years (N = 1618; 49% female) and 15–16 years (N = 1558; 50.5% female). Wellbeing was assessed using the short-form Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale (sWEMWBS), where scores declined between time one (13–14 years) and time two (15–16 years) in both sexes and were significantly lower in females at both timepoints. Multilevel, multivariate modelling was therefore undertaken separately for males and females with sWEMWBS scores as the dependent variable. Physical activity, family affluence, fruit and vegetable intake, social media use, sleep duration, school factors (size and type) and religion were independent variables. More frequent physical activity in both sexes at both timepoints was associated with higher sWEMWBS scores. In females, higher sWEMWBS scores were associated with less social media use at time one (and marginally at time two), greater family affluence at time two, and being Catholic at both timepoints. In males, higher sWEMWBS scores were associated with more frequent fruit and vegetable intake at time one. Mental wellbeing was unrelated to sleep duration or school factors in either sex, at both time points. Efforts to maximize mental wellbeing in adolescents should promote engagement in physical activity and implement sex-specific interventions.

Earlier chapters of this work have described procedures and protocols that are applicable to most chambers, this chapter has a slightly different focus; we predominantly consider multiphase processes where the applications are on phase transfer of chemical species rather than chemical reactions and the processes are generally occurring in highly specialized chambers. Three areas are described. Firstly, cloud formation processes; here, precise control of physical and thermodynamic properties is required to generate reproducible results. The second area examined is the air/sea interface, looking at the formation of aerosols from nonanoic acid as a surfactant with humic acid as a photosensitizer. The final apparatus described is the Roland von Glasow sea-ice chamber where a detailed protocol for the reproducible formation of sea-ice is given along with an outlook of future work. The systems studied in all three sections are characterized by difficulties in making detailed in situ observations in the real world, either due to the transitory nature of systems or the practical difficulties in accessing the systems. While these specialized simulation chambers may not perfectly reproduce conditions in the real world, the chambers do provide more facile opportunities for making extended and reproducible measurements to investigate fundamental physical and chemical processes, at significantly lower costs.

We provide the first dedicated laboratory study of collisions of supercooled water drops with ice particles as a secondary ice production mechanism. We experimentally investigated collisions of supercooled water drops (∼ 5 mm in diameter) with ice particles of a similar size (∼ 6 mm in diameter) placed on a glass slide at temperatures >-12 ∘C. Our results showed that secondary drops were generated during both the spreading and retraction phase of the supercooled water drop impact. The secondary drops generated during the spreading phase were emitted too fast to quantify. However, quantification of the secondary drops generated during the retraction phase with diameters >0.1 mm showed that 5–10 secondary drops formed per collision, with approximately 30 % of the secondary drops freezing over a temperature range between −4 and −12 ∘C. Our results suggest that this secondary ice production mechanism may be significant for ice formation in atmospheric clouds containing large supercooled drops and ice particles.

There is wide ranging research that uses innovative methods to seek the views of children in out-of-home care. In the area of education, this group of children increasingly participate in research that involves various educational interventions (including book-gifting, tutoring, paired reading), that are designed to improve their educational attainment and achievements. Despite the overall growth in research evidence, there remains an absence of widely reported research on children’s views of the educational interventions that they are involved in and secondly, an absence of more reflective contributions that outline the methodological opportunities and challenges involved. This paper makes a contribution to both areas by reporting both the findings of and critical reflections on the use of an innovative method, the Talking Album, to gather the views of young children, aged 7–9 years old, regarding a reading intervention they were involved in, known as the Reading Together programme. The methodological approach is outlined. Informed by the basic principles underpinning children’s rights as set out in the UNCRC, key learning on the selection, introduction, and support of such methods/tools is reflected upon. From the findings and reflections, recommendations for future research that concerns interventions with children are made.

In social work with children and families, the use of the articles of the UNCRC to inform our understanding of parents and parenting is often overshadowed by the necessary focus on the UNCRC articles as they pertain to the rights of children. Yet, the UNCRC is crucial to our understanding of parenthood because it both defines the role and responsibilities of parents and our obligations towards them as part of the broader endeavour to respect and ensure the realisation of the rights of children. One such obligation towards parents is the provision of appropriate parenting support services, which in keeping with the UNCRC principle of respect, are best designed with parents to ensure their relevance and suitability. However, because the social work profession has an ambiguous attitude towards parents; often viewing them as threats and risks to their children rather than as socially situated and resilient offering care in challenging situations characterised by structural disadvantage; support services are often designed for parents and directed towards parents, rather than designed with them. This lack of parental involvement in support service design raises queries as to how appropriate and relevant the support services are. Focusing on the implementation of a support service in Northern Ireland, and findings from 55 participant interviews, this paper applies the principles of the UNCRC to illustrate that by positioning parents as resourceful, by engaging them in the set up and evaluation of the service, local government and associated partners were able to meet their UNCRC obligations to provide parents with appropriate assistance. Informed by this analysis, the paper then discusses the UNCRC further, arguing that its implementation principles should underpin the design and delivery of all services for parents. Implications for social work policy and practice are also discussed.

Compact Space-Bandwidth Angular Spectrum Method (CSW-ASM) is introduced for a high resolution reconstruction of digital in-line holograms with spherical wave illumination solving the distortion issue observed when using an ASM with planar reconstruction wave approach.