Search

In this article, we examine education policymaking in England during the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on the period from 2020 to 2022. We argue that the pandemic, while obviously damaging materially, economically and psychologically, seemed to have provided a rare opportunity for a step change, a chance to recalibrate and reconsider values assumed as 'truths'. However, policymaking in England appears to have been driven by a desire to return to normal as soon as possible or to double down on control. Through a rigorous policy analysis of two specific areas of policy -- initial teacher education and inspection -- we review policy and ministerial speeches, as well as academic papers, media articles and social media blogs published from the start of the pandemic in England, to analyse the extent to which policy formation was reactive in an attempt to maintain a steady state and return as quickly as possible to pre-pandemic normality and to previously stated intransigent policy positions. We suggest that this policy formation reflects a broader trend in policymaking, which seeks to use power and sustain privilege, underpinned by a constructed evidence base, to present a particular 'truth' about what needs to be done to improve education outcomes.

Unprecedented reform to teacher education in England, through the Initial Teacher Training Market Review, led to the threat of removal of the right for established providers to offer programmes of initial teacher education beyond 2024 without reaccreditation. Such policy reform has been constructed in relation to a perceived gap in research about knowledge of the best way to educate or train new teachers. Using Lee S. Shulman's concept of signature pedagogies we consider the varying ways in which theoretical ideas are underpinned by common models of, and approaches to, teacher education pedagogy. We mobilise Shulman to analyse five models, which we categorise as 'knowledge-first' or 'people-first', to see the extent to which, if at all, there is a theoretically informed signature pedagogy for initial teacher education. Our analysis shows that there is no one discernible knowledge base or theory that underpins a signature pedagogy for teacher education, but a suite of possibilities about how a signature pedagogy of teacher education could be understood. Moreover, it is our contention that policy reform of initial teacher education based on econometric analysis fails to recognise the most important dimension of a signature pedagogy, learning how to act with integrity as a professional teacher.

This paper examines how the policy process around initial teacher education (ITE) during the pandemic of 2020 was experienced by the leaders of ITE programmes across England. Education policies, it is argued, are solutions to perceived problems, revealing latent values that drive action. Group interviews with leaders of ITE programmes across the education sector, focused on the lived experience of ITE policy developments during the first wave of the COVID-19 period (March to July 2020). The analysis drew upon three policy drivers derived from an examination of teacher education policy (prior to the pandemic) in four 'high performing' English-speaking countries (according to PISA). The three policy drivers: the economy and global competitiveness (the rationale for change); accountability and regulatory framework (the technologies for change); and the core purpose of schooling and teacher professionalism (the values underpinning change); show how the temporary policy shift soon reverted back to previous priorities. Agency and autonomy were experienced by teacher educators which enabled them to exercise expert judgment, but there were also the significant 'gaps' in the expertise of policymakers. The research reveals how values influences policy formation, creating divisions within England's ITE community, and isolating it from international policy trends.

As well as high levels of teacher attrition, most countries around the world report some form of teacher recruitment crisis, exemplified by failed recruitment targets and high levels of demand for new teachers. These issues have reached crisis point in England. The impact of the controversial ITT Market Review, and subsequent accreditation process has left parts of the country as "cold spots" with no established providers and the formation of new national "super-providers" with no track record or experience of initial teacher education. This policy initiative is an urgent issue of spatial injustice, exacerbating teacher recruitment and supply issues in areas already suffering from educational isolation. Through the application of spatial theory, we conclude that these developments have specific spatial effects: not only on the locus of teacher education (narrowly conceived around individual classrooms and practices), and on the shifting of provision to urban centres but also on the centralisation of power and control. Such spatial effects have the capacity to exacerbate the supply and retention of teachers in hard-to-staff places.

Despite existing empirical work that explores the multiple ways in which students develop a sense of belonging in higher education, there is a dearth of comparative research about the extent to which the concepts of community and belonging are central to what it means to be a student and how students in different national contexts (beyond Anglophone countries) construct community and belonging. Drawing on qualitative data from students from six European countries, we provide an account of conceptualisations of community and belonging. Specifically, this paper extends discussions around community and belonging in higher education through comparative inquiry. Notwithstanding the individualised and consumerist framing of students accompanied by market reforms in higher education across Europe, it shows that the notion of community and/or belonging features prominently in students' narratives. We also demonstrate how a sense of community and belonging is experienced on different levels. Crucially, the emphasis placed on community in students' sense of belonging varies by the country, pointing towards the continued influence of distinctive national traditions, structures and norms of higher education. Our analysis contributes to wider debates about the development of a European Higher Education Area and its impact on European homogenisation.

This paper focuses on the structure and substance of the Core Content Framework (CCF), a controversial document which stipulates content that providers of teacher education in England must incorporate in their programmes. We identify both a concept of instrumental trainability and a lack of coherence in the CCF which suggests it is unsuitable as a guide to a curriculum for teacher education. Drawing on Bernstein's work and its application by other sociologists of educational knowledge, we identify how the CCF embeds a "generic mode" in teacher education that has roots outside of disciplinary structures of knowledge production and therefore foregrounds a type of official pedagogy that sees teaching as a technical performance and leaves gaps in the knowledge and understanding a new teacher requires to make sound educational judgements. Employing Muller's distinction between conceptual and contextual coherence, we argue that the CCF is based upon an imaginary notion of instructional practice that does not fully grasp the context of teachers' work. We illustrate the argument via an analysis of the language, structure, and three of the eight sections in the CCF.

Two recent articles from authors in Britain have attempted to show that the evidence in favour of systematic phonics in initial literacy instruction is weak; here, their arguments are disputed. Bowers ('Reconsidering the evidence that systematic phonics is more effective than alternative methods of reading instruction', "Educational Psychology Review," 32, 2020) attempts to show that there is little or no research evidence that systematic phonics instruction is more effective than other commonly used methods. Detailed inspection shows that his analysis appears flawed. Wyse and Bradbury ('Reading wars or reading reconciliation', "Review of Education," 10, 2022) offer four strands of evidence which, they suggest, undermine the case for systematic phonics teaching. However, they themselves admit they cannot draw conclusions from two of those strands; their survey of teachers in primary schools in England is unrepresentative and therefore unreliable; and their analysis of previous systematic reviews adopts such unnecessarily restrictive criteria that its conclusions cannot be accepted.

This paper unpacks the assumptions underpinning England's new Core Content Framework (CCF) in respect of the educational research required for teacher expertise, with particular attention to the sources referenced in the final part of the CCF and claims that these constitute the 'best available educational research'. Drawing on sociological studies of educational knowledge, and assessments of the quality of educational research in England, in addition to the philosophy of expertise as related to teaching, it is argued that the CCF is currently orientated towards a scientism that (i) marginalises longstanding traditions of educational thought, and (ii) technicises and instrumentalises teaching practice. The predominance of a scientistic model of educational knowledge is demonstrated through a profile of the sources identified in the CCF, with a focus on the journals in which referenced material is published and an overview of subject matter via an analysis of keywords and titles. With an overwhelming preference for this 'New Science' as opposed to other traditions of educational knowledge, the CCF encourages an image of teaching as a decontextualised series of interventions with narrow objectives, and thus implicitly marginalises wider educational goods and purposes and deprofessionalises teachers work.

This paper explores how university staff in Denmark, Germany, and England perceived higher education (HE) policy as impacting the experience of being a student in their respective countries. While, in each nation, different policy mechanisms were identified as having triggered transformations in the experience of being a student, the transformations themselves were described in a strikingly similar manner across all three countries: staff stressed that students had become more instrumental in their approach to learning; that the student experience had become more circumscribed; and that students were under greater stress. We analyse how staff's narratives about the impact of policy on the experience of being a student were mediated by their own ideas about what constituted 'good education', which in turn were strongly rooted in national traditions. Furthermore, in each country, staff's assessment of the impact of specific policies on HE differed sharply from those of policy actors. Our findings contribute to the scholarship on the marketisation of HE, through drawing attention to how the rationality underpinning policy does not determine how it is engaged with by key stakeholders on the ground, and by demonstrating how the neoliberalisation of HE can unfold in different formats, some more explicit than others.

Recent literature has changed the ways in which occupational therapy is delivered in mainstream schools, but consideration of practice in specialist schools, where all students have special educational needs or disabilities, is limited. This study aimed to address this gap by exploring occupational therapy practice in specialist schools in England. This qualitative study used a phenomenological approach. Data were collected via semistructured interviews and analyzed using thematic analysis. The study had 6 occupational therapist participants. Three themes emerged from the data: Theme 1: "I'm going to be really honest with you, we're not doing therapy;" Theme 2: "We are not entirely part of the school community;" and Theme 3: "You shouldn't have to try and make someone else the therapist." The findings echo studies of occupational therapy in mainstream schools but offer new insights into the focus and delivery of occupational therapy in specialist schools. It is recommended that in England a new model of service provision is developed that integrates occupational therapists into specialist schools, creates more time in the classroom, facilitates therapist-teacher collaboration, and enables a broader scope of practice.

There is a growing body of scholarship on how students see themselves, and also on how they are conceptualised by other social actors. However, what has been less explored is how students believe they are seen by others, and how this impacts them. Drawing on focus groups with students across Europe -- and particularly plasticine models students made to depict how they felt they were seen by relevant others -- this paper will illustrate how the four most common ways in which students felt they were constructed were as hedonistic and lazy; useless and a burden; clever, hardworking, and successful; and a resource to be exploited. It will argue that such stereotypes had significant material impact on students' lives and how they experienced being a student. Finally, it will analyse how specific national contexts accounted for a range of variations in how students articulated these constructions.

From 2006 the British government strongly favoured synthetic phonics as the principal approach for the teaching of initial literacy in state-funded primary schools in England, and since 2010 has made it mandatory. In 2007-2013 just over 100 commercially published phonics schemes were available, and in that same period the government maintained a system of quality assurance, in the form of two (successive and non-overlapping) panels of independent evaluators. Their task was to judge whether commercial publishers' self-evaluations of their phonics schemes and materials were correct, in the sense of justifying statements that they met the government's criteria for such schemes, etc. Of the schemes that were judged, just over half (54) were found to contain linguistic errors. In this article the errors are analysed in detail, and classified into three main categories: phonetic inaccuracies, phonic inaccuracies, and misguided pedagogies. The criteria for that classification are stated, and conclusions and recommendations drawn -- the main recommendation being that existing schemes need to be scrutinised in detail to ensure that they are fit for purpose. And this would apply to all phonics schemes used anywhere in the English-speaking world, not just in England, even though the criteria for phonetic and phonic accuracy would necessarily differ across accents.

It is often assumed within much of the academic literature and by many of those working in higher education that universities across Europe are homogenising, converging around an Anglo-American model as a result of neo-liberal pressures and the aim of creating a single European Higher Education Area. However, drawing on an analysis of 92 policy documents from six different European countries, this article demonstrates that enduring differences remain -- at least in so far as constructions of students are concerned. While European policy may assume that higher education students can move unproblematically across national borders, as part of the Erasmus mobility scheme, for example, the article shows that understandings of 'the student' differ in significant ways both across countries and, to some extent, within them. This has implications for both European policy and academic theorisation.

Across Europe, assumptions are often made within the academic literature and by some social commentators that students have come to understand the purpose of higher education (HE) in increasingly instrumental terms. This is often linked to processes of marketisation and neo-liberalisation across the Global North, in which the value of HE has come to be associated with economic reward and labour market participation and measured through a relatively narrow range of metrics. It is also associated with the establishment, in 2010, of the European Higher Education Area, which is argued to have brought about the refiguration of European universities around an Anglo-American model. Scholars have contended that students have become consumer-like in their behaviour and preoccupied by labour market outcomes rather than processes of learning and knowledge generation. Often, however, such claims are made on the basis of limited empirical evidence, or a focus on policies and structures rather than the perspectives of students themselves. In contrast, this paper draws on a series of 54 focus groups with 295 students conducted in six European countries (Denmark, England, Germany, Ireland, Poland and Spain). It shows how understandings of the purpose of HE are more nuanced than much of the extant literature suggests and vary, at least to some extent, by both nation-state and higher education institution. Alongside viewing the purpose of HE as preparing them for the labour market, students emphasised the importance of tertiary-level study for personal growth and enrichment, and societal development and progress. These findings have implications for policy and practice. In particular, the broader purposes of HE, as articulated by the students in this study, should be given greater recognition by policymakers, those teaching in HE, and the wider public instead of, as is often the case, positioning students as consumers, interested in only economic gain.

Despite renewed academic interest in virtue ethics and character education, institutions of higher education have largely neglected the character education of university students. This article seeks to make two contributions to the theory and practice of character education within the university, with a particular focus on postgraduate students. First, it provides an accessible synthesis of recent research in philosophy, psychology, and education to advance an Aristotelian model of character education and identify seven strategies of character development: (1) habituation through practice, (2) reflection on personal experience, (3) engagement with virtuous exemplars, (4) dialogue that increases virtue literacy, (5) awareness of situational variables, (6) moral reminders, and (7) friendships of mutual accountability. Second, in the discussion of each strategy, it supplies examples from a case study of the Oxford Global Leadership Initiative to show how the strategy can be integrated into a research-based, practical program for postgraduate character development. By providing both a theoretical framework and practical examples, this article seeks to offer guidance for educators who aspire to develop character education programs in their institutional contexts.

Europe is, in many ways, of central importance to discussions about higher education. Various European initiatives, such as the Bologna Process and the Erasmus mobility programme, have had a direct and material impact on the shape and nature of higher education across the continent. They have also been linked to wider political objectives, such as the inculcation of a European political identity, and the strengthening of the European political and economic space relative to other parts of the world. Nevertheless, the relationship between Europe and education has tended to remain rather marginalised within research. We know relatively little, for example, about how policymakers think about Europe and the extent to which it constitutes an important frame of reference for them. To start to redress this gap, we draw on an analysis of policy documents and interviews with key policy stakeholders to argue that the idea of Europe constitutes an important 'spatial imaginary' for higher education within the continent, and helps to frame the ways in which students are conceptualised. However, we also suggest that this is not played out in uniform ways; there are significant differences between both countries and different groups of policy actors within them.

The aim of this qualitative study was to identify central attributes of positive relationships with teachers from the adolescent students' perspectives that could help delineate the meaning of student-teacher connectedness while exploring to what extent its main attributes were similar or different in England and Spain. As part of the EU-funded project "Well-being among European youth: The contribution of student-teacher relationships in the secondary-school population", we conducted focus groups in England and Spain with 42 students aged 11 to 18 years. Using a bottom-up approach for thematic analysis, we identified two main attributes that were linked to positive relationships with teachers as seen by our participating students from England and Spain: "humanizing relationships," in which the students are acknowledged and respected as individuals and feel understood and supported by their teachers; and "relationships conducive to learning," encompassing aspects such as a perception of a genuine commitment with their learning on the part of the teachers, a positive classroom management, and teachers motivating students. This study contributes to the conceptualization of student-teacher connectedness and provides useful insights for teachers and educational professionals. In addition, the study findings pointed to the importance of power and authority dynamics in student-teacher relationships that foster or undermine connectedness, and they revealed some cross-cultural differences in the role of emotions in the class, two important aspects which deserve further attention in future research.

There are many references to reading, and some to writing, in Shakespeare's plays; a list is provided in an Appendix. They are analysed for what they reveal about the social status of literacy in Shakespeare's day, and the references to reading are analysed further according to oral v. silent reading, and whether characters have company on stage, or are (or believe themselves to be) alone. Only a few characters are depicted as illiterate, sometimes for comic effect, more often for purposes of the plot. All persons of rank, and most others, are depicted as literate. It seems that in Shakespeare's time, even among the highly educated, the practice of oral reading for varied purposes, even when alone, was still alive. One effect was, serendipitously, to give Shakespeare the freedom to manipulate reading practices plausibly, and brilliantly, for his own purposes.

Although virtue ethics has emerged as an influential ethical theory within the academy, universities have not generally taken up the practical task of virtue cultivation. Some academics even resist the effort altogether. In response, this article presents an early-stage evaluation of one effort to cultivate virtue in postgraduate students, a theoretically derived and empirically measured character development programme at the University of Oxford. The study uses a pre- and post-test experimental design to assess whether participation results in measurable growth of four character virtues. Quantitative data offer evidence for modest improvement with respect to two of the four focal virtues measured, while qualitative data suggest that future iterations should ensure that participants are given both reflective, conceptual tools and practical, everyday tasks to cultivate virtue. The article provides both empirical support and future directions for ongoing research and programme development for cultivating virtue in the university.

Comparative studies of European social policy have pointed to significant differences with respect to the way in which diversity is valued and understood, contrasting nations that have adopted strongly compulsory and integrationist policies with others that have pursued more voluntary and pluralistic approaches. Within the higher education sector specifically, although there have been numerous European-level initiatives to encourage national governments to take action to widen access to university, we know relatively little about how key policy actors conceptualise diversity with respect to the student population, and the extent to which such understandings are shared across national borders. Drawing on in-depth interviews with a range of 'policy influencers' in six European countries and an analysis of relevant policy documents, this article suggests that dimensions of difference are not always valued equally and that, despite policy imperatives promoting higher education homogenisation across the continent, some significant differences between nation-states endure.

Background: The broad nature of young people's development is internationally acknowledged, which includes physical, mental, spiritual, moral and social elements. In England, schools have a legal obligation to promote spiritual, moral, social and cultural (SMSC) development. It has been suggested that personal, social, health and economic (PSHE) education, a broad form of school-based health education, may contribute to building SMSC development in young people. Objective: To examine the association between PSHE education in schools and outcomes of an SMSC nature. Method: The study drew on data collected as part of the 2014 World Health Organization Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) study for England. Data were collected from young people aged 11, 13 and 15 years, using anonymous self-completed surveys administered during school lessons. The analysis drew on responses from 3,731 young people. Multilevel modelling was used to examine the association between PSHE education and variables of an SMSC nature, while controlling for demographic variables. Results: Overall, the majority of young people who reported receiving PSHE education were positive about the benefits of this school-based health education. Positive perceptions of PSHE education were significantly associated with increased spirituality among young people, reduced engagement in both fighting and bullying perpetration and increased general self-efficacy. Conclusion: This paper highlights the important role that health education in a school context may have for young people's broader development, and contributes to the national evidence base advocating for compulsory PSHE education in schools.

Successive UK government policies have strengthened the phonics element of the National Curriculum for English in England. The policies have included inviting publishers to submit completed self-assessments of their systematic phonics programmes. The self-assessment criteria focus on what is deemed to be 'high-quality provision', as defined in the "Independent Review of the Teaching of Early Reading" chaired by Jim Rose. The programmes whose self-assessments were judged to be accurate by small panels of independent evaluators have been subsequently listed on a central government website. The authors have acted as independent evaluators in this process and, between them, had the opportunity to inspect the content of over 100 phonics programmes. They have noted that many of these programmes (most of which did not meet the Rose criteria) contained numerous linguistic inaccuracies, particularly in relation to the English spelling system and its grapheme-phoneme correspondences. The existence, number and range of these errors jeopardise policy implementation and National Curriculum delivery and pose risks for the quality of teaching and learning. The article suggests some reasons for these findings in related published debates and in policy documents, and that phonics programmes need to be more linguistically-informed. The article concludes with some implications for practice.

Over the last decade, cyberbullying has emerged as a public health concern among young people. Cyberbullying refers to intentional harmful behaviors and communication carried out repeatedly using electronic media. Considerable research has demonstrated the detrimental and long-lasting effects of cyberbullying involvement. This article draws on a social-ecological perspective to identify protective health assets from across the multiple environmental domains of the adolescent that may mitigate against experiencing cyberbullying. Data were collected from 5,335 students aged 11, 13, and 15 years who participated in the 2014 World Health Organization Health Behaviour in School-aged Children Study for England. Protective health assets were identified at the family (family communication), school (school sense of belonging and teacher support), and neighborhood (neighborhood sense of belonging) levels. In particular, the findings draw attention to the protective role fathers can play in supporting young people.

Ten years after publication of two reviews of the evidence on phonics, a number of British policy initiatives have firmly embedded phonics in the curriculum for early reading development. However, uncertainty about the most effective approaches to teaching reading remains. A definitive trial comparing different approaches was recommended in 2006, but never undertaken. However, since then, a number of systematic reviews of the international evidence "have" been undertaken, but to date they have not been systematically located, synthesised and quality appraised. This paper seeks to redress that gap in the literature. It outlines in detail the reading policy development, mainly in England, but with reference to international developments, in the last 10 years. It then reports the design and results of a systematic 'tertiary' review of all the relevant systematic reviews and meta-analyses in order to provide the most up-to-date overview of the results and quality of the research on phonics.

Internationally, school readiness is increasingly the rationale for early childhood education and care (ECEC). This is the case in England, yet the statutory English Early Years Foundation Stage framework for children 0-5 years also requires practitioners to listen to children's voices: discourse indicates dissonance between school readiness and listening to children's voices so this paper discusses an intrinsic case study that investigated beliefs and practices of 25 practitioners in the English midlands regarding school readiness and listening to children's voices. In survey responses and semi-structured interviews, practitioners indicated they listen to--and act on--children's voices but are confused about school readiness; their beliefs and practices align more strongly with social pedagogy than pre-primary schoolification. Findings carry messages for policy-makers regarding the need for coherent policy concerning the purpose of ECEC, with practitioner training and a framework aligned fully with that policy. A larger study is indicated.

Background: Bullying is a public health concern for the school-aged population, however, the health outcomes associated with the subtype of relational bullying are less understood. The purpose of this study was to examine the association between relational bullying and health-related quality of life (HRQL) among young people. Methods: This study utilized data from 5335 students aged 11-15 years, collected as part of the 2014 Health Behavior in School-aged Children (HBSC) study conducted in England. Data were collected through self-completed surveys. Multilevel analysis modeled the relationship between relational bullying and HRQL. Demographic variables (sex, age, ethnicity, socioeconomic status) and other forms of bullying were controlled for. Results: Experiencing relational bullying had a significant negative association with HRQL whilst controlling for other forms of bullying. Weekly relational bullying resulted in an estimated 5.352 (95% confidence interval (CI), -4.178, -6.526) decrease in KIDSCREEN-10 score compared with those not experiencing relational bullying. Conclusion: Experiencing relational bullying is associated with poorer HRQL. The findings question the perception of relational bullying as being a predominantly female problem. Girls were more likely to report experiencing relational bullying, but the negative association with HRQL was equal for boys and girls.

The transition to secondary school is a common cause of stress and anxiety, which can be exacerbated by the innate characteristics associated with Asperger syndrome (AS) and high-functioning autism (HFA). This study aimed to explore experiences of the transition to secondary school for students with AS/HFA from the parental perspective. Seventeen parents of children with AS/HFA from the north of England completed an online questionnaire about their child's school transitional experience. Responses indicated that there were a number of factors that influenced the experiences of pupils with AS/HFA at school and the preceding transition, including anxiety, bullying, friendship and support at school. Girls with AS/HFA presented with unique issues not commonly seen in the male dominated condition. The transition to secondary school was seen to encompass a number of difficulties for students with AS/HFA. Health and educational services can learn from the experiences explored in this survey in order to inform future practice.

Despite a detailed literature exploring the advancement of a learning outcomes approach in higher education, limited evidence exists concerning academics' use of them. This study employed a questionnaire survey and interviews with academic staff in three schools in one institution to explore their views and uses of learning outcomes. Whilst differences between the Schools were apparent, participants appeared primarily to use learning outcomes to focus their thinking around module design or delivery. Opinions about the purposes of learning outcomes varied between student-centred learning and tick-box accountability, but were not always polarised between the two. The data suggested that these two purposes cannot be disassociated from each other, particularly in a consumerist framework of higher education. Academic staff should be empowered to understand and engage with learning outcomes from student-centred learning "and" accountability perspectives. Further research is also required to investigate the multiple factors that influence academics' enactments of learning outcomes.

Objectives: Teacher connectedness is an important factor for young people's well-being. The aim of this paper was to examine teacher connectedness in detail and its potential association with emotional wellbeing. More specifically, we set out to analyse whether teacher connectedness acted as a universal asset for boys and girls of different ages and countries as well as across adolescents with differing perceptions of their performance at school. Methods: The study sample consisted of 9,444 young people aged 11, 13 and 15 years who had taken part in the World Health Organization (WHO) collaborative survey Health Behaviour in School-aged Children in Spain and England. After examining differences in teacher connectedness associated with demographic factors, we used general linear models to analyse the relationship between teacher connectedness and emotional well-being (including interaction teacher connectedness by country) across different age and performance-derived groups. Results: Results indicated some significant differences in teacher connectedness associated with age, country and perceived performance, but a consistent positive association between teacher connectedness and emotional well-being regardless of demographic factors, country and perceptions of school performance. Older adolescents and low achievers reported lower level of connectedness to their teachers, but the association between teacher connectedness and emotional well-being operated irrespective of adolescents' age and perceived performance at school. Conclusion: Results support the perspective that teacher connectedness can act as a significant health asset that operates irrespective of key demographic factors, while they point to some inequalities in teacher connectedness associated with age and performance at school. These findings have significant implications for health promotion interventions.

This article is concerned with parents' experiences and perceptions of being involved in a family literacy programme. The research, which was conducted from November 2007 to July 2009, involved interviewing 101 parents from 74 family literacy programmes in England around 12 weeks after they had completed their courses. The aim of these qualitative interviews was to identify any short- and medium-term benefits, and to assess the impact on their lives. Previous evaluations of FL have mainly focused on children's literacy outcomes, and the article argues that as insiders and consumers of family literacy programmes, parents have the potential to make vital contributions to policy and practice, including the design of future successful programmes. The article shows that there is a whole series of benefits for parents, their children, family and schools. Among these, parents learn to support their children's learning; they place greater value on education and learning and gain a deeper understanding of school systems; they become more interested in developing their own literacy skills; they form social and supportive networks, which are maintained as their children move through the school; and the programmes give parents opportunities for progression to further education and training.

Successive governments in England have regarded classroom observation as an essential tool for monitoring and improving teacher performance. Despite its importance in national policy for teacher development, the impact of classroom observation on individual teachers, and on improving quality and standards in teaching and learning, remain under-researched areas. Further education (FE) in general, and FE teachers in particular, have received sparse attention. This paper adopts a theoretical framework grounded in aspects of assessment theory to explore some of the consequences of using observation to assess, monitor and raise standards of classroom performance in the FE workforce. It draws on findings from a mixed-methods study, involving questionnaires and semi-structured interviews, conducted in 10 FE colleges situated across the West Midlands region of England. The paper concludes by situating the findings against the broader backdrop of research into teachers' continuing professional development and, in so doing, raises questions about the fitness for purpose of prevailing observation assessment regimes in FE and the extent to which these systems are able to achieve their purported goals.

The future of Master's-level work in initial teacher education (ITE) in England seems uncertain. Whilst the coalition government has expressed support for Master's-level work, its recent White Paper focuses on teaching skills as the dominant form of professional development. This training discourse is in tension with the view of professional learning advocated by ITE courses that offer Master's credits. Following a survey of the changing perceptions of Master's-level study during a Post Graduate Certificate in Education course by student teachers in four subject groups, this paper highlights how the process of professional learning can have the most impact on how they value studying at a higher level during their early professional development. (Contains 2 tables.)

This paper focuses on a context where interdisciplinarity intersects with interprofessionality: the work of children's services professionals who address the needs of children identified as vulnerable. It draws on evidence and perspectives from two disciplines--educational studies and health care--to consider the issues and challenges posed by learning and/or working across disciplinary boundaries and why these have proved so obdurate.

School geography in England has been characterised as a pendulum swinging between policies that emphasise curriculum and pedagogy alternately. In this paper, I illustrate the influence of these shifts on geography teacher's professional practice, by drawing on three "moments" from my experience as a student, teacher and teacher educator. Barnett's description of teacher professionalism as a continuous project of "being" illuminates how geography teachers can adapt to competing influences. It reflects teacher professionalism as an unfinished project, which is responsive, but not beholden, to shifting trends, and is informed by how teachers frame and enact policies. I argue that recognising these contextual factors is key to supporting geography teachers in "being" geography education professionals. As education becomes increasingly competitive on a global scale, individual governments are looking internationally for "solutions" to improve educational rankings. In this climate, the future of geography education will rest on how teachers react locally to international trends. Geography teacher educators can support this process by continuing to inform the field through meaningful geography education research, in particular in making the contextual factors of their research explicit. This can be supported through continued successful international collaboration in geography education research.

This paper addresses the question: is self-assessment in religious education unique? It first presents an overview of some challenges for assessment from subject differences, and then reviews the generic literature on self-assessment. It builds on earlier empirical research on self-assessment in religious education, carried out in an English state secondary school; this was used to propose a variant of self-assessment which is tailored to the demands of religious education--"reflexive" self-assessment. Its implications for more general understandings of the relationship between subject pedagogy and self-assessment are discussed, especially the recognition of values not only in religious education but in other subjects too, reinforcing the need to develop subject-specific variants of self-assessment that reflect the breadth of learning outcomes. (Contains 1 note.)

There is a distinction between engaging in research and being a researcher. Although practitioner research has been widely supported, it has been understood as producing different types of research findings from that of the academic researcher. In England, much of the published research in geography education is conducted by academics or educational professionals, but this is often under-resourced. In this paper, I argue that there is an opportunity to recognise the growing contribution of practitioner research in geography education. Although practitioner research is often located in a unique context, with adequate research training, individual researchers can ensure that their research makes a significant contribution to the field of geography education.

Background: This paper considers some economic aspects of a therapy and support service for people with stroke and aphasia. This material was part of a broader evaluation of the service, which is reported elsewhere (van der Gaag et al. 2005, van der Gaag and Mowles 2005). Aims: The purpose of this part of the study was to investigate the feasibility of undertaking economic appraisal in a voluntary sector service providing therapy for people with aphasia and their families. Methods & Procedures: The costs of delivering therapy and support services were calculated. These costs were compared with the costs of equivalent services in the National Health Service (NHS). The EQ-5D health-related quality of life instrument was used to calculate quality-adjusted life years (QALYs). Outcomes & Results: The cost of delivering therapy was lower than expected for a customized service of this nature. The study generated cost data for delivering therapy services, allowing some comparisons to be made with equivalent services in NHS settings. QALY data were generated for a sample of 25 clients on one of the programs. Conclusions: The economics of speech and language therapy service delivery have received scant attention in the published literature. The paper argues that decision-making about methods of service delivery can be aided by the explicit consideration of the costs and consequences of different programs.

This paper discusses the impact on initial teacher training of a new policy initiative in England: the introduction of Training Schools. First, the Training School project is set in context by exploring the evolution of a partnership approach to initial teacher training in England. Ways in which Training Schools represent a break with established practice are considered together with their implications for the dominant mode of partnership led by higher education institutions (HEIs). The capacity of Training Schools to achieve their own policy objectives is examined, especially their efficacy as a strategy for managing innovation and the dissemination of innovation. The paper ends by focusing on a particular Training School project which has adopted an unusual approach to its work and enquires whether this alternative approach could offer a more profitable way forward. During the course of the paper, five different models of partnership are considered: collaborative, complementary, HEI-led, school-led and partnership within a partnership. (Contains 1 table and 1 note.)

Recent events in England and Wales would suggest that geography teachers need to re-engage with their subject matter to enable them to improve how they teach the geography. However, this requires a detailed understanding of how teachers use their subject knowledge. This paper outlines how two geography teachers experience tension between how they understand geography at an academic level and the ways they prefer to teach it. How they resolve these conflicts shows that these teachers have an active relationship with their subject that enables them to develop curricula in line with their values about geography. (Contains 9 notes.)

Background: Computer software is widely used to support literacy learning. There are few randomised trials to support its effectiveness. Therefore, there is an urgent need to rigorously evaluate computer software that supports literacy learning. Methods: We undertook a pragmatic randomised controlled trial among pupils aged 11-12 within a single state comprehensive school in the North of England. The pupils were randomised to receive 10 hours of literacy learning delivered via laptop computers or to act as controls. Both groups received normal literacy learning. A pre-test and two post-tests were given in spelling and literacy. The main pre-defined outcome was improvements in spelling scores. Results: 155 pupils were randomly allocated, 77 to the ICT group and 78 to control. Four pupils left the school before post-testing and 25 pupils did not have both pre- and post-test data. Therefore, 63 and 67 pupils were included in the main analysis for the ICT and control groups respectively. After adjusting for pre-test scores there was a slight increase in spelling scores, associated with the ICT intervention, but this was not statistically significant (0.954, 95% confidence interval (CI) -1.83 to 3.74, p = 0.50). For reading scores there was a statistically significant decrease associated with the ICT intervention (-2.33, 95% CI -0.96 to -3.71, p = 0.001). Conclusions: We found no evidence of a statistically significant benefit on spelling outcomes using a computer program for literacy learning. For reading there seemed to be a reduction in reading scores associated with the use of the program. All new literacy software needs to be tested in a rigorous trial before it is used routinely in schools. (Contains 1 figure and 2 tables.)

An increasing number of children and young people are being excluded from school as a direct result of anger management problems. The research literature suggests that short cognitive-behavioural intervention programmes may be effective in helping young people understand and control their anger. The aim of the current study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a short cognitive-behavioural anger management intervention in reducing problem behaviours in school, and to identify factors that may facilitate or impede participant progress on such a programme. The sample comprised 12 young people (mean age 14y 2m) referred for anger problems in an inner-city school in the north-west of England. A phase change (baseline, intervention, follow-up) design was implemented to measure changes in problem behaviours using the Revised Rutter Scale for Teachers. This was augmented by qualitative data gathered in interviews and non-participant observations. Significant improvements in behaviour were observed as a result of the intervention, although for some domains this was not maintained at four-week follow-up. Analysis of qualitative data revealed a number of issues that might impact on the success of an intervention, including notions of power in the classroom, treatment readiness, and the importance of sharing thoughts, feelings and experiences with others. Despite limitations inherent in the research design, the intervention was deemed a success. However, our findings show the need for researchers and practitioners alike to 'look beyond the child' when hypothesising about the causes of anger problems in educational contexts. (Contains 1 table and 3 figures).

Discusses two projects that examined school-based initial teacher education in England and Wales in light of new Department of Education regulations about the role of "others" in teacher development, suggesting that student teachers constitute a distinctive category of others, and higher education can help teachers and students recognize each other as mutually enhancing role-partners. (Author/SM)

Hamilton's critique of the National Federation for Educational Research (NFER) study, Progress in Adult Literacy, addresses the conceptualization of literacy, flaws in the research design, school-oriented focus, and validity and reliability of tests used; she suggests a research strategy. Brooks summarizes NFER's response. (SK)

Summarizes results for parents of the original evaluation and the follow-up of Family Literacy Demonstration Programmes at four sites in Wales and England. Finds that parents benefited in employment, study, qualifications, literacy, and ability to help their children, and involvement with their children's schools. (RS)