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This article is unique because it fills a significant gap among COVID-19 related educational research in three ways. First, it analyses data from face-to-face interviews with 23 children, whilst most COVID-19 related research has been based on online data collection methods. Second, it involves 'lower-attaining' children who were already part of an ongoing five-year research project set in England, UK. Third, it captures a 'before' and 'after' picture of the children's experiences during schooling-as-normal and after the two periods of school closures, in relation to their well-being. Within the context of Seligman's PERMA theory, we found that the absence-of-schooling-as-normal had adversely affected their well-being, but in so doing, the children's perspective on schooling had altered, as they had missed being part of something bigger than themselves, in a setting which offered socialisation, structure and purpose.

This article tracks the life-histories of 23 British schoolchildren aged from seven to 12 who were designated as 'lower-attaining' at age seven. Drawing on Self Determination Theory's mini-theory of Causality Orientations, the authors explored whether/how children with a Controlled or Impersonal Orientation approached creative learning differently from those with an Autonomy Orientation. Six detailed life-histories presented illuminate that children with a Controlled or Impersonal Orientation often channelled their energies into conformity, as well as avoidance of subordination and punishment, diverting them away from creative learning. Relationships with peers also influenced their orientations significantly. Using Chris Watkins' concepts of Learning Orientation and Performance Orientation, based on Carol Dweck's Growth and Fixed Mindset theories, they conclude that their life-histories highlight a focus in schooling on both prior attainment and the end product -- 'performances' -- rather than children's motivated engagement with learning. This threatens the chance that they achieve positive-experience and wellness outcomes through creative learning.

This paper is significant in its exploration of the experiences of children designated as 'lower-attaining' in British primary schooling. It is underpinned by Nancy Fraser's conceptualisation of a global shift from government via nation-state welfare structures to governance through supra-national financialised neoliberalism. Within this context, we take the innovative path of investigating how 'lower-attaining' children explain perseverance with hard work at school within neoliberalism's 'cruel and cynical fiction' of social mobility. Our extended interviews with 23 'lower-attaining' children over two years provide findings which indicate -- with a startling vividness -- that these particular children experienced loneliness at school and blamed themselves for being inadequate and inferior. Fear appeared to be an essential component of their schooling system and sometimes elicited from them anger as well as humiliation. In particular, these children feared being assessed and sorted according to attainment. We propose that these factors often led the 'lower-attaining' children to experience schooling as at least uncomfortable. And yet they came to accept as fact the fiction that they were inadequate; and to perceive that perseverance in conforming to schooling's rules was their only chance of not slipping out of the race altogether.

This paper explores the peer relationship experiences of 23 primary-school children who had been designated as "lower-attaining". It is written against the backdrop of the mental health crisis among young people in Britain. Using John Macmurray's principles of equality and freedom as underpinning positive personal relationships, it investigates how "lower-attaining" children experience their peer relationships in a climate where attainment in mathematics and English is politically prioritised over the nurturing of positive relationships. We drew on the recent literature pertaining to peer relationships in general; and peer relationships among "lower-attainers" in particular. We build on the assumption that positive personal relationships support creative learning and high attainment. Using 107 extended individual and paired/triad activity-interviews as well as lesson observations every term over six school terms, we carried out research in four sample primary-schools. Our findings illustrated the high value put on friendships by sample children, despite a strong emphasis in schooling on individual competition. The children described instances of feeling troubled by their relationships; and their "low-attainment" status appeared to be linked to some, if not many, of their troubles. They sometimes felt excluded from the main body of their classes due to emphasis on high-attainment. We conclude by proposing a greater emphasis on collaboration and the nurturing of relationships in schooling, which in turn could support these children's creative learning and attainment.

By portraying the views and perspectives of children labelled as 'low-attaining', this text makes a significant contribution to the debate on within-class attainment grouping in primary schools. Extensive, active individual interviews plus observations over three terms facilitated rich insights into whether, and if so, how 23 'low-attaining' primary-school children assimilated cultural values designating them as having the subordinate status to other children. We consider the implications of our findings for social justice, employing an innovative analytic framework based on Nancy Fraser's conceptualisation of justice as 'parity-of-participation'. Our research illustrates that these children had absorbed values about 'success' that posed considerable obstacles to them and led to feelings of isolation, and a lack of social participation. In particular, the children found some aspects of attainment grouping obstructive to social interaction. Reactions to these discomforts sometimes led them towards subtly subversive behaviour or alternatively to flat-out denials of difficulty.

Nancy Fraser describes parity-of-participation in social interaction as an important component of social justice. In this paper, we explore the participatory experiences of primary-school-children who have been labelled 'lower-attainers' in mathematics and/or writing. The paper explores justice drawing on the perspective of these pupils, in relation to how they perceive success in their school learning. We link the concept of participation to the three components of social justice outlined in Nancy Fraser's definition: a) distribution of wealth; b) recognition of status; and c) representation of voice. Our findings indicate that children who do not excel in attainment in prescribed subjects may experience obstructions to parity-of-participation within schooling which are beyond those encountered by all children. We conclude that injustices in all three senses (above) are being experienced by specific children and these injustices need urgent confrontation.

In this paper, the authors consider how Carol Dweck's concept of growth mindset has been misconceptualised. They explore the proposition that agency is an important aspect of growth mindset and that the effects of hard work by children is reduced when agency is limited. They draw on qualitative data from 84 interviews with 23 participant children who had been designated at the end of their Year 3 as 'lower-attainers' in mathematics, English or both. They explore their experiences of this designation across the first two years of the five-year project. Their findings suggested that participants displayed ample capacity for action, curiosity, engagement and creative learning. However, classroom rules sometimes mitigated against children benefiting from these capacities. Children narrated adopting the performance orientation suggested by Dweck, which could lead to a reduced sense of competence, which itself led to less agentic classroom behaviours.

This paper explores the practices of division in operation in primary schools in England in response to the pressures of high stakes tests at age 10/11, known as SATs. Using data from interviews with 20 primary headteachers and information from a survey of nearly 300 primary heads, we argue that the organisation of pupils in preparation for SATs involves 1) the use of grouping by 'ability' in sets, despite the increasing evidence of the disadvantages; 2) forms of educational triage, where borderline or 'cusp' children are prioritised, and more complex forms of 'double triage'; and 3) the growth of 'intervention culture' where some children are withdrawn from normal lessons to resolve 'gaps' in their learning. In this article these practices are understood through a Foucauldian lens as micropractices of power which label and categorise pupils within an accountability system that seeks to classify pupils on a norm/Other binary.

'Lower-attaining' children are known to encounter negative experiences in school, including experiencing feelings of upset, shame and inferiority. Using extensive interview and observation data from the first two years of a five-year longitudinal study of 23 'lower-attaining' children (age 7-9), we draw on Seligman's theory of well-being to identify the children's experiences of school in terms of their emotions, relationships and sense of achievement. Our analysis finds that on balance, these children are experiencing threats to their well-being in relation to their perceived lack of attainment and its associated shame, in an increasingly performative educational culture. We conclude that such threats are hampering the well-being of these children, which may cause both immediate and longer-term damage.

Our research constructed school life histories with 23 'lower‐attaining' primary school children in England. Previous research has often failed to focus on the social justice aspects of this group, and no attempt has been made to contextualise children's misrecognition experiences within their full school life history, nor to hear primarily from children. Our results reveal for the first time the feelings, thinking and actions of lower attainers across 5 years of schooling, in response to the institutionalised practice of grouping by prior attainment. Nancy Fraser's conceptualisation of social justice as parity of participation provides our analysis framework, incorporating concepts of redistribution, recognition and representation. We focus primarily on how some low‐attaining children experience misrecognition. Our results indicate how lower‐attaining children sometimes identify themselves as less worthy, less connected, less similar and less visible than others. This construction allows for less respect to be shown to them and could block the fair distribution of schooling resources, and limit their opportunities for achieving social esteem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]