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The increasing ethnic diversity in the UK has highlighted the importance of supporting primary school pupils with English as an Additional Language (EAL), some of whom also have special educational needs (SEN). However, there is relatively little research carried out in the UK on children with both EAL needs and SEN. This paper presents the results of a study which aimed to explore the strategies used to teach and support pupils with the dual needs in four schools in North-West England. It reports research carried out with eight EAL pupils with speech, language, and communication needs (SLCN) and four pupils with learning difficulties (LD), and explores the different strategies staff used to support these pupils. The results showed that the two groups varied in the extent to which staff differentiated pedagogical strategies. The paper concludes by pointing to the need for further training and greater collaboration between the fields of EAL and SEN in research and educational practice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Despite a wide international literature on the effect of vocational and general education on school-to-work transition, relatively little is known about the role of having studied specific subjects in explaining inequalities in young people’s labour market outcomes. This paper aims to fill this gap by examining differences in employment chances of young people who left education early, either at the end of compulsory schooling or at the end of secondary school. Using data from the Scottish Longitudinal Study, a large-scale linkage study created using data from administrative and statistical sources, we found little gender differences but strong parental background differences in school leavers’ employment status and type of occupation entered. Social inequalities in labour market outcomes were only partly explained by curriculum choices. Moreover, after controlling for social origin and grades, only history and business for lower-secondary leavers and maths for upper-secondary leavers were associated with a reduction in the chances of being unemployed/inactive. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, we examine the trajectories of initially higher- and lower-achieving children from lower and higher socio-economic status families from primary school through to university in England for the first time. We also explore what explains these trajectories. This enables us to provide new insights into when and why the performance of children with similar initial achievement diverges on the basis of their socio-economic background. Our results indicate that pupils from poor backgrounds who are higher achievers in primary school fall behind their better-off but lower-achieving peers during secondary school. This suggests that secondary school may be a critical period to intervene to prevent poor children from falling behind their richer peers. Our analysis suggests that there is less divergence in performance between pupils from different socio-economic backgrounds who attend the same schools. This result is particularly strong for children with low initial achievement. While we remain cautious about the implications of these findings, they provide suggestive evidence that schools (or the sorting of pupils into schools) play an important role in explaining why the test scores of richer and poorer children diverge over time. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) skills are very valuable for economic growth. However, the number of young people pursuing STEM learning trajectories in the United Kingdom was lower than the predicted demand during the last decade. Several STEM enrichment and enhancement activities were thus funded by the government, private, and charitable organisations to improve understanding of and raise pupil interest in these subjects. One possible way of measuring the impact of these activities in supporting pupil understanding of maths was to track the proportion of young people obtaining a ‘good’ grade in standardised national tests such as the GCSEs. Attainment is of course only one possible outcome of education but certainly a very important one because students are more likely to continue studying subjects in which they score higher. This makes maths attainment even more important as it is a pre-requisite for admission to STEM degree courses. This longitudinal study makes use of the National Pupil Database to assess the impact of these schemes on maths attainment of participating schools. Following up 300 intervention schools for five years the study shows the intervention group did not do any better than the comparator. The paper suggests further directions for research and offers recommendations for practice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

There are large social class inequalities in educational achievement in the UK. This paper quantifies the contribution of one mechanism to the production of these inequalities: social class differences in school ‘effectiveness’, where ‘effectiveness’ refers to a school’s impact on pupils’ educational achievement (relative to other schools). It builds on the small number of existing studies, whilst overcoming a number of their limitations. It estimates the effectiveness of the (state) schools attended between ages 7/8 and 10/11 by a cohort of children born in the 1990s in Avon, a former county of England, and then compares the effectiveness of the schools attended by children from different social classes. It finds that ‘higher’ social class children attend more effective schools, on average, and that these social class differences in average school effectiveness between ages 7/8 and 10/11 account for 7% of social class differences in average educational achievement age 10/11. This is not a causal analysis, however. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper reports on an empirical study concerning educational professionals' understandings of self-harm in primary school children. There is little research available about self-harm in primary-school aged children, and literature searches for the current study have revealed no research on primary school professionals' understandings of self-harm in their pupils. This is remarkable given the role that such professionals play in pastoral care. The present qualitative research involved interviewing 15 staff members of six schools in the North of England and analysing transcribed data using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. The findings of this exploratory study suggest a cyclical relationship between the experience, understanding and awareness of self-harm as described by primary school professionals. This research is presented as a springboard for improving understandings of how self-harm is experienced and managed in primary schools. It is hoped that the findings might contribute to a long term goal of working with school communities to develop system-level interventions that cultivate existing resources for addressing self-harm in children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many education systems continue to express concerns about an apparently inexorable increase in the number of pupils displaying difficult behaviour in schools and classrooms. Within the English context the government has tried to address and respond to these concerns by undertaking a variety of initiatives and offering guidance and training to schools on the management of behaviour problems. However, we argue that there is a significant danger that by focusing too narrowly on the needs of those pupils with the most obvious and pressing behavioural difficulties the needs of those with emotional problems are overlooked. We highlight the existence of a 'gap' in much of the policy and guidance in England regarding pupils with emotional problems and offer explanations of why this situation has occurred. In support of this we draw from the extensive literature that already exists and also from a recent large-scale survey undertaken in Greece. This survey of teachers' attitudes provides an important comparative dimension in understanding the dangers that exist for policy makers, professionals and teachers in both 'developing' and developed contexts in the face of increasing disruption in schools. The paper concludes with suggestions for policy makers on how this gap might be avoided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current proliferation of baseline assessment schemes for Reception pupils has a number of aims, one of which involves the concept of 'value-added' from Reception to Key Stage 1. This paper looks at results from data collected for three baseline schemes, and investigates what can be said about national levels of performance. It also looks at evidence on relationships between baseline and Key Stage 1 test results, and critically evaluates the extent to which such data can be used for 'value-added' analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]