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This research-based paper attempts to describe a continuum of delivery choices available to school and college managers by which Key Skills can be introduced as part of Curriculum 2000. It describes the pressure to integrate, the illusion of contextualisation and the consequent pre-eminence of staff competence as a determining influence on the effectiveness of the delivery structure. It describes some problems associated with integration and the relative efficiency and effectiveness of discrete and integrated delivery. The paper goes on to define a continuous array of mixed modes of delivery, the levels of support required to underpin them, the external influences that impinge on the process of their selection and the effectiveness of monitoring and tracking systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One way to manage marking error, in a large-scale educational testing context, is to establish a mechanism through which appeals can be lodged. While, at one level, this seems to offer a straightforward technical solution to the problem of marking error, it can also result in unintended consequences, with political, social or educational ramifications. It is therefore important to monitor the operation of any appeal system, to determine how effectively it meets its objectives. The present paper was based on an evaluation of the system which operates for National Curriculum testing in England. Four underlying objectives were identified: the measurement objective, the political objective, the educational objective and the psychological objective. Although there is reason to believe that such goals can be achieved through appeal systems, there are major threats to achieving them, many of which appear to be inevitable. These threats are examined within the paper and implications for policy and practice are explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Grouping students into classes by ability on a subject-by-subject basis, also known as setting, is a common practice in many educational systems. An important issue is therefore the way in which setting decisions are made. While educators and policy-makers favouring setting claim that ability or achievement is the sole criterion used, critics counter that there is a tendency for factors such as pupils' socio-economic status background, gender and ethnicity to influence teachers' setting decisions. Purpose: This paper aims to examine the extent to which factors other than prior achievement influence setting decisions in England. In particular, we wish to study both schools' declared policies on setting and what data may reveal as to predictors of which set pupils will be placed in at year 7, the first year of secondary school. Research questions are therefore: (1) what factors do teachers say influence setting decisions in their schools; and (2) what variables are significant predictors of set membership of students? Sample: To test these hypotheses, we conducted a survey of schools and analysed national datasets. Twelve Local Authorities (LAs) in England were selected on a purposive basis to represent areas of ethnic diversity and social disadvantage. Within these LAs, 100 secondary schools were randomly sampled and contacted with a request to complete a survey consisting of questions on whether the schools set, how setting decisions were made, how often sets were reviewed and which pupils were in which sets (using Unique Pupil Numbers). In total, 44 surveys were returned completed. Methods: Data from the questionnaires was linked to data from the National Pupil Database. Pupil level analyses were conducted using statistical tests and multinomial logistic regression models in which set membership was regressed on prior attainment (National Curriculum Test Scores at the end of primary school), social background, special educational needs (SEN) status, ethnicity and gender. Results: In the survey, schools indicated that setting decisions were based on prior attainment and ability. Results showed that prior attainment was indeed the main predictor of the probability of being assigned to a particular set for both English and mathematics. However, although mentioned by respondents as being the main factor in their decisions regarding setting along with ability, it was a relatively poor predictor. Social background (as measured through ACORN categories and free school meals eligibility) and SEN were also significant predictors of probability of set assignment. Conclusion: These findings suggest that over and above the effect of attainment, pupils with no SEN and pupils from higher socio-economic status backgrounds are more likely to be assigned to higher sets and less likely to be assigned to lower sets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent policy in England has suggested that educational outcomes will be raised if schools specialise in particular subjects. In contrast, calls for the reform of 16-19 education have suggested that these outcomes will be improved if students become less specialised in their studies. At present, there is a limited evidence base from which to judge these arguments. In particular, we do not know the extent to which students' achievements in 16-19 education are higher when they choose subjects which play to their perceived strengths. We also do not know whether students are more likely to choose to study subjects taught by more effective departments. That is, outcomes may be affected by the relative strengths of students or departments in circumstances where there is freedom to choose. In this paper we provide evidence of the existence and strength of these relationships. This evidence suggests that reducing the scope within schools for specialisation or competition will reduce average student attainment and these effects ought to be taken into account when evaluating alternative curriculum policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Encouraging pupils to develop a sense of European identity is one of the implicit aims of the ‘European Schools’. This paper reports on a small case study that was carried out in 2004 that investigated how the European School at Culham attempts to develop in its pupils a sense of European identity. In particular, the study looked at the secondary school’s organizational features, its curriculum, extra-curricular activities and teachers’ conceptions of European identity. The research findings reveal that above all else, pupils’ sense of European identity is encouraged indirectly through the many opportunities the school provides for these children from diverse European backgrounds to integrate and interact with one another. Teachers at the school believe that it is through such interactions, which take place both in the classroom and through extra-curricular activities, that pupils learn about each others’ cultures and languages and develop a feeling of being European. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we examine the methods by which candidates are selected for the Oxford Medical School in the light of the literature on assessment in general and candidate selection in particular. We review changes in the process that attempt to capture the best of evidence-supported practice while preserving or enhancing the features identified as being peculiar strengths of the Oxford learning environment. These changes aim to improve fairness, reliability and validity, while permitting candidate-specific approaches that allow for differences of prior experience and opportunity. Over the last three years, the outcome has been a marked convergence between the approaches to selection in Oxford with commonly accepted standards of assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the collaboration between Sheffield Hallam University and an International IT Consulting organisation to develop an innovative postgraduate curriculum that combines intensive, vendor-specific certification training together with a challenging enquiry-focused educational experience. Employers prefer to 'benchmark' potential applicants against industry certification standards, yet also desire the qualities of a postgraduate's enquiring mind. Using research and 'open enquiry' as principle values, a curriculum has been created that facilitates exploration of a wide range of practical and theoretical topics in order to support the development of a highly skilled, autonomous 'Technical Consultant'. A key aspect of this approach is to provide guidance for learners to explore their own development paths, whilst also exposing them to an established vendor specific platform in order to gain sufficient practical experience before seeking employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is based on research with a group of one‐year Postgraduate Certificate in Education secondary trainee teachers during their initial teacher education and training in England. It considers tensions between trainees’ prior experiences and conceptions of teaching and their training programme. In doing so, it seeks to examine how a trainee’s dispositions as revealed through practice in various contexts are reflective of Bourdieu’s ‘habitus’. Associated with this, the paper also examines how particular forms of pre‐existing cultural capital and manifestations of biographical identity also pre‐dispose trainees to form affinities and disaffinities within particular fields. Lacanian concepts of the symbolic, imaginary and real are used to help explain how trainee teachers articulate resonance and dissonance during their field experiences, particularly in relation to ontological concerns of securing a professional stable sense of self. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We suggest that there is a need for those who seek to explore issues associated with the implementation of citizenship education in England to clarify its specific nature. This can be done, at least in part, through a process of comparison. To that end we review some of the connections and disjunctions between ‘character education’ and ‘citizenship education’. We argue, drawing from US and UK literature but focusing our attention on contexts and issues in England, that there are indeed some broad areas of overlap between these two fields. Citizens should be of ‘good’ character and the educational initiatives that we consider both emerge from a concern about current trends in society. However, we suggest that the overlaps with citizenship education principally apply when character education is drawn very broadly. When we examine a particular approach to character education that is often US-based, and titled as ‘citizenship’, we note many contrasts with citizenship education as formulated in the National Curriculum for England. We suggest that citizenship educators in England need to interpret claims about the similarity between these two fields with caution, or meanings that apply to both character education and citizenship education will be distorted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Technology is changing not only our material reality, but also our social roles and power positions within the social structure. Whilst its increasingly widespread applications in industry, on the one hand, facilitate production processes they also contribute to the marginalisation and displacement of particular groups of people within the labour force (Swanandan, 1989; Pollert, 1988). Thus, technology can "embody specific forms of power and authority" (Winner, 1986, p. 19). This article considers the view that Technology as a reconstituted subject in the National Curriculum in England and Wales functions to a large extent as a means of naturalising evolving work practices and specific worker awarenesses required within the technological production process. It also serves to legitimate real and symbolic differences created between the new 'technical' knowledge elites and the functionaries within the production process. The accommodation in the technology curriculum of new structural changes occurring within society can then be regarded as an attempt by the state to rationalise, in pupils' consciousness, the basis of a reformulated capitalist economic order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the problems with combining different disciplines in the production of a course about the theory of curriculum design at the Open University in Milton Keynes, England. Arousal of barriers-between-disciplines in the teaching strategies; Relationship between autonomy and needs-analysis; Importance of considering factors to promote cooperation between interdisciplinary teams.