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Cognitive science-informed approaches have gained considerable influence in education in the UK and internationally, but not much is known about how teachers perceive cognitive science-informed strategies or enact them within the contexts of their everyday classrooms. In this paper, we discuss the perceptions and experiences of cognitive science-informed strategies of 13 teachers in England. The paper critically explores how the teachers understood and used cognitive science-informed strategies in their teaching, their views of the benefits and challenges for different subjects and groups of learners, and their reflections on supporting factors and barriers for adopting the strategies in their schools. The teachers' accounts illustrate some of the many complexities of adopting cognitive science-informed approaches in real-life educational settings. Drawing on their narratives, the paper emphasises the importance of acknowledging different contextual dimensions and the dynamic interactions between them to understand when and how teachers enact cognitive science-informed approaches in their classrooms.

There are sound educational and examining reasons for the use of coursework assessment and practical assessment of student work by teachers in schools for purposes of reporting examination grades. Coursework and practical work test a range of different curriculum goals to final papers and increase the validity and reliability of the result. However, the use of coursework and practical work in tests and examinations has been a matter of constant political as well as educational debate in England over the last 30 years. The paper reviews these debates and developments and argues that as accountability pressures increase, the evidence base for published results is becoming narrower and less valid as the system moves back to wholly end-of-course testing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the intergenerational effects of deindustrialisation on the processes and experiences of education at 'Lillydown Primary', a state primary school in a former mining community in the north of England. Complicating Avery Gordon's notion of 'haunting', and drawing on conceptualisations of affect and community 'being-ness', it highlights how contemporary experiences of education continue to be affected by historical and cultural relations and rhythms of everyday life, even though most of Britain's traditional industrial base is now gone. The paper draws on data from ethnographic research carried out at the School and explores the complex ways in which historical, class-based relations and modes of 'being' continue to haunt across time and space. Its findings suggest that by coming to know the fullness of a social haunting -- the loss, injury and the 'goodness' of the past -- schools may have the potential to engage working-class children in educational processes and experiences from which they might otherwise feel excluded, alienated or detached.

Among the most important duties of the school inspectorate since its formation in 1839 has been to report on the quality of teaching. Yet there is relatively little historical discussion over how the inspectorate has defined and evaluated teaching quality, which this paper seeks to address. Following a discussion of conceptual issues and an outline of the paper's methodology, the inspectorate's views on teaching excellence are compared in three significant decades in its history: in the 1840s, when inspection judgements on teaching were highly individualized; in the 1880s, when the Education Department explicated and rewarded teaching excellence in financial terms; and the 1990s, when the newly-formed Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) introduced comprehensive guidance upon which to base its judgements. The paper identifies the influences on such judgements, how teaching excellence was described, and longstanding challenges associated with consistency of inspection judgements. Such historical perspective affords important context to questions that continue to have resonance in the inspection of primary schools, notably how teaching quality is defined, measured, evaluated and improved.

This paper examines and evaluates some aspects of the legacy of the West Riding of Yorkshire County Council and its long serving Chief Education Officer, Sir Alec Clegg, who held the post between 1945 and 1974. Against a subsequent political discourse of markets, choice and autonomy which portrays local authorities as the cause of poor educational outcomes and school failure, political developments have led to a diminution of the role of local authorities, destruction of local democratic accountability and greater centralisation of power and control of education. Drawing on interviews and email correspondence with former pupils, teachers, officers and others of the West Riding, its successor authorities and beyond, we explore the context, tensions, successes and lasting impact of Clegg's ideas and practice, particularly in relation to support for community development and the arts and creativity. The paper also looks at Clegg's influence and legacy with regard to selection for secondary education and the role of middle schools, the development of primary education and the impact on successor authorities to the West Riding and beyond.

Previous studies suggest that small rural schools experience a range of challenges relating to their size, financial difficulties and geographical isolation, as well as potential opportunities relating to their position within their communities. In Northern Ireland, these schools are situated within the comparatively rare context of a religiously divided school system. However, research on these schools in this jurisdiction is scarce. The notion of consociationalism is highlighted as central to an understanding of the prevailing schooling system and the peace process in Northern Ireland as a post-conflict society. Set against this backdrop, the paper reports on a survey of principals of small rural schools in Northern Ireland; the challenges they face and their engagement with the communities they serve. The findings reveal how these small rural primary schools, while encountering many similar challenges to such schools globally, continue to play a central consociational role in serving their respective divided communities. Their relationship with the Church is seen as particularly important. The findings raise important broader questions as to the extent to which the current system of schooling is able to contribute to the building of a more integrated society.

On the occasion of its sesquicentenary, which coincides with an extended period of school closures imposed due to the effects of a global virus pandemic, this paper analyses the Elementary Education Act of 1870, and in particular in relation to its implications for compulsory attendance at school. It did not introduce compulsory schooling but helped to shape the ambiguities and uncertainties surrounding school attendance that have persisted into the twenty-first century, such as the case of the Isle of Wight Council v. Platt in 2017 and highlighted in the school closures of 2020. The paper discusses the historiography of educational legislation, looks closely at the requirements for school attendance in the 1870 Act and related legislation, and then examines the historical and contemporary repercussions of this ambiguity and ambivalence.

In recent decades children's rights to exercise choice in educational settings have slowly gained currency. Children's rights advocates highlight the role of choice in empowering children to become critical and productive citizens. However, in this paper, the role of choice in interactions between teachers and students is problematised. Using Foucault's notion of governmentality, the paper explores 15 teachers' use of choice in classrooms and considers how 'student choice' can, far from empowering children, be used as a way of reinforcing extant adult-child power relations. The paper argues that students are often responsibilised to exercise choice wisely in order that they find themselves in a position in which they can enjoy everyday classroom privileges disseminated by the educator. When used this in way, the strategy of affording students 'choice' can frame students' transgressions as individual failings to conform. The paper concludes that practitioners who advocate children's rights need to reflect on the relationship between notions of choice and institutional power relations in order to ensure choice is used in a way that leaves space for power relations to be challenged by the students being asked to 'choose'.

Global policy transfer has become increasingly popular in recent years, and one recent example of such policy transfer is the England-China Teacher Exchange, which was initiated in 2014 with the explicit aim of raising attainment in maths in English primary schools by trialling concepts used in Shanghai schools, Shanghai rising to the top of the PISA rankings in 2009. However, as this paper will argue this is an overly simplistic attempt to transfer a policy between two wholly different contexts, the lack of success of the policy seen in the very limited impact on student attainment in the participating schools. Whilst such policy transfer has increasingly taken place in the context of isomorphism and global pressures to adopt policy from high performing education systems, it is argued that policy needs to be explicitly reconsidered in terms of the local context it is being imported into if it is to be embedded in an effective manner, as well as rooted firmly in research. It is also argued that the England-China Teacher Exchange reflects a broader ideological focus in coalition government policy on the marketisation of education alongside the PISA rankings, rather any wider consideration of how this particular policy would drive up standards.

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 contributes to recent debates pertaining to neoliberal technologies of performativity including fabrication, panopticism and post-panopticism. These terms are discussed here in relation to constant visibility from recent school inspection arrangements in England and the impact of this on school leadership. Case study research within one seaside town was drawn from two schools, one, a state primary school and the other, a state secondary school, located within an area of deprivation. Both schools had been judged as requires improvement by Ofsted, but immediately before the fieldwork commenced, the secondary school received a judgment of good. Fourteen semi-structured interviews with thirteen leaders in a range of roles were undertaken to examine the conditions created by school inspection. Data is considered in relation to the features of panopticism and post-panopticism and shows leaders experience constant visibility, the pressures of performing to shifting expectations, and resultant staffing instability. This is not conducive to leaders working to improve schools, particularly those serving areas of deprivation.

The focus of this paper is how changes in school governance in one state primary school in a city in central Greece have resulted in a significant degree of inclusion for Roma children. This inclusivity runs counter to the disturbing occurrence of the social and ethnic segregation of a group of locally resident Roma children within schools. This paper reports from a case study that took place in one primary school with a large number of Roma pupils in a city in Greece. We argue for the importance of democratic governance as a pedagogic approach and as a method for the inclusion and empowerment of disadvantaged groups within educational settings. We initially define democratic governance by highlighting the human rights framework that underpins it. We describe the historical and social context of the research field before discussing the school routine and the methods the teachers adopt so as to contribute to Roma inclusivity in the classroom. Our account is informed by an interview conducted with the school's head teacher and various stakeholders' narratives. This paper suggests that positive educational initiatives designed to include the parents and children of disadvantaged groups like Roma communities can succeed. We argue that when core principles of democratic governance extend beyond the school and into other community political structures, progress towards inclusion is possible.

The paper explores the current rationale for primary science in England with a focus on how competing perspectives arising from perceptions of educational ideology and policy discourse have helped to shape current practice. The aim will be to provide a conceptual understanding of this by focusing specifically on how policy has influenced practice. In particular it will consider the way in which discourse and policy text have contributed to the emergent rationale for primary science which in many ways reflects conflicting influences, views and policies. Data were collected over a year from a regional survey and from four case-study primary schools. The findings suggest that teachers in primary schools face tensions between promoting both an educational and a political rationale for learning primary science. The paper will conclude by suggesting that the justification for primary science should be based on what we already know about how children learn science as well as helping them to develop an understanding of science and how it influences and is intrinsically linked to the needs of society.

This paper reports the use of a systematic review to explore the impact of daily mathematics lessons in England on enhancing pupil confidence and competence in early mathematics. The review process identified 18 key papers. An in-depth analysis of these indicated that there was some evidence that the introduction of daily mathematics lessons, as part of the National Numeracy Strategy in England, has led to some improvement in pupil confidence and competence in early mathematics. However, the analysis also highlighted some shortcomings in the way this approach has impacted on classroom practice.

Despite much recent concern with the possibilities of moral character education in elementary schooling and professional training, the university and higher educational prospects of such education have only lately received much attention. This paper begins by considering--and largely endorsing--the general case for character education in contexts of pre-adult schooling and adult professional and vocational training. However, it proceeds to argue that the case for intervention in character formation in some educational contexts is not generally applicable to university and higher education. Key points are that there can be no clear normative warrant for such intervention in the case of learners who are: (i) beyond the age of majority and (ii) voluntarily engaged in study wherein significant professional or public implications of personal character development are not a pressing concern. In short, while good moral character is clearly of general human importance, its deliberate or explicit promotion may not be equally warranted in all educational contexts.

The implications of the transdisciplinary spatial turn are attracting growing interest in a broad range of areas related to education. This paper draws on a methodology for interdisciplinary thinking in order to articulate a new theoretical configuration of place-related identity, and its implications for a research agenda. The new configuration is created through an analysis of place-related identities in narrative theory, texts and literacy processes. The emerging research agenda focuses on the ways children perceive and represent their place-related identities through reading and writing as inspired by and manifested in texts.

The paper examines variations in the extent of special education needs (SEN) in different socio-economic contexts, drawing on data from 46 English primary schools. It examines the implications of variations in SEN for individual pupils and for school organisation and processes. It reviews funding allocations for SEN and what they mean for the provision of support in different settings. (Contains 3 tables and 9 notes.)

This paper problematises the official discourse of economic competitiveness and social inclusion used by the 2007 Education and Skills Bill to justify the proposal to extend compulsory participation in education and training in England to the age of 18. Comparisons are drawn between this attempt to raise the age of compulsion and previous attempts, which took place in a significantly different socio-economic context. It is argued that the needs of those most likely to be affected by the current proposal--young people not in education, employment or training (NEET)--are subordinated to the needs of an English economy that is increasingly based upon low-skill, low-pay work relations.

On the occasion of its sesquicentenary, which coincides with an extended period of school closures imposed due to the effects of a global virus pandemic, this paper analyses the Elementary Education Act of 1870, and in particular in relation to its implications for compulsory attendance at school. It did not introduce compulsory schooling but helped to shape the ambiguities and uncertainties surrounding school attendance that have persisted into the twenty-first century, such as the case of the Isle of Wight Council v. Platt in 2017 and highlighted in the school closures of 2020. The paper discusses the historiography of educational legislation, looks closely at the requirements for school attendance in the 1870 Act and related legislation, and then examines the historical and contemporary repercussions of this ambiguity and ambivalence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From her study of traditional and open-plan British infant schools, the author shows how school buildings and playgrounds can express social and educational principles by controlling freedom of access; the destruction of defenses by open plan architecture being countered, on occasion, by creation of new defenses by teachers. (Editor/SJL)

Over the last 20 years, the use of administrative data has become central to understanding pupil attainment and school performance. Of most importance has been its use to robustly demonstrate the impact of socio-economic status (SES) on pupil attainment. Much of this analysis in England and Wales has relied on whether pupils are eligible for free school meals (eFSM). However, very little is known about the validity of this measure as a proxy for SES. Using a recent major birth cohort study, this paper examines the relationship between pupils' eFSM and their more detailed socio-economic circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effect of composition may be strong in systems where students are systematically sorted based on their socio-economic background. This paper aims to model the differential effect of class composition on pupils’ achievement in Belgium (French-speaking Community), France, Spain and Portugal. Multilevel models are consequently tested on the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study 2011 data (20,830 pupils in 1139 classes). Our results suggest that socio-economic composition does not have an equivalent effect on pupil achievement in the four countries included in our analysis: its effect is strong in the French-speaking Community of Belgium and France but smaller in Spain and Portugal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the characteristics of people who return to learning to achieve at least a level 2 qualification, drawing on the 1958 National Child Development Cohort Study. Results show that adults who gained level 2 were more likely than those who did not to have been engaged in a range of learning activities at earlier ages, including learning during childhood, staying in education during adolescence and undertaking courses leading and not leading to qualifications during adulthood. The factor that has the highest impact on progression by age 33 and by age 42 is early school attainment. This means that for individuals who do well at school there is a greater chance of achievement of qualifications during adulthood, even when this qualification is not achieved by age 23. We further find that socioeconomic constraints in adulthood may be less of a barrier to progression than is often believed. Taking together, these findings suggest that the main focus should be on paying particular attention to attitudinal barriers to learning, rather than just being concerned with removing economic and social constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many countries the need for education systems and schools to improve and innovate has become central to the education policy of governments. School inspections are expected to play an important role in promoting such continuous improvement and to help schools and education systems more generally to consider the need for change and improvement. This article aims to enhance our understanding of the connections between school inspections and their impact on school improvement, using a longitudinal survey of principals and teachers in primary and secondary education. Random effects models and a longitudinal path model suggest that school inspections in particular have an impact on principals, but less so on teachers. The results indicate that the actual impact on improved school and teaching conditions, and ultimately student achievement, is limited. Schools in different inspection categories report different mechanisms of potential impact; the lack of any correlation between accepting feedback, setting expectations and stakeholder sensitivity and improvement actions in schools suggests that the impact of school inspections is not a linear process, but operates through diffuse and cyclical processes of change. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article presents information on dame schools. The article scrutinizes allusions to be culled from literary, biographical and artistic sources. One of the philosophers comments that the dame school appears so frequently in English literature both poetry and prose that it must have played a very important part in the beginnings of elementary education in England. The quest for dame schools before 1800 is fascinating. Two early references are both associated with English writer Samuel Johnson. Johnson quotes this in his Dictionary of 1755 in definition of schooldame that sending little children of two or three years old to a schooldame, without any design of learning one letter, but only to keep them, out of fire and water. In 1714 was born the boy who was later to adapt to the poetic convention of an earlier age some memories of his first schoolmistress. When William Shenstone thus commemorated Sarah Lloyd he established a romantic tradition which was followed by many other writers. Shenstone, along with Richard Jago, future clergyman and minor poet, attended a dame school at Halesowen conducted by Sarah Lloyd.

The article examines a memorandum by politician W. E. Forster which presents suggestions for consideration in Framing the Education Bill for England. The memorandum has traditionally been regarded as the basis of the elementary education bill submitted to Parliament in February, 1870. Both T. Wemyss Reid, Forster's biographer, and David Roland, author of an extensive thesis on the 1870 Act and its aftermath, assumed that the first draft was submitted to the Cabinet. Reid included in his biography excerpts from the first draft which were excised from the second; Roland quoted the first draft in his thesis as if it were the only one. The material omitted from the second draft was concerned with two of the most controversial aspects of the education question, the relation of the state to religious instruction and the enforcement of school attendance. The first draft contained a well-argued critique of the former problem and provided a guide-line for dealing with it. It is informed that the changes made with regard to the attendance question had no effect on the future of the education bill.

The article discusses the evolution of secondary education in Great Britain. The schools, while meeting the needs of those pupils who can give their whole time to instruction, are also to serve as continuation schools for apprentices in towns and also for winter schools for the young members of the population. The establishment of new schools would conduce in the most certain and effectual manner to the improvement of the great public schools', of which the principal defect at the time to be too much pre-occupation with Latin and Greek. Thus it would appear that the term secondary education had a political aroma and for many years carried with it a presupposition of a reorganization of English education upon lines different from those recognized by tradition. The organization of middle-class education must be a State affair and that the intervention of the British Government would be indispensable in order to create a national and systematic approach to a widespread provision of education. In retrospect, the nineteenth century saw an impetus given to the development of elementary education, the first half of the twentieth century saw an impetus given to the expansion of secondary education.

The article focuses on the attitude of Henry Edward Manning, Archbishop of Westminster and the head of the Catholic Hierarchy, towards the Education Bill of 1870 in Great Britain. It is an over-simplification to consider Manning to be an advocate of the "Dual System" presented in the Bill. For in the pre-Bill period his proposal was that the Government should induce the several denominations to fill up the gaps by augmenting grants and also by utilizing local rate resources. In this way he hoped to ward off the admission of the secular principle into English elementary education. The British Government rightly dismissed such a scheme of reform as insufficient. One of the most unfortunate consequences of the existing grant system was that in those areas where voluntaryist zeal was weakest it had often proved impossible to raise adequate funds to secure state grants for school building. The key to an appreciation of both the Archbishop's policy and tactics in the crisis years of 1869 and 1870 lies in his cognizance and dread of the emergence of secularism as a force in English life and society. Wilfrid Ward has emphasized Manning's strong and mystical sense of a battle raging between the Church and the modern world as the impelling force in his episcopate.