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Following lockdowns in 2020 owing to Covid‐19, schools needed to find a way to ensure the education of their pupils. In order to do this, they engaged in digital learning, to varying extents. Innovations emanated from all school staff including, for example, teachers, leaders and teaching assistants. Some were already innovating in this area and brought forward and implemented digital strategies, while others engaged with digital learning for the first time. While research is emerging about the effects of the pandemic restrictions on pupils and staff in relation to key issues such as mental health and educational attainment, very little is known about the impact on school leaders' strategic planning processes. To address this gap, this paper draws on a UK Research and Innovation funded study adopting a strategy as learning approach to report on 50 qualitative interviews with school leaders to examine digital strategy in English secondary schools, before, during and after July 2021, when restrictions were lifted in England. It draws on strategy as learning literature to evaluate if schools have changed their strategic planning for digital learning, as a direct response to having learned and innovated during the pandemic. The paper concludes that there is evidence that digital innovations during the pandemic have changed the ways in which leaders think about their digital strategy, thus supporting a strategy as learning approach. However it also concludes that although there is ample evidence that the pandemic has changed the way many schools view digital learning, for some schools, there remain persistent barriers to digital integration and planning. These emanate both from material and cultural considerations, as well as leader vision and belief in digital learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we report data from the first national survey of secondary Shakespeare teaching in the UK, conducted online in 2017–18 with a sample of 211 teachers distributed throughout Wales, England, Northern Ireland, and Scotland. In this article, we outline the pedagogical practices which are dominant. Specifically, we examine the group of pedagogies known as 'Active Methods' and consider their popularity in secondary classrooms, and why teachers say they do or do not use them. The most popular activities for teaching Shakespeare plays in the UK across the key stages are as follows: reading with parts around the groups; creating scene summaries; watching a film; and historical context activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The importance of participatory autism research is discussed in relation to a project involving six autistic researchers and five non-autistic university researchers collaborating to investigate anxiety in autistic adolescents. The paper describes the process of establishing a research partnership and the values and philosophy behind this inclusive method of research. Lessons were learnt about neurodivergent thinking and the benefits it brings to the development of research questions and analysis of data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent decades have seen important changes in education to work transitions in the UK. For secondary and further education leavers there are extensive challenges in accessing jobs with prospects. Recently, policy makers have renewed their focus on this middle grouping who are not bound for HE or NEET. However, there is a relative paucity of research into the experiences of these young people and surprisingly little youth researcher engagement with vocational pathways and their framing in policy. The paper interrogates changing experiences and opportunity 'in the middle' and linked policy framings and interventions. Policy remains framed in individualising terms which focus on young people's capacities and positions them, and represents their interests, in very specific ways. School mediated employer engagement is an interesting exemplar here, and is contrasted with alternative interventions which seek to restructure opportunities more fundamentally. The paper argues for a new agenda for youth research which would hold a mirror to experiences in the middle, critically interrogate assumptions embedded in policy and practice and enhance understanding of differentiated pathways and prospects for young people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In England, pupils aged 16 take the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) examinations for a range of subjects. The current assessment models for GCSE include a two-tier structure for some subjects and a non-tier model for the others. The tiered subjects have a higher tier designed for high achieving pupils and a lower tier for low achieving pupils. The higher tier paper is targeted at grades A*–D (with A* the highest grade available), while the lower tier paper at grades C–G (with G the lowest grade). The UK government has proposed a comprehensive reform of GCSEs. It suggested that, with tiered papers, pupils are forced to choose between higher and lower tier papers, which will place a cap on the ambition of those entering for the lower tier. The government therefore suggests avoiding tiering in the reformed GCSEs when possible. This paper discusses the technical and equity issues with the use of tiered examinations in current GCSEs and reviews potential alternative assessment approaches for effective differentiation between pupils for the reformed GCSEs. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, we present the findings from our critical analysis of the health discourses evident with physical education (PE) curricula in each UK home nation—England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. We carried out a critical discourse analysis of those curriculum documents that talk directly to PE teachers about how to organise, enact and assess PE curricula in schools. The results from our analysis uncovered that, with the exception of the curriculum in England, all PE curricula conceptualise health and wellbeing holistically. However, our analysis also uncovered complex health landscapes within curricula, where discourses move from notions of supporting and enabling pupil health and wellbeing towards a more concrete (and measurable) concept of health‐related learning, often associated with public health goals of promoting physical activity. Furthermore, although the public health discourses are presented in a way that suggests that young people will develop knowledge and skills to support their health, closer scrutiny reveals that they may be more associated with discourses of risk, promoting 'healthy' behaviours to avoid 'ill health'. We conclude by suggesting that PE teachers need to develop a critical understanding of the health discourses within their PE curriculum. This will help them to navigate, interpret and enact curricula in an informed way, enabling them to challenge discourses that are deficit in nature, where pupils are taught how to be healthy, rather than having the freedom to learn about themselves and their health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the first-hand accounts of disablist school violence experienced by young people with dwarfism during their secondary education in the United Kingdom. A narrative, qualitative methodology was utilised, which turned nineteen young people with dwarfism into the storytellers of their schooling experiences. Drawing together a poststructuralist approach to bullying and Critical Disability Studies, it presents and discusses stories of physical, cultural and systemic violence they experienced, as well as their resistance to it. In doing so, it challenges dominant discourses around disability and school violence, including the representation of disabled young people as 'passive victims' of school violence or disability being the trigger of such violence. Finally, it provides a sociological analysis of such violence, shifting the focus from the individualistic blame to the cultural, institutional and systemic underpinnings of such violence and the role of disablism in its perpetuation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research shows that students starting higher education (HE) often lack an essential level of information literacy (IL). To address this issue, a growing number of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) engage with schools through Information Literacy Outreach Programmes (ILOPs). This paper explores the forces and motivations behind how and why HEIs engage with schools through ILOPs, and discusses their impact on beneficiaries. Using a UK research-led university in the North of England as a single case study (hitherto XXXX), this research project adopted a qualitative case study approach and used Situational Analysis to explore and analyse the data collected. Data collection involved semi-structured interviews with key staff that participated in the IL outreach programme, and a model was developed to illustrate diagrammatically the key outcomes and phases of the IL Outreach Programme. Key findings revealed that the IL Outreach Programme at XXXX is an effective mechanism for bridging the social worlds of schools and HE; for creating partnerships and knowledge sharing between institutions; for breaking down social barriers and inequalities; and for developing critically aware, independent learners. The significance of this paper is that it helps us understand the impact of IL outreach programmes, and how such programmes provide schools and HEIs with an opportunity to work collaboratively and share knowledge and best practice. It also provides a valuable addition to IL literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Curriculum integration is a feature of many new curricula that have emerged in different countries since around the turn of the millennium. It focuses on removing the boundaries between traditional subject specialisms, to enable more holistic and 'joined‐up' learning opportunities. This study draws on the experiences of a group of primary and secondary teachers in Wales, engaged in creating a framework for an integrated curriculum for expressive arts. Whilst the teachers are united in their ambition for establishing a curriculum that gives greater status to the arts, curriculum integration presents significant challenges, notably in how subject knowledge is understood and presented within an integrated curriculum. The teachers take different approaches to curriculum integration, with primary teachers favouring a transdisciplinary approach, with child‐led learning and themes taking precedence, and secondary teachers opting for multidisciplinary approaches, where the themes are organising devices but where subjects take priority. Differing practices suggest differing conceptions of subject knowledge and mastery within an integrated curriculum. Drawing, in particular, on Bernstein's concepts relating to knowledge discourses, this paper suggests that the danger of an integrated curriculum is weakened disciplinary knowledge. Whilst this paper relates to the arts, the messages about curriculum integration might be applied more widely. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are concerns that too many young people, from disadvantaged backgrounds, are moving into secondary education in the UK, and elsewhere, without the necessary literacy skills to make progress with the wider secondary school curriculum. A large number of interventions have been proposed to reduce this poverty gradient. This paper summarises the evidence from randomised controlled trials of seven popular interventions, giving a different comparative perspective to individual reports, and permitting more detail than a wider review. Of these, it shows that Switchon Reading (Reading Recovery) and Accelerated Reader, for example, are currently the most promising. And that summer schools and the use of generic literacy software are the least successful and may even harm pupil progress. The way in which the evidence is assessed in this paper suggests a way forward for practitioners and policy-makers navigating the evidence in their areas of interest. There is also evidence that practitioners should be able to conduct robust evaluations of their own with only minimal support, which could lead to a revolution in school improvement. The combined results suggest that 'soft' evaluations may be worse than just a waste of time and money, and that theoretical explanations might appear satisfying to readers but are largely unnecessary when assessing 'what works' in education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The primary objective of this paper is to present a curriculum design model that extends the 'Powerful Knowledge' ideas of social realist theory. The Model called 'Curriculum Design Coherence' (CDC) hypothesizes an approach in which subject concepts and the subject's epistemic structure are central to the design process to enable deep learning. The model differentiates and then links subject concepts, subject content, subject competencies, and assessment. The underlying premise is that deep learning for students is more likely if teachers utilize and make visible the epistemic structure of the area of study; the subject concepts and subject competencies to be taught and their inter-relationships as 'knowledge-that' (epistemic knowledge) and 'knowledge-how-to' (procedural knowledge). The usefulness of the model for coherence in curriculum design is currently being tested by primary and secondary school teachers in New Zealand and England. The study takes a realist approach utilizing qualitative methods including workshops, analysis of curricular materials, and teacher interviews. The model is in the early stages of testing and some initial findings indicate its usefulness along with the challenges for teachers in engaging deeply with the structure of their subject [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the author considers the contribution of creativity to pastoral care in education. Since its advent in English schools in the early 1970s, pastoral care has placed the affective realm and individual enrichment centre stage in both its curriculum aims and teaching approaches. These principles have, however, had much to contend with over the past 50 years; from the obtrusive effects of state intervention in schools, to the challenges confronting young people growing up in increasingly complex societies. For many teachers and practitioners, engaging young people in creative pursuits has come to be regarded as a necessary counterpoint to increasingly performative school cultures and an essential means to enabling vibrant forms of positive self-expression. The power of creative activities has received new impetus as a pastoral concern in light of two national trends. The first as creative arts provision in the curriculum in English state secondary schools declines as a consequence of Government qualification reforms, and second as an increasing number of young people are referred to Alternative Educational Provision with mental health issues. As a consequence, many pastoral educators have turned or, indeed, returned to creativity and creative practices as a primary means of supporting and enriching the lives of young people, particularly for those who now struggle in contemporary school environments. In light of these developments and drawing on research and practice in the field of creativity and pastoral care, this paper aims to cast further light on creativity in pastoral education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study reported in this paper adopted both direct (a large-scale questionnaire survey) and indirect (a verbal-guise test) measures to investigate gender differences in second language (L2) learners’ attitudes towards different English varieties in secondary schools in Hong Kong. The investigation considered various factors affecting students’ attitudes to language including their affective feelings, cultural identity, awareness of language variations, experience of language use, perceived intelligibility of English accents and, more importantly, situational language choices. Consistent with previous studies, the findings suggest that the female learners were more positively oriented towards native speaker (NS) pronunciation and tended to adopt it as their teaching model and learning target; they also had greater confidence than males in their ability to understand British English pronunciation. However, their greater sensitivity to NS standards was found to be limited to high-stakes English-speaking contexts. In contrast, male learners had greater tolerance or acceptance of local pronunciation. This paper concludes by discussing the implications of L2 learners’ gender differences in attitudes for English language education and the design of English language teaching materials and assessments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Against the backdrop of ongoing discussions about how best to conceptualise, confront and ultimately eradicate racism, this paper seeks to critically examine the relevance of ‘post-racial’ thinking, both in a general sense, but also in relation to education. The argument is framed around a concern that multi-cultural, and to a lesser extent, anti-racist approaches have become hostage to the very same essentialising practices around ‘race’ thinking that they seek to challenge. This is best illustrated in the plethora of racial, ethnic, geographic, national and religious categories that are currently deployed my many educational institutions in the furtherance of ‘equality and diversity’ policy objectives. In setting out some of the underpinning ideas and controversies linked with the idea of ‘post-racial’, the paper offers some tentative suggestions as to how a ‘post-racial pedagogy’ could be manifested in pedagogical practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shena Simon (1883–1972), a leading English socialist and educationist, actively called for the reform of secondary education in the 1930s and 1940s in order to bring the ideal of ‘equality of opportunity’ into the English educational system. This paper explores the continuity and changes in Simon’s proposed reforms in relation to her ideals of social democracy from the appearance of the Spens Report (1938) to the publication of her book,Three Schools or One?(1948). In addition, Simon’s transnational visits to the Soviet Union, the USA and Scotland, as well as the impact of her international and comparative perspectives on different educational systems on her policy agenda, are also examined. It concludes that as many policy issues shown in the current paper continue to be debated, Simon’s democratic ideals and discourses are still relevant in the present and suggest implications for the future of secondary education in England. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is a lifesaving emergency procedure. To increase survival rates, it is recommended to increase the number of high school students who know how to perform CPR. We have developed an immersive "Virtual Reality (VR) Resuscitation Training" to train the theoretical knowledge of CPR in which trainees must save the life of the patient in a virtual environment. This paper presents a randomized controlled study with a pre‐posttest design to explore whether a VR enhanced curriculum improves high school students' theoretical CPR knowledge. Forty students without previous CPR experience in the past year were randomly assigned to either the VR group or the standard group. The VR group had a significant higher increase of correct answers in comparison with the Standard group. More importantly, the gain in score on taking the correct sequence of CPR steps was significant favouring the VR‐enhanced protocol over the Standard protocol. Therefore, the use of a VR training for CPR training appears to be an effective learning method for non‐medical students and may be of great value skilling high school students in becoming adequate CPR providers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Science‐related competencies are demanded in many fields, but attracting more students to scientific educations remains a challenge. This paper uses two studies to investigate the value of using Immersive Virtual Reality (IVR) laboratory simulations in science education. In Study 1, 99 (52 male, 47 female) seventh (49) and eighth (50) grade students between 13 and 16 years of age used an IVR laboratory safety simulation with a pre‐ to posttest design. Results indicated an overall increase in interest in science and self‐efficacy, but only females reported an increase in science career aspirations. Study 2 was conducted with 131 (47 male, 84 female) second (77) and third (54) year high school students aged 17 to 20 and used an experimental design to compare the value of using an IVR simulation or a video of the simulation on the topic of DNA‐analysis. The IVR group reported significantly higher gains from pre‐ to posttest on interest, and social‐outcome expectations than the video group. Furthermore, both groups had significant gains in self‐efficacy and physical outcome expectations, but the increase in career aspirations and self‐outcome expectations did not reach statistical significance. Thus, results from the two studies suggest that appropriately developed and implemented IVR simulations can address some of the challenges currently facing science education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the pivotal role of parents in their children's educational development, numerous studies have examined the impacts of parents' information and communications technology (ICT) proficiency on adolescents' information literacy. However, previous research has tended to treat parents as a holistic unit, ignoring the individual uniqueness of each parent in analyses. Thus, the first aim of this study was to explore the parent profiles in terms of ICT proficiency, which were developed through a person‐centered approach employing latent profile analysis. Three distinct parent profiles were identified: quiescent users, compliant users and active users. The second aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between the parents' profile memberships and adolescents' information literacy. The results showed that, in general, adolescents whose parents were identified as active users and compliant users tended to perform better on an information literacy test than those of parents categorized as quiescent users. More specifically, those adolescents whose parents were classified as active users achieved significantly higher scores in the information literacy test than those of parents who fit within the profiles of compliant users and quiescent users. Based on the findings, this paper discusses several implications and strategies for enhancing the adolescents' information literacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the case study of Anglesey and its pioneering comprehensive scheme, this paper aims to re-examine education reforms and interventions by central government c.1918–1950. This is undertaken in a bid to reveal the significance of such reforms for the way in which comprehensive secondary education was able to evolve at the local level. Lesser-known consequences of well-known reforms will be explored with a view to assessing their significance for a Local Education Authority with a comprehensive vision. Furthermore, these localized findings will be discussed with the aim of discerning their significance beyond the local level. Attention will be paid to what the implications of the inclusion of the 'Welsh dimension' might mean for the wider historiography of comprehensive schooling in England and Wales. It will be argued here that this re-examination of education policy has implications for how the consequences of some of the key educational reforms of the twentieth century can be viewed and re-evaluated. Perhaps even more significantly, the findings from this investigation suggest that by re-examining the influence of key policies and central government intervention, our understanding of the pioneering of comprehensive schooling can be further developed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article re-visits contestation and critique over the nationwide introduction of comprehensive secondary schools in post-war England. In so doing, it considers the contribution of scholar-activist Caroline Benn (1926–2000) and a network of progressive educators who were challenging ideas about fixed ability or potential and aspiring to build a better, more inclusive education system fit for the times. The recent availability of Benn's personal papers opens an opportunity for a deeper understanding of the politics of comprehensive education, to consider the meaning and significance of the policy as our historical perspective lengthens, notably the question of whether legislation was needed to implement so major a reform and foster cultural change in a society characterized by substantial inequalities in income, status and power. It will be argued that we need to challenge contemporary political narratives that seek to normalize academic selection as a force for social justice and high attainment and maintain a belief in the myth of meritocracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to the literature on complementary schools as sites of learning and social and cultural identification. We draw on a small-scale multi-method qualitative study conducted in Albanian and Bulgarian community schools in London to explore the agendas of ‘new’ Eastern European complementary schools with respect to learning and heritage and their impact on migrant students’ identities and experiences with education in the UK. Findings demonstrate that different models of complementary schooling and students’ experiences of mainstream education affected students’ views in different ways. The paper explores how the ‘hard’ and ‘boring’ culture of Bulgarian complementary school resulted in students’ expressions of greater liking for learning in mainstream school and valuing of its multiethnic context. It further examines how practices in another complementary school and students’ wider social experiences resulted in a stronger sense of Albanian heritage identity in students, but in more problematic views of UK cultural diversity. In elaborating these themes we seek to draw some implications for policy and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper reports teacher and learner perspectives on how assessment and reform influences pedagogical practices and behaviours. The research was conducted in a context of policy reform, at a time when Wales' revised General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) specifications had been implemented, and learners were preparing for their assessments; but, also during the period of debate on the development of Wales' new curriculum, which has taken a distinct and contrasting position on assessment to the assumptions underlying the reform of Welsh GCSEs implemented from 2015. These data, therefore, offer unique insights into the affordances and limitations of two sharply contrasting systems at a time of considerable change, offering reflections on the current curriculum and its attendant assessment practices, and also a prospective analysis of how the principles embedded in the new curriculum could challenge these existing assumptions and conventions. Findings suggest that teachers and learners currently inhabit an assessment‐driven system, which encourages performative practices in pedagogy and is governed by external accountability; and that these practices are at odds with the principles of assessment articulated in Successful Futures. Consequently, teachers in this study expressed uncertainty about how assessment for certification purposes at GCSE could be compatible with the principles of the Curriculum for Wales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ensuring equal access to a broad and balanced curriculum for all students is a key component of a socially just education system. Yet in England, the freedom that 16-year-old students have to choose the GCSE subjects they study has created divisions in the pathways taken by students from different backgrounds. In 2010, a new accountability measure, the English Baccalaureate (EBacc), was introduced to encourage more disadvantaged students to study the 'core academic' GCSE subjects. This paper investigates the success of this initiative by analysing the relationship between free school meal (FSM) eligibility, studying the EBacc subjects and GCSE attainment. The findings are used to illustrate the complexities of balancing equal access to academic subjects against fair access to future opportunities, which often depend on good grades, when trying to deliver social justice in an education system that has an entrenched attainment gap. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the pupil intakes to Academies in England, and their attainment, based on a re-analysis of figures from the Annual Schools Census 1989–2012, the Department for Education School Performance Tables 2004–2012 and the National Pupil Database. It looks at the national picture, and the situation for Local Education Authorities, and also examines in more detail the trajectories of the three original Academies. It confirms earlier studies in finding no convincing evidence that Academies are any more (or less) effective than the schools they replaced or are in competition with. The prevalence of Academies in any area is strongly associated with local levels of SES segregation, and this is especially true of the more recent Converter Academies. Converter Academies, on average, take far less than their fair share of disadvantaged pupils. Sponsor-led Academies, on the other hand, tend to take more than their fair share. Their profiles are so different that they must no longer be lumped together for analysis as simply ‘Academies’. Academies are not shown to be the cause of local SES segregation. Instead, they are merely more likely to appear in areas that already have inequitable school mixes. This means, of course, that Academies are not helping reduce segregation (as was one of their original purposes) or increase social justice in education, and the paper concludes that homogeneous Maintained schools should be preferred for this purpose. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Although there is increasing interest in promoting mental health and wellbeing within education, to date, the voices of young people appear to have been almost completely overlooked in the development of school-based mental health practices. This is despite increasing focus on young people's participation; and the fact that young people may be best positioned to understand the pressures of contemporary society. This paper, co-authored by educational psychologists (EPs), school students and the school vice-principal, documents the development of a student-led mental health initiative within a high-achieving girls' grammar school, led by students aged 12–18. Following EP input, the students devised a whole-school, student-friendly mental health strategy with the support of the EPs and senior school staff. As the project progressed, it became evident that applying even carefully selected adult mental health models to school contexts might not be appropriate; instead the students advocated for young person-friendly, innovative, contemporary and creative ways of communicating information about mental health, which avoided stigma. The students involved were well-placed to identify environmental stressors and to disseminate their strategy. The authors conclude that mental health planning in schools should encourage greater student participation, show caution over applying adult mental health models and promote greater use of technology or visual resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although considerable attention has been given to issues impacting on the educational experiences of Gypsy/Traveller learners in the UK, most of the literature is oriented towards ethnicity rather than gender. This paper illuminates the experiences of young Gypsy/Traveller women who are engaging with secondary education, and functioning in a dual cultural framework, in a time of increased gender equality. The intersectionality of culture, class and religion frequently conflicts with the notions of gender equality and education, requiring young women to make difficult choices. It is suggested there is an urgent need to problematise and deconstruct stereotypes typically held about Gypsy/Traveller girls, as not all young women feel disengaged, restricted, excluded and in conflict. While some young women, as is their right, wish to conform to cultural-gendered norms, this study has revealed some strong, resilient women who critically challenge values and norms within their community, which negate their right to a full education, to bring about positive change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This case study explored how teachers and children perceive challenges and opportunities at transition. Using Forum Theatre (FT), an interactive drama approach, children were able to show aspects of transitions they perceived as challenging and how these barriers may be overcome. FT offered a tangible reference point for children to discuss their experiences and perceptions of transition during follow-up focus groups. A semantic deductive thematic analysis led to a range of emotional, social and systemic challenges and opportunities being identified. The paper concludes with reflections on potential implications for practice and suggestions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the controls and influences over geography teachers' curriculum making. A tension is identified between the teacher's agency to “make” a geography curriculum and a controlling social–economic climate of accountability, performance pressure and technological change which limits the teacher's agency. The paper argues that teachers are responding to this tension by the coping strategy of “banding together” both at the school level and in wider communities. The extent of teachers' reliance on other people in curriculum making is such that curriculum making can be described as becoming “hyper-socialised”. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper documents the creation, implementation and analysis of a survey instrument designed to reveal patterns of use and attitudes towards the value of social media by UK teachers. The study was motivated to discover which teachers use social media professionally, how they use it (both personally and professionally) and attitudes to social media as a professional tool (for their students' and their own professional use). The instrument was created from verbal data from two focus group discussions regarding the use of social media in education. Attitude statements were included verbatim when practical. This instrument was placed online and practising teachers invited to complete it (n = 216). Exploratory factor analysis and hierarchical clustering identified 9 factors from 54 attitude statements and 5 distinct teacher groups. The rich data allowed each group to be carefully defined, providing potentially invaluable information to school leaders when developing social media projects to recognize and accommodate the full range of teacher concerns and experience. The paper also addresses methodological concerns regarding instrument creation, dealing with missing data and the impact of missing data on subsequent analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper reports data from a study investigating distributed leadership (DL) and its relationship to social justice and democratic values. The research comprised a case study of a UK secondary school, which describes itself as having a finely distributed leadership culture, and involved teaching staff, non-teaching staff, senior leaders and students who took part in an arts-based method of data generation (collage creation) and interviews. The study examined participants’ meanings and perceptions in relation to leadership and social justice. Our analysis of the data highlights contrasting image patterns (hierarchical and holarchic); a dominant view of DL as the exercise of pro-active agency, but also awareness of ways in which this is unequally spread across the school; and the value of seeing DL as comprising multiple features each of which may be distributed differently. This paper concentrates on participative and cultural justice. It suggests that work on further delineating multiple aspects of DL would be valuable, and that attention needs to be given not only to developing flexibility of institutional structures, but also core cultural values (social justice and democracy) and holarchic social environments in which relationships are fluid, supportive and encourage belonging and independent thinking. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The growth of cheerleading as a popular school-based physical activity for people of both genders in the UK poses a challenge for physical education teachers in particular and educators in general. This paper draws on theoretical concepts and empirical research on gender, performance and cheerleading to highlight the multilayered, diverse, even contradictory meanings that can ‘attach’ to this imported cultural activity. Some of the ambiguity is caused by the distance between the idea of ‘Cheerleading’ that carries some global connotations and the sorts of ‘cheerleading’ which may be adapted versions within local contexts. Through a brief exploration of the translation of the activity and of teachers' descriptions of its practice in the UK, we hope to highlight the inherent ambiguity of cheerleading and thus, the potential and pitfalls that accompany it. The paper suggests that educators in the UK will need to recognise the diversity of meanings associated with this activity, its cultural import and the implications of this for their practice to cultivate a critically informed stance in relation to introducing and teaching cheerleading in schools. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Successive Conservative Governments and now the Labour administration have emphasized the importance of parental participation. In particular, establishing rights of access to information has been a central feature of recent education policies designed to make schools more accountable to parents. However, as with all reforms, the way they are experienced 'on the ground' is likely to be significantly different from the rhetoric surrounding their implementation. This paper, based on research funded by the Nuffield Foundation in collaboration with Research and Information on State Education Trust, looks at the range of practice amongst secondary schools and explores how different arrangements are experienced by diverse groups of parents. Drawing on questionnaire and interview data, it presents two contrasting pictures of home-school reporting. The questionnaire survey of schools illustrated wide variations in reporting practices, both in the number and kind of reports sent to parents. In general, schools were largely positive about what they were doing. However, interviews with parents from four case study schools gave a very different impression. Parents often felt that reports were too generalized and were also confused about grading systems and apparent discrepancies in reports - irrespective of the style of the report. In addition, there was almost universal criticism of the organization of parents' evenings with many reporting that they were frustrating and unproductive encounters. This was especially the case for those with little or no English and for those whose children had difficulties at school. The paper concludes by arguing that, despite Government legislation, schools are still falling some way short of providing parents with the kind of information they need to be able to participate actively in their children's education. It also considers the likely successes of further legislation and parental pressure on effecting improvements in home-school communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discourses about the value of effort and hard work are prevalent and powerful in many western societies and educational contexts. Yet, paradoxically, in these same contexts effortlessachievement is often lauded, and in certain discourses is heralded as the pinnacle of success and a sign of genius. In this paper we interrogate discourses about effort and especially ‘effortlessness’ in Swedish and English educational contexts. Informed, in particular, by interview data generated in upper secondary schools in Sweden and secondary schools in England, we address the questions: why is effortless achievement attractive, and for whom is it possible to be discursively positioned as an effortless achiever? We argue that the subject position of ‘effortless achiever’ is not available to all categories of students equally, and for some it would be almost impossible to attain; the intersections of gender, social class, ethnicity and institutional setting are influential. We end by considering the problematic implications of effortless achievement discourses. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper explores religious adolescents' reported experiences of secondary schools. Fifty-four qualitative interviews were conducted in places of worship in three cities in England with Christians (n=46), Jews (n=38) and Muslims (n=15). Secondary schools of a religious and non-religious character were reported as not providing a suitable environment for religious observances, nor as a place to act and behave according to participants' religious principles. Religious adolescents reported prejudice and criticism of their beliefs or religious affiliations from their peers and sometimes from teachers. They also perceived their religious traditions to be distorted, inaccurately or unfairly represented in some lessons. The focus of this paper is the identity choices religious adolescents reported in response to these challenges. Three groups of identity choices are theorised and explored: religious identity seeking, religious identity declaration and religious identity masking. The findings are discussed in view of religious identity construction theory, good practice for teachers and also the potential concerns of faith communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The three main programmes of the Geneva-registered International Baccalaureate (IB) have grown substantially worldwide over the past decade, although the programmes have found a natural ‘home’ in the United States. This paper charts the growth of the IB in the United Kingdom (UK) revealing that involvement there, mainly in England and mainly with the original pre-university Diploma Programme (IBDP), peaked at about 230 schools in 2010, but since then the IBDP has begun suddenly to decline. Yet, in no other country has there been a fall in IBDP provision. This paper offers some key explanations for this phenomenon, where a lack of funding and continued lack of university recognition in the face of Advanced Level (A-Level) reform and numerous ‘baccalaureate’ developments has led to many state-funded schools in particular dropping the IBDP. Thirdly, this paper discusses a number of implications, both for the IB itself and education in the UK in general. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper looks at the experience and performance of 'race' in the classroom, through the narrative of a young Somali man; Ahmed. The paper explores the notion of Blackness and primarily draws on Fanon's (1967) work on the 'doubled' self, Althusser's (1971) 'interpellation', and makes some reference to Judith Butler's (1990) work on 'subjection', to examine the function of racial performativity in the classroom. The paper examines the role of White privilege in the construction of imposed 'Blackness' in the classroom, and through an analysis of Ahmed's narrative, disrupts the racialised discourses of the classroom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the first significant change to Special Educational Needs (SEN) legislation in England for over a decade, a change that promises new approaches to identification and assessment, increased parental choice and enhanced pupil outcomes. The paper aims to examine to what extent this new framework can live up to its claims in the field of emotional and behavioural difficulties. It analyses the policy context and some key details of this legislation by focussing on approaches such as person-centred planning, multi-professional collaborations and recent mental health initiatives in schools. It also explores what can be expected from the legislative requirements for collaboration between health, social care and education agencies to improve outcomes for children and young people. The paper concludes by addressing tensions between medical and social model assumptions by proposing a systemic approach to multi-agency working and an educationally oriented and integrated functional framework for identifying and assessing emotional and behavioural difficulties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current paper focuses on White British students in lower secondary education and investigates the effect of school ethnic diversity on their levels of trust and inclusive attitudes towards immigrants. Use is made of panel data of the Citizenship Education Longitudinal Study (CELS) to explore these relationships. Ethnic diversity is measured with the proportion of students in a grade identifying with a minority. In agreement with contact theory, the paper initially finds a positive relation between diversity and inclusive attitudes on immigrants. However, this link disappears once controls for social background, gender and prior levels of the outcome are included in the model. This indicates that students with particular pre-enrollment characteristics have self-selected in diverse schools and that inclusive attitudes have stabilized before secondary education. Diversity further appears to have a negative impact on trust, irrespective of the number of controls added to the model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: This article reports on a mentoring programme which was implemented in selected Scottish secondary schools with the view to supporting students with school work, transition to further education/higher education, careers, and interpersonal skills. Mentoring students can enhance their academic, social, career and other outcomes. Mentoring relationships, when properly implemented, have been found also to yield positive results for mentors. Purpose: This paper is an investigation into a school-based mentoring programme which was implemented in 6 selected Scottish secondary schools. In so doing, we hope to contribute to an evolving framework for designing and implementing successful school-based mentoring. Sample: The sample for this study included 10 students aged between 16 and 17 years old in the second year of a broader 2-year business/education project, which aimed to promote student uptake of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) careers after secondary school. There were 11 mentors, who were drawn mainly from the science, health and the education sectors. Design and method: Methodologically, this study was qualitative interpretivist in nature. Data collection involved focus group discussion and individual semi-structured interviews. Results: The findings show mentee and mentor preparation, clarity of expectations, mentee–mentor matching, mentee motivation, appropriateness of meeting spaces and power relations, modes of communication including the use of social media, and the role of schools as essential conditions which influenced the quality of mentoring relationships. Conclusion: The findings suggest that mentoring programmes involving students in school and ‘external’ adult mentors need to consider a range of factors to achieve success when designing and implementing mentoring. This paper raises important issues for example, communication using social media, which have implications for practice in business sector and school partnerships involved in school-based mentoring. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The intentions with which hands-on simulations are used in vocational education are not always clear. Also, pedagogical-didactic approaches in hands-on simulations are not well conceptualised from a learning theory perspective. This makes it difficult to pinpoint the added value that hands-on simulations can have in an innovative vocational curriculum that not only aims at developing technical and procedural skills, but also at developing competencies and professional identity. This paper introduces a more explicit conceptual discussion regarding the opportunities for using hands-on simulations in innovative curricula. A systematic literature review aimed at positioning hands-on simulations in relation to other work-related contexts, based on their learning environment characteristics and outcomes, shows that certain constructivist characteristics and outcomes are underexposed in empirical research about simulations. The results of an additional in-depth analysis of literature specifically focusing on two fundamental characteristics of constructive vocational learning (i.e. authenticity and increasing students’ ownership) propose ideas about how hands-on simulations can have added value to innovative curricula. This paper concludes with concrete strategies for designing and implementing hands-on simulations from the social constructive learning theory with the aim of stimulating not only technical and procedural skills, but also competencies and professional identity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In England and Wales government pressures to raise attainment has led many schools to implement structured “ability” grouping in the form of setting. The introduction of selective grouping has been justified with the assumption that the differentiation of students by “ability” advances students’ motivation, social skills, independence and academic success in national tests and examinations because students are “better engaged in their own learning”. This paper critically engages with this assumption. Drawing upon qualitative research conducted in primary and secondary mathematics, science and English setted classrooms in England the aim of this literature review is to consider how teachers’ pedagogic practices with low, middle and high “ability” sets facilitates and/or constrains students’ learning and potential achievement. We also explore why, despite strenuous criticism and moves towards egalitarianism in schools, the segregation of students on the basis of “ability” continues to be a common feature in schools in England and Wales. This literature review draws attention to a number of substantive issues including (but not restricted to) fixed and permanent grouping; the potential misplacement of students to sets and a culture of stereotyping where learners within a set are taught as a single homogenous unit. We conclude the paper by suggesting foci for future research in the hope of eliciting renewed critical interest in and investigation of setting by “ability” in a broader range of subjects of the curriculum. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Teachers’ knowledge of STEM education, their understanding, and pedagogical application of that knowledge is intrinsically linked to the subsequent effectiveness of STEM delivery within their own practice; where a teacher’s knowledge and understanding is deficient, the potential for pupil learning is ineffective and limited. Set within the context of secondary age phase education in England and Wales (11-16 years old), this paper explores how teachers working within the field of design and technology education acquire new knowledge in STEM; how understanding is developed and subsequently embedded within their practice to support the creation of a diverse STEM-literate society. The purpose being to determine mechanisms by which knowledge acquisition occurs, to reconnoitre potential implications for education and learning at work, including consideration of the role which new technologies play in the development of STEM knowledge within and across contributory STEM subject disciplines. Underpinned by an interpretivist ontology, work presented here builds upon the premise that design and technology is an interdisciplinary educational construct and not viewed as being of equal status to other STEM disciplines including maths and science. Drawing upon the philosophical field of symbolic interactionism and constructivist grounded theory, work embraces an abductive methodology where participants are encouraged to relate design and technology within the context of STEM education. Emergent findings are discussed in relation to their potential to support teachers’ educational development for the advancement of STEM literacy, and help secure design and technology’s place as a subject of value within a twenty-first Century curriculum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The English article system presents a particular challenge to learners. This paper explores the acquisition of articles by Chinese learners of English in two corpora: one of Asian college EFL students, and one of Chinese professionals living and working in the United States. It seeks to describe patterns of L2 English articles across different proficiency levels. Our results show a surprising level of conformity of accuracy rates across participant proficiency levels. L2 speakers use articles in the most native-like manner in plural contexts. Certain errors are common, such as overusing the zero article in inappropriate contexts. Other errors are nonexistent, such as using more than one determiner in a noun phrase. In the end, we emphasize the importance of educators examining their students’ L2 article use with an eye towards the commonly made errors that we uncover. In addition, we advise that L2 article patterns might appear grammatical, but still represent an oversimplified understanding of the English article system. We also suggest further topics for research in L2 acquisition of the noun phrase. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper considers situation-bound utterances (SBU) as culture-specific pragmatic units of speech. It investigates how SBUs in English are processed by Russian learners of English as a foreign language. The focus of our inquiry is on three issues. First, we intend to identify the reasons of difficulties of our subjects in comprehending and using SBUs. Second, we aim to explore how the interplay of prior context and actual situational context affects SBU interpretation. Third, we will analyze the extent to which pragmatic strategies such as compositionality (COM), closeness to own culture (CLO), and actual situational context (SIT) will help students comprehend and infer the actual meanings of situation-bound utterances in two organized ways of their delivery – contextual and isolated. One of the advantages of the data collection procedures was that most of the activities and tasks were combined with some training, awareness raising, learning activities and discussions which gave us not only insights into the cognitive processes responsible for acquisition of SBUs in Russian learners of English but also helped our subjects develop their knowledge about the functions and use of these very important pragmatic idioms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]