Search

This paper analyses some contemporary educational contexts that teachers should consider for their puberty education programmes and/or curricula, for primary and secondary school students. The educational contexts addressed here include significant international puberty education framework documents, socio-biological factors including earlier puberty and a developmental approach, demographic and technological factors, and school factors including what students want from such education, and its professional teaching standards. Teachers and course designers may use these educational contexts to guide their planning, accommodate students’ needs and motivation, identify goals, processes and solutions, and respond to international policy directions encapsulating the accelerated change that is the spirit of the age. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper we explore how mathematics department leaders manage curriculum (what is taught), teaching (how it is taught) and learner progression (what results) for 14-19 year olds. The background to the study is a range of national, and international, concerns about participation rates in university entrance level mathematics. Given the recommendation of the Smith Report (2004) that new pathways models be developed for 14-19 mathematics, this paper explores some of the strategies employed, and issues faced, by schools as they seek to maximise attainment and participation in mathematics. Following a thematic analysis of data from interviews with heads of department in 15 schools we look in more depth at one school to see how it manages the mathematics learning trajectories of young people. The theme of performativity is all pervasive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes an exploratory trial conducted with 14–15 year-old students in English state schools who were studying business start-ups as part of a course in “Business Studies”. The intervention uses a “Story Grammar” strategy to improve students’ reasoning by increasing the frequency and complexity of their use of “connectives” such as “when”, “if” and “because”. The analysis reports positive effects of the intervention on students’ understanding as judged by the use of a standard examination style mark scheme, and the number and complexity of connectives used by students in their extended writing. By reporting effects on immediate target variables we are able to examine the causation with precision. Effects are reported through standardt-tests and effect size. We also discuss the design of the experiment and comment on its practicability as a model for investigating effects of classroom interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Bernstein (1996) suggests that we need to engage critically with what it would mean to extend democracy in schools through pupil consultation. This paper explores the ways in which pupil consultation can uncover aspects of both pupil peer group cultures and classroom dynamics that work against fairness, collegiality and a sense of community in classrooms. Often it is the disruptive and the underachieving pupils who are the focus of teachers' concerns. However, the findings of this study suggest that consultation can also reveal the detrimental impact that a fractious, competitive peer group riven with power struggles can have on well behaved, high achieving pupils. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The idea of engaging students in discussions of teaching and learning has not had as much attention in Greece as in some other countries. As a new high school teacher confronting the problem of motivating reluctant learners I drew on the research I had undertaken on pupil voice for my M.Phil. The research was concerned with features of pedagogy that capture and sustain students' interest in history—a subject that is not always popular among young people. The analysis of data from interviews with 12 to 14 year old students from secondary schools in different parts of Greece highlighted three things: the importance of content that connected with students' everyday lives; opportunities in lessons for active involvement; and giving greater responsibility for learning to the students. This paper summarizes my research and indicates how the guidance of the students has helped me improve my own practice as a teacher. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]