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Every year in the UK, a significant number of children sustain a moderate or severe traumatic brain injury (TBI). Children who sustain a moderate or severe TBI have been shown to experience continuing neurological decline in two or more domains up to five years post-injury. Environmental enrichment (EE)--which involves supplementing an environment with appropriately reinforced and rewarded, frequently changing, novel experiences--has been shown to effectively improve social and cognitive functioning in animals with experimental TBI. A growing body of evidence shows EE is also beneficial in the recovery of humans following a TBI. Children who have sustained a moderate or severe TBI often return to school and the educational setting is well-suited for the implementation of EE interventions during the later stages of TBI recovery. This paper reviews a variety of factors pertinent to moderate and severe TBI, neurorehabilitation and EE. It also offers EE considerations for educational professionals who are involved in the development and implementation of school-based interventions for children who have sustained a significant brain injury.

Simple Summary: Farm animal welfare is an important issue for both farmers and the general public. In order to monitor animal welfare on a large population of finishing pig farms in the UK, the "Real Welfare" project developed a methodology for on-farm assessment based on regular measurement of some key animal-based measures, so-called welfare outcomes. This paper presents estimates of the percentage of these different welfare outcomes over the years since the inception of the scheme. Between 2016 and 2019, the mean percentage of pigs in the mainstream herd showing four mandatory welfare outcomes (pigs requiring hospitalization, lame pigs, pigs with severe tail lesions, and pigs with severe body marks) was very low and a decreasing trend was observed for all outcomes except severe tail lesions. These data give good representation of the overall situation in the UK finishing pig population. Farm animal welfare is an increasingly important issue, leading to the need for an efficient methodology to deliver accurate benchmarking. The "Real Welfare" project developed a methodology based on regular recording of a limited number of animal-based measures, so-called welfare outcomes, which allows faster and easier on-farm assessment of finishing pig welfare. The objective of this paper is to estimate, with sufficient robustness and confidence, the prevalence of different mandatory and optional welfare outcomes in the mainstream herd of the finishing farms in the UK based on the "Real Welfare" scheme data and to assess the changes in prevalence over time, inspection visits and seasons. The mean overall prevalence of the four mandatory welfare outcomes (pigs requiring hospitalization, lame pigs, pigs with severe body marks, and pigs with severe tail lesions) was very low (≤0.2%) and a significant decreasing trend was observed for the first three of these mandatory welfare outcomes since the inception of the scheme. This result might reflect either a reduction in factors giving rise to welfare problems in the mainstream herd or increasing awareness about management of compromised pigs. Additional data are required to clarify these possibilities, but both represent improved pig welfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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