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This article reports the findings of four separately commissioned evaluations of alternative provision (AP) undertaken in three local authorities in the UK. The evaluations were specifically predicated on the principles of children's rights and used a combination of qualitative research methods and documentary analysis to elicit the experiences of young people in conjunction with the viewpoints of key stakeholders. Data from each evaluation was gathered over a total period of 6 years. The sites and time scales for each evaluation varied from 6-month authority-wide strategic reviews to a 3-year evaluation of an AP free school and an evaluation of pupil referrals in a large school partnership. The evaluations involved 200 participant children and young people, 30 managers and stakeholders, 8 parents of non-attending pupils and local authority officers and school governors. The evaluations report the complexity of needs amongst children and young people; the continuing problem of unsuccessful transitions between key phases/stages of education and the profound consequences of this for young people; assumptions around mainstream reintegration and managed moves; and the curriculum challenges of vocationalism and academic emphasis. While the research data confirms the positive value of multi-agency approaches in AP, it also shows a more recent troubling increase in the number of young people now being referred to AP as a consequence of their exposure to performative school cultures.

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.

It is now a matter of routine that schools in England are able to demonstrate the value of their work in terms of "impact" and "outcomes." In the province of imaginative education this is problematic. While Government has sought to create a new relationship between inspection and school self-evaluation, this in effect has amounted to little more than a bureaucratic and performative form of "self-inspection." At the same time the teaching profession is reminded that it lacks a shared language to enable clarity and precision about its judgements (Hargreaves, 2004). Acknowledging the necessity for imaginative educators to make their work publicly demonstrable, and recognising the private imaginative lifeworld as a sacred space, this paper calls for a (re)focusing of educational evaluation in imaginative education. Drawing on phenomenological research approaches and ideas of connoisseurship and pupil voice, six "situated" imaginative practices, spanning the solitary and the collective, are proposed in an attempt to consider ways in which the imagination might be made amenable to communal educational evaluation. Before the development of a shared evaluative language can be entertained, the necessary conditions for educational evaluation must first be created, and these conditions involve educators in the cultivation of their own imaginative lifeworlds as a professional practice. Ultimately, through processes of interpretation and communalisation, educational evaluation of the imagination becomes an intrinsically transformative practice. (Contains 3 footnotes.)

This article presents the findings of a pilot professional development programme designed to support police community support officers (PCSOs) to become effective school link officers (SLOs) within urban secondary schools in the English West Midlands. Findings are presented via perceptions of key stakeholders: SLOs themselves; school-based mentors supporting the work of SLOs; and the West Midlands Police officer coordinating aspects of the project. The agreed professional development model comprised a two-day induction programme; school-based mentoring and coaching; and SLOs' reflections via a small-scale action research project. Findings reveal the complexities of community policing in contemporary urban secondary school contexts and the challenges of enhancing the professional status of the SLO. Although PCSOs have been working as SLOs for several years, preparation for this role has been inadequate and the issue has generally been overlooked in the literature. The pivotal role of effective school-based mentorship, opportunities for reflection and gaining national professional recognition via the action research project emerge as particularly positive features of the professional development model. With the ultimate aim of safeguarding young people, recommendations are also made to further develop the model to enhance SLOs' professional learning and effectiveness and to maximise inter-professional working.

This paper considers the role of spirituality in the practice of pastoral welfare and care in English state schools. Set against an educational landscape of increasingly aggressive neoliberal interests combined with growing public disquiet over the mental welfare of young people, the author examines how spirituality might in response contribute to a pedagogy of pastoral welfare for pupil well-being. The paper begins by foregrounding the policy contexts for pastoral education in England and the challenges presented by the increasingly performative cultures that schools, children and young people have become subjected to. Highlighting concerns around the well-being of children and young people, the paper advances a spiritual pedagogy in pastoral care predicated on pivotal interrelated attributes of intrapersonal transcendence, care and educational practice. The paper then considers the possibilities presented by the spiritual realm in pastoral welfare and the positioning of this as an educational pedagogy and practice.

The paper provides detailed reflections on the educational, economic and social circumstances that impact on the lives of many disadvantaged and vulnerable children and young people. Drawing largely on primary research data collected in Romania, Germany and the United Kingdom, three illustrative case studies are presented for consideration focusing on: life in residential care and youth offending institutions; experiences of educational vulnerability; and human trafficking. The methodological approach adopted across the research projects explored, was shaped by the demands and expectations of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). All of the reported data reflects the views of children and young people who were interviewed as part of three research projects. It is argued that the difficult and challenging circumstances that many children and young people find themselves in, place them at significant disadvantage and increased vulnerability in terms of their social and educational development and life chances.

Background: The research reported in this article was commissioned by a consortium of inner-city schools located in central England. It was commissioned in response to the consortium's concerns regarding increasing referrals of negative pupil behaviour amongst its secondary school pupils in Key Stage 3 (ages 11-14), resulting in temporary and permanent exclusions. The consortium also sought to explore the factors contributing to a perceived increase in incidents of serious misbehaviour by pupils in Year 8 (ages 12-13). Purpose: The research was designed to create a better understanding of the factors affecting school exclusion from the perspective of pupils and behaviour coordinators within the consortium's schools. Sample: Study participants were 49 pupils in Year 9 (ages 13-14), comprising 23 girls and 26 boys, and eight behaviour coordinators from seven secondary schools and two centres for alternative provision (AP) in an inner-city area of the West Midlands. Design and methods: The research was designed using an ethnographic approach and involved individual semi-structured interviews and qualitative data analysis. Interviews were conducted over a 12-month period in each of the participating schools and centres for AP. Results: A series of related themes emerged from the data analysis. Amongst those factors identified as having the greatest bearing on negative pupil behaviour was the issue of transition. While many pupils imagine the transition to Key Stage 4 (ages 15-16) as a positive departure from their previous behavioural histories to a world of qualification opportunities, personal commitment, future employment and adulthood, this is not matched by the perceptions of many of the teaching staff. In particular, the move from primary school to secondary school was seen by many respondents as a traumatic period of transition and an underlying cause for negative behaviour. Respondents report that, when left unchecked, difficulties associated with primary-secondary school transition were often amplified throughout the first three years of secondary schooling. Conclusions: The implications from this small scale, qualitative investigation are that positive attention to transition experiences, amongst other factors, is likely to contribute to improved management of behaviour referrals and exclusions.

This article examines processes of educational reform and change in a post-Communist Eastern European country. Focusing on the experiences and challenges facing one geographical community in Sibiu County, Romania, an attempt is made to understand some of the macro and micro factors, influences and external policy drivers, shaping the organization and management of schools, training of teachers, realignment of the curriculum and emergence of new pedagogical practices. The article utilizes a series of "narrative portraits" constructed out of a case study, involving interviews with school inspectors, school managers, university academic staff and school teachers. Continuing Professional Development (CPD) activities, run by two of the authors, also provided a rich source of data. The article considers the tensions and challenges accompanying reform, together with the emergence of innovatory strategies and practices that have the potential to transform and improve the educational experiences of children living in Sibiu County, Romania.

This paper reports the evaluation of an arts-based programme designed to encourage parental participation in an urban Children's Centre. The programme was aimed to explore the possible beneficial effects of arts-based activity as a means of engaging "hard to reach" parents more fully in the services of the centre. Practical workshops were designed for parents and their children and delivered over a 10-week period. From the evidence garnered in the evaluation, the potential of arts activities as a means to improve parental participation remains uncertain. Of greater significance, however, observations by parents and facilitators revealed that arts-based activities were a powerful dialogic tool for mediating interactions between parent and child. In particular, dance, drama and music emerged as powerful conduits for dialogic encounters with media-based activities offering previously unforeseen opportunities for the sharing of family lifeworlds.

This paper reports the findings of a small-scale qualitative inquiry into risk in the lives of children and young people. Conducted over a 12-month period in Birmingham and the Black Country in the United Kingdom, the study sought to elicit perceptions of risk from the perspective of children and young people in primary and secondary school settings. The research design employed focus groups to explore the perceptions of children and young people as they approached the end of primary-phase and secondary-phase schooling. A reference group was also established in a community-based centre to explore the views of young people who had recently left statutory-phase education. Involving seven primary schools, six secondary schools and the community-based centre, a total of 97 participants were involved in 14 separate focus groups. The findings from the study affirm risk as a multi-dimensional and at times complex field of encounter. Moreover, the research exposes a disjunction between the kinds of risks that children and young people see as significant in their lives and adult concerns that are typically expressed in the form of "moral panics". (Contains 2 notes.)

This article discusses approaches to collaborative practice amongst primary school headteachers in the implementation of inter-school networks. "Learning networks" and "learning communities" have been subject to increasing educational attention in England as part of a broader policy shift in favour of collaborative approaches to school improvement. In this small-scale study, the interactions amongst groups of headteachers were observed over a five-year period. While the study reveals the tentative beginnings of positive inter-school professional exchange, these interactions take place in contexts where "networked learning" and "community" are often ill-defined. Corroborating findings from other contemporary studies in the field, observations reveal that inter-school collaboration is frequently hampered by a lack of conscious attention to theories and processes of change. This article challenges the implicit assumption that schools are easily equipped to engage in meaningful collaborative educational activity and highlights key areas in the preparation of collaborative educational practice and professional renewal. (Contains 5 notes.)

The national secondary review promises new possibilities for innovation in curriculum design and the learner experience in Key Stage Three. With its emphasis on flexible curriculum frameworks and active pupil learning, this may create new avenues for the promotion of a frequently neglected area of the secondary pupil experience--the creative imagination. In the context of these developments, this paper reports the findings of a 12-month study conducted in six secondary schools in the West Midlands as part of a broader inquiry into pupil perceptions of imagination. Using descriptive phenomenological methodology, group discussions were conducted with Year 10 and 11 pupils in a range of secondary school settings. The findings reveal an elaborate and sophisticated account of imagination amongst pupils that does not readily align with the version of entrepreneurial creativity emerging in education policy in England. From the pupil perspective, opportunities for imaginative experience in the official curriculum were facilitated by, and restricted to, the subjects of History and those within the domain of the creative arts.

Despite an apparent renaissance of interest in the creative and emotional in English education there remains a paucity of research in the province of teacher interpretations of pupils' creative, "affective", and imaginative activity. Based on the findings of an Ed D study conducted in six primary schools in central England, the genesis of the enquiry sought to establish how primary teachers interpret this realm of pupil experience. Conducted over a period of two years and drawing on the traditions of eidetic and hermeneutic phenomenology, the research reveals the attributes of emerging educational practices amongst primary school teachers and their orientation to the imaginative lifeworld of pupils. Through these orientations it becomes possible to observe the ways in which the creative, imaginative, and affective life have become subject to marginalisation, appropriation, or redemption in the educational practices of primary school teachers. These orientations to professional practice, I will argue, have important consequences for an educational pedagogy that enables authentic engagement with the imaginative lifeworld of primary school pupils within the often inimical policy contexts of English state education.