Promoting children’s participation: the role of teachers in preschool and primary school learning sessions

The aim of this study is to provide insights into the social construction of participation in joint activities in Finnish preschool and primary school classrooms. The article deals with two issues: How do teachers promote participation in a preschool classroom as compared with a primary school classroom? What similarities and differences are found? It also considers the question of how the similarities contribute to the continuity from preschool to primary school in terms of participation. Based on observation data insights are provided into the interactions between teachers and children by using extracts from teacher‐led learning sessions. The teachers used a diversity of strategies to promote participation in both contexts. In the preschool the focus was on participation and interaction as such, whereas in the primary school the emphasis was more clearly on academic learning. The findings suggest that teacher support of active participation and friendly relationships, together with creative and playful activities in the preschool, enrich children’s curiosity, and nourish children’s motivation for and interests in academic learning.     

Stratified at seven: in‐class ability grouping and the relative age effect

There is an established body of evidence indicating that a pupil's relative age within their school year cohort is associated with academic attainment throughout compulsory education. In England, autumn‐born pupils consistently attain at higher levels than summer‐born pupils. Analysis here investigates a possible channel of this relative age effect: ability grouping in early primary school. Relatively younger children tend more often to be placed in the lowest in‐class ability groups, and relatively older children in the highest group. In addition, teacher perceptions of pupils' ability and attainment are associated with the child's birth month: older children are more likely to be judged above average by their teachers. Using 2008 data for 5481 English seven‐year‐old pupils and their teachers from the Millennium Cohort Study, this research uses linear regression modelling to explore whether birth month gradation in teacher perceptions of pupils is more pronounced when pupils are in‐class ability grouped than when they are not. It finds an amplification of the already disproportionate tendency of teachers to judge autumn‐born children as more able when grouping takes place. The autumn–summer difference in teacher judgements is significantly more pronounced among in‐class ability grouped pupils than among non‐grouped pupils. Given evidence that teacher perceptions and expectations can influence children's trajectories, this supports the hypothesis that in‐class ability grouping in early primary school may be instrumental in creating the relative age effect.     

Forces of Innovation and Inertia in the Late 19th Century French University System (with special reference to the academic institutionalisation of the social sciences)

In initial teacher training and when providing in‐service training for teachers we hope to make a contribution to science education by preparing people to become very good teachers of pupils. Recent Circulars produced by the Department for Education prescribing the content of teacher training courses in England include an explicit assumption that ensuring strong subject knowledge in teachers is the major contributor to good teaching and hence high standards in pupil achievement. This article reports on a small‐scale research project designed to look at the characteristics of good primary science teachers. The question is raised as to how these teachers came to be good teachers of science in the primary school. The findings call into question the efficacy of an approach to initial teacher education that focuses so much on the development of subject knowledge.     

Reading lessons: teacher–pupil interactions with text during three KS1 shared reading sessions

Changes in the teaching of reading during the past decade include a shift away from a previous emphasis on ‘one‐to‐one’ learning experiences to a focus upon more communal forms of learning which place the teacher center stage. With the teacher's role thus highlighted, teacher–pupil interaction in practice has come under the spotlight, with a number of studies raising concerns about the quality of teaching taking place and suggesting this is featuring more traditional patterns of ‘IRF’ exchanges between teachers and pupils, which are limiting to children's learning. This article reports on a small‐scale study into teacher–pupil interaction styles during three Key Stage 1 ‘shared reading’ sessions – an activity in which teacher and children work together on an enlarged, illustrated text, with the teacher explicitly modeling components of the reading process to children. The article considers the more tacit modelling taking place during these sessions and how particular linguistic patterning used by teachers frames reading as an educational and cultural activity in ways that position children differentially in relation to it. In particular, it considers how variation in the use of the IRF exchange can mediate different cultural meanings about what it is to engage with text as a reader.     

Inclusive Educational Practice: Results of an empirical study

This article presents a Norwegian primary school teacher facing the challenge of realising the curriculum's vision of inclusive education. Ann teaches a third‐grade class with 22 pupils among which are pupils with special needs. Two of them are John and Paul. The article focuses on how the teacher deals with these two boys as she, at the same time, approaches the class as a whole. The analysis shows that the teacher's practice can be clustered into four themes. The themes are analysed in light of relevant theoretical concepts situated within the framework of socio‐cultural theory. It appears that the themes have some common characteristic traits and dilemmas that Ann encounters in her daunting work of realising inclusive education.     

Some issues arising from an examination of women's experience of university physics

This paper investigates secondary school pupils’ everyday knowledge of the dangers of electricity. It is based on classroom research by a team of teacher‐researchers working with a total of 241 11‐12 and 13‐14 year olds in English comprehensive schools. The initial data were collected by written questionnaires which probed the general meanings pupils had for electricity. When the responses were analyzed, there was a surprisingly high proportion of children (61% of the 11‐12 year olds and 35% of the 13‐14 year olds) who mentioned danger. The pupils were then divided into ‘fearers’ and ‘non‐fearers’, and group interviews were carried out with both in order to explore features of pupil thinking and influences on it. Results of these interviews include pupil quotations around themes such as personal experiences of electric shocks, excitement, the home, socially‐available knowledge and learning about electricity at school. Questions are raised about the possible effect of fear on motivation, participation in practical work and conceptual learning in general; and it is suggested that the pupils’ ideas should be acknowledged and addressed within a supportive classroom environment.     

Teacher and child talk in active learning and whole‐class contexts: some implications for children from economically less advantaged home backgrounds

This paper reports the experiences of 150 children and six primary teachers when active learning pedagogies were introduced into the first year of primary schools. Although active learning increased the amount of talk between children, those from socio‐economically advantaged homes talked more than those from less advantaged homes. Also, individual children experienced very little time engaged in high‐quality talk with the teacher, despite the teachers spending over one‐third of their time responding to children's needs and interests. Contextual differences, such as the different staffing ratios in schools and pre‐schools, may affect how well the benefits of active learning transfer from pre‐school contexts into primary schools. Policy‐makers and teachers should pay particular attention to the implications of this for the education of children from economically less advantaged home backgrounds.     

The earth and beyond: developing primary teachers' understanding of basic astronomical events

The demands on the primary school teacher in delivering the National Curriculum in England and Wales at Key Stage 2 (KS 2) for children aged 7‐11 years are considerable. Public debate concerning teacher subject knowledge and understanding, particularly in science, has raised the issue of the need for increased specialism in the primary school. A core element of this debate has focused on how to develop teacher subject knowledge for the effective delivery of the Programme of Study (POS) at KS 2 for practising teachers. This has resulted in the increased provision of in‐service courses in higher education and has also impacted significantly on course content in initial teacher training. This paper relates to the ‘The Earth and Beyond’ POS exploring factors which contribute to developing teachers’ understanding of basic astronomical events. Results indicate that providing teachers with the necessary skills and confidence to teach this aspect of science effectively is much more complex than simply explicating science content knowledge. The findings suggest that what is needed is the explicit recognition of key features in supporting learning. These are identified and the implications for teacher education are discussed.     

Preparing to transition to secondary education: perceptions of Dutch pupils with migrant backgrounds

Background: The transition from primary school to secondary school is a crucial period of time for children and this may be especially the case for pupils with migrant backgrounds. While there has been considerable research on the transition from primary to secondary school, more needs to be known specifically about the experiences of this group of pupils during their final year of primary school, as they prepare for their transition to secondary school.

Purpose: The study investigated how Dutch children with migrant backgrounds in their final year of primary school perceive the preparatory process for the transition to secondary school. In particular, we were interested in who the children felt were the important ‘actors’ (e.g. pupils, parents, teachers and others) in the preparatory process.

Sample: We collected data from 76 primary school pupils from three schools in an urban city in the Netherlands. The sample included pupils who, according to the Dutch system, were preparing to follow an academic pathway (i.e. the tracks known in this system as ‘HAVO’ or ‘VWO’) and those who were preparing to follow a vocational pathway (i.e. the track known as ‘VMBO’) in secondary education.

Design and methods: We used photo elicitation (N = 76) and also conducted semi-structured interviews with a subsample of the pupils (N = 25) to examine the roles of the important actors in the preparatory process. Data were analysed qualitatively; responses were coded and underwent pattern analysis in order to identify and describe repeating structures in the data. Data were grouped according to whether the pupils received school recommendations for an academic track or a vocational track.

Results: Findings suggested that the pupils perceived the most important actors to be the pupil, the classroom teacher and the parents. Both teachers and parents were considered valuable resources for pupils in the preparatory process. Patterns representing the participants’ perceptions of the roles of three actors – namely, (1) the child, (2) the classroom teacher and (3) the parents, were identified. Six patterns were identified with respect to the child, four with respect to the classroom teacher and two with respect to the parents. For some patterns, it was apparent that the responses of children in the vocational group and the academic group had different emphases.

Conclusions: The study highlights the importance for teachers and parents of children in their final year of primary school to be aware of the pupils’ perceptions of and feelings about their preparation for secondary school, so as to be in the best position to support them collaboratively.     

Methodological advances in educational effectiveness research

This paper describes a series of events observed in an English primary school over the period 1991‐1994. The events are taken as typical examples of school response to an externally¹ imposed innovation, namely, the assessment of pupils against the progressive learning scale in the national curriculum.² The patterns of events occurring in the school are tabulated together with the responses of teaching staff to the change events. The purpose is to inform teacher understanding of the significance of some events in the school's response to change. The claim is that focused reflective practice through reference to change events and types of teacher response are an important contribution to teacher understanding of the meaning of their ‘learning organization’. This practice heightens teachers’ collective awareness of the foci for change within their organization and establishes a vehicle for empowered teacher voice.

     

Do you like dogs or writing? Identity performance in childen's digital message exchange

Over a number of years we have been investigating ways in which e‐communication can contribute to children's writing development and how new technology re‐frames our understandings of writing in the classroom (Merchant, 2003; Burnett et al, 2004; Burnett et al, 2005; Merchant, 2005). Here we analyse the digital writing of pupils from two linked primary school classes (Year 3–5) in the North of England. Part of the project involved the pupils in communicating about themselves and their interests to email partners of the same age. In this article, we track children's identity performance in informal message exchange and show how this contributed to a final knowledge product. We explore how work that had its origins in representing children's lives and identities reflected their position in wider cultural worlds. This perspective causes us to question whether there are there sufficient opportunities for pupils to explore and express ‘who they are’ in the current content‐driven curriculum where public genres are central and personal voice is peripheral.     

Everyone Playing in Class: a group play provision for enhancing the emotional well‐being of children in school

‘Everyone Playing in Class’ is an unstructured free play based provision for small classes or groups. The intervention involves training staff in attachment theory, presenting up‐to‐date research findings on the role of play in emotional well‐being and relationship building, as well as teaching reflective communication skills. In this article Alison Woolf, who is a Member of British Association of Play Therapists (BAPT), describes how these weekly class play sessions can provide experiences that are beneficial for staff and for pupils. The essential elements that create the therapeutic intervention are described and explored, and set in context through their relationship to SEAL. The ethical considerations of school staff providing therapeutic opportunities are considered. Results of pre‐ and post‐intervention assessments are given, and the responses of staff and pupils to the sessions are summarised. Results show improvements for pupils in the areas of self‐esteem and of social development. Most significantly the results demonstrate an increase in the staff's ability to understand and respond to the children in their class.     

Racism,Masculine Peer‐group Relations and the Schooling of African/ Caribbean Infant Boys

The past decade has witnessed the publication of a growing number of important ethnographic studies investigating the schooling experiences of Black students. Their focus has largely been upon student‐teacher relations during the students’ last few years of compulsory education. What they have highlighted is the complexity of racism and the varied nature of Black students’ experiences of schooling. By drawing upon data from a year‐long ethnographic study of an inner‐city, multi‐ethnic primary school, this paper aims to compliment these studies in two ways. Firstly the paper will broaden the focus to examine how student peer‐group relations play an integral role, within the context of student—teacher relations, in shaping many Black students’ schooling experiences. By focussing on African/ Caribbean infant boys, it will be shown how student—teacher relations on the one hand, and peer‐group relations on the other, form a continuous feed‐back loop; the products of each tending to exacerbate and inflate the other. Secondly, by concentrating on infant children, the paper will assess the extent to which these resultant social processes and practices are also evident for Black pupils at the beginning of their school careers—at the ages of five and six.     

‘They're telling me what I already know instead of what I don't know’: dyslexic pupils' experiences of withdrawal tuition during the later primary years

This article reports findings from a qualitative case study whose main focus was on how four 10–11‐year‐old dyslexic pupils coped with the demands of classroom reading during their final two years (Years 5–6) at a primary school in the north of England. Data were also collected on more general issues associated with the pupils' experiences of small‐group withdrawal tuition, and it is this evidence that is drawn on here. Although there were some benefits in terms of improved self‐esteem and overall confidence levels, problems with the sessions were revealed. The work on basic literacy skills lacked challenge as it was not well matched to learning needs and disaffection was created due to missing class lessons. Because of their literacy difficulties these dyslexic pupils were inevitably marginalised within the classroom community of learners, and I argue that attending withdrawal sessions added to their exclusionary experience of school.     

Pupil Speech during Morning News: the effects of reducing teacher questions and increasing pauses and praise

Classroom discourse patterns were examined in the morning news sessions of a primary school classroom. The effects of reducing teacher questions and increasing rates of teacher pauses, praise and directives were investigated. Child words spoken and child expansions were recorded, as well as class call‐outs and teacher control statements. Frequencies of child words spoken showed no significant changes across the phases of the study. However, reducing teacher questions and increasing teacher pauses significantly decreased child expansions, while reducing teacher questions and increasing teacher praise significantly increased child expansions. Replacing teacher questions with directives had no significant effect upon child expansions. Class call‐outs and teacher control statements showed no significant changes across the intervention phases. The results of this study suggest that, for this teacher and class, teacher questions may be decreased without adversely affecting either child utterances or class behaviour, and that replacing questions with praise may increase children's contributions — particularly in the form of verbal expansions — to morning news talks.     

Young children's perceptions of due process in schools’ disciplinary procedures

This study explored how children of lower primary school grades perceive due process in schools’ disciplinary procedures. While many studies have explored how adolescents perceive school discipline, only a few studies have examined the perceptions of primary school pupils, and no study has investigated lower primary school grades. The qualitative research design was based on semi‐structured interviews and focus groups with 70 children, aged 7 to 10, recruited from 19 public schools in Israel. In addition, we recruited a children's advisory group that participated in the research process. The findings revealed that while many of the study participants had internalised a formalistic approach to due process (i.e. meting out uniform punishments in similar cases, in accordance with a closed system of rules), others objected to this approach, providing various reasons for their concerns. Participants’ criticisms of a formalistic due process policy included lack of compassion and lack of understanding of pupils’ social, academic or other difficulties, disregard of pupils’ voice, the complex task of discerning the truth, apprehension over a uniform punitive system and low efficacy of punishments. We argue that the right to due process in schools lies at the intersection of legal and educational narratives. Even young children are able to recognise the inherent incongruity of these narratives, as they constitute a significant part of their daily routine in school. We also argue that this incongruity engenders a distorted due process, thus imparting faulty lessons about the right to due process and its justifications.     

Developing mathematical ability in primary school through a ‘pull-out’ programme: a case study

This article reports the findings of a case study which examined a pull-out strategy for provision for mathematically able children in a primary school in London. The research investigated how the needs of a group of pupils, identified as able mathematicians, were being met through a special small group that works outside the regular mathematics lessons. Based on the observations of the lessons and the semi-structured interviews with both the pupils and their teacher, this article presents some interesting and useful ways for teaching mathematics to able children through small, pulled-out classes.     

Teachers and the Very Able: case studies of four Scottish schools

High ability in children is a contentious issue in the Scottish educational system, which promotes equity through equality of opportunity in a non‐selective system. The aim of this research was to establish an understanding of the extent of available provision for very able children in a limited number of schools, and to chart teachers’ perceptions of high ability. Four Scottish schools were studied: one comprehensive high school and three primary schools, involving 17 teachers (primary principal and head teachers), one learning support teacher and three educational psychologists. Semi‐structured interviews, supported by open‐ended questionnaires, were the means of data collection. The data were submitted to a straightforward and qualitative content analysis. Results show tentatively that recognition of high ability is generally scarce in Scotland, that highly able pupils are often subjected to several decategorisations and that there is no consensus amongst teachers of how to understand high ability. A subgroup of able pupils was identified also, termed fast finishers’ by the participants.     

Teacher knowledge and beliefs about grammar: a case study of an English primary school

This case study of developing teacher attitudes, beliefs and content knowledge at one primary school in the North‐West of England deals with the new spelling, punctuation and grammar (SPaG) elements of the National Curriculum, focusing on grammatical terms and concepts. It uses data collected over 10 months from June 2014 to March 2015, including surveys, interviews and comments made during post‐observation discussions and during SPaG CPD sessions. The findings suggest that, while much work remains to be done in developing teachers’ knowledge base, attitudes are largely supportive of teaching children grammar terms and concepts.     

Extending pre‐school experience as preventive intervention: Relationships with later reading achievement

This study investigated the predictive validity of decisions made by a pre‐school teacher concerning the cognitive and social maturity of her pupils to enter formal schooling, based on their performance on the Neale Scales of Early Childhood Development.Thirty‐five children selected from the rolls of a Melbourne pre‐school which had maintained records over a ten‐year period were followed up in primary school and their reading ability assessed. Findings showed that subjects who had undertaken an additional pre‐school year following advice based on their Neale Scales’ performance were reading significantly better than those who had displayed similar developmental anomalies but who bad not been exposed to further pre‐school experience; moreover, the former were reading as well as or better than children selected on the basis of their pre‐school profiles as being ready for school.