The Cross-Curriculum Manager: Maximizing the Potential of Learners

Mike Reading happened to visit the NAPCE stand at the Education Show, and commented that his school had found the NAPCE resource pack From Head of Year to Year Curriculum Coordinator? very useful in their developments. So a while later he was contacted to write an account for the journal!

This account gives a sense of the particular flavour of the school, which Mike himself suggests is unusual, and also the ways in which one role can become more highly connected and central to the school, especially if it is contributing to an explicit focus on learning.

Mike is Key Stage Manager at George Spencer Foundation School and Technology College. He trained at The University College of Ripon and York St John, and started his career in education as a Religious Education teacher in Oldham before being Head of Department in Grantham. From this position he was appointed to a senior role in his present school. He has studied the contribution which Quality Management makes to secondary school management and gained a Masters degree at Nottingham Trent University.     

Beyond the Head of Year

This paper explores current tensions in the role of the Head of Year in the light of recent changes in schools' contexts. Three broad themes are explored to consider the implications for the role of the Head of Year: a sustained and sharper emphasis on improving the attainment or performance of young people, a change to some of the deeper structures of the school, and the changing relationship of the school to the community. This is discussed using the example of five schools that worked together to explore the role so that it more closely served their purposes, a group that met to discuss what lies 'beyond the Head of Year'.     

The Development of the Year Curriculum Coordinator at Burntwood School

This article gives an account of a school in which Year Curriculum Teams were created, consisting of a planned combination of tutors across subject clusters. An enhanced role and perspective for the tutor is described. Subsequent changes were accommodated well by the new system, even though the position regarding tutor continuity was changed. As with other school accounts in this issue, a sense of the particular flavour of the school comes through, alongside the structural themes which may have wide application.

Charles Harper and Yvonne Barry are both members of the Senior Management Team at Burntwood School, which has recently been awarded Beacon status. Charles has taught in a number of schools including in Pennsylvania, USA. He was a Head of Art before moving into senior management. Yvonne has taught in two large comprehensive schools and was a Year Curriculum Coordinator before becoming a senior manager. Both have been involved in training staff and in giving presentations at the Institute of Education, CSCS, QME and various London schools. Charles and Yvonne are members of various working groups and advisory bodies including the Open University and the QCA.     

Teachers’ Attitudes towards Disruptive Behaviour and their Use of Internal Referral

This study offers a very neat demonstration of something which conventional wisdom holds: that our actions reflect our beliefs. But the topic under investigation is a challenging one – teachers’ uses of ‘referral systems’ in school. The evidence suggests that referrals reflect teachers’ beliefs – not, therefore, the pupils’ behaviour. We do not know of a study of this sort anywhere in the literature on school behaviour, yet these findings have major implications for those pastoral systems which have become distorted into discipline systems. Michael examines these with care, taking pains not to be simply ‘pointing the finger’.

Michael Evans has been teaching physical education and mathematics in London for seven years. Currently in his second secondary post as Head of Year, Michael is working to complete his MA at the University of London Institute of Education. In his spare time he heads for the hills, wind and rain of Scotland.     

Coordination between Head Start and Elementary Schools to Enhance Children’s Kindergarten Success

ABSTRACT

Research Findings: This study examines efforts by Head Start programs to coordinate with elementary schools and seeks to better understand how coordination practices may support children’s transition to and success in kindergarten. Data were drawn from a nationally representative sample of Head Start children (N = 2,019) followed through kindergarten. Findings suggest that Head Start programs are engaging in a variety of activities to coordinate with elementary schools around the transition to kindergarten. Results of lagged OLS regression analyzes found that coordination efforts were significantly related to children’s language and mathematics skills in kindergarten for children attending elementary schools engaging in limited school transition practices to support school entry, suggesting that coordination practices initiated by preschools may play a compensatory role for children. In addition, results suggest that direct meetings between Head Start and kindergarten teachers are predictive of higher language skills in kindergarten. Policy or Practice: Efforts by Head Start programs to coordinate with elementary schools may be particularly important for children’s academic skills when their elementary schools are less engaged in transition practices. In addition, meeting in person and having a key person responsible for the kindergarten transition may be key ingredients to coordination that yields better outcomes for children.     

The Cross-Curriculum Manager: Maximizing the Potential of Learners

Mike Reading happened to visit the NAPCE stand at the Education Show, and commented that his school had found the NAPCE resource pack From Head of Year to Year Curriculum Coordinator? very useful in their developments. So a while later he was contacted to write an account for the journal!
This account gives a sense of the particular flavour of the school, which Mike himself suggests is unusual, and also the ways in which one role can become more highly connected and central to the school, especially if it is contributing to an explicit focus on learning.
Mike is Key Stage Manager at George Spencer Foundation School and Technology College. He trained at The University College of Ripon and York St John, and started his career in education as a Religious Education teacher in Oldham before being Head of Department in Grantham. From this position he was appointed to a senior role in his present school. He has studied the contribution which Quality Management makes to secondary school management and gained a Masters degree at Nottingham Trent University.     

The contribution of primary school teachers to curriculum planning and development in Iraq

ABSTRACT

This article describes the role of primary school teachers in Iraq in connection with curriculum change and development. It identifies the ways in which professional teachers have been faced with increased central control and concludes by responding directly to the Ministry of Education. A survey involving interviews and question‐ naires was conducted with primary school teachers of different school location, age, gender, experience, qualifications and subjects taught, and in various school locations. Headteachers and education officials were also interviewed to establish the degree of involvement of primary teachers in their curriculum planning process.     

Total Quality Management: Improving Pupil Performance

It is frequently argued that work relating to key areas of pupils’ personal and social education starts too late, that it takes place after crucial attitudes, perceptions and understandings have already been developed by pupils. Generally the problem is that work does not start until the secondary stage. This paper describes an evaluation of careers work undertaken with Year 4 pupils in a primary school. In this school, a yearly careers week was held when structured activities were organized around talks about their work given by parents. The researcher found that 5 months after the careers work, the Year 4 pupils remembered much of significance. These findings are then related to a number of theories of career development which support such work early in pupils’ careers. The paper concludes by outlining the benefits that careers work in the primary school offers.     

Astronomy alternative conceptions in pre-adolescent students in Western Australia

ABSTRACT

Alternative conceptions in astronomy are a road block to new learning. Astronomy content is included in the Australian Curriculum (AC) from Year 3 and then intermittently in Year 5, Year 7 and Year 10. In accepting that science is socio-culturally constructed, it is important for teachers to have a clear understanding of the alternative conceptions that students bring with them to the science classroom. This article reports on the alternative conceptions elicited from 546 students ranging from Year 5 through Year 7 using a modified form of the Astronomy Diagnostic Test [Danaia, L. (2006). Students’ experiences, perceptions and performance in junior secondary school science: An intervention study involving a remote telescope (Doctoral dissertation). Charles Sturt University, Bathurst]. Results show that some well identified alternative conceptions, such as the ‘eclipse model’ to explain the phases of the Moon, exist before students enter high school and prior to any formal learning on the topic. In addition, this research identified a number of alternative conceptions held by pre-adolescent students in Western Australia that were based on knowledge that should have been consolidated by students in Year 3, viz., the relative movements of the Earth, Moon and Sun. Armed with students’ alternative conceptions as a part of their pedagogical content knowledge, teachers can construct active learning experiences that will challenge students’ existing constructs in order to allow for new learning. This sample suggests that we need to identify the reasons behind the lack of consolidation of the foundation astronomy content of the Australian Curriculum outlined for students in Year 3.     

Cross-school Mentoring: Training and implementing a peer mentoring strategy

This article describes a project based on Year 7 pupils (aged 11-12 years) in a UK inner-city girls' school classified as 'in challenging circumstances'. The girls were cross-mentored by Year 12 (aged 16-17 years) girls from another local girls' school. The city has a diverse multi-cultural population where single gender education is an active preference for many parents. This parental dimension influenced cooperation between the two schools. The conceptual theme for the mentoring project was that the older pupils provided a supportive framework for their younger peers. This was a conscious shift from the traditional notion of 'prefects control younger pupils'. Prior to operating the scheme, a training programme was devised by the city's Secondary Behaviour Support Team. The progress of this training course and the application of the techniques through the mentoring sessions are described.     

Family Values and Schools

Sociological research into the changing nature of the family provided the context for a pilot project on the family values of Year 4 children in an inner-city school in Birmingham. An innovatory aspect of the research was that the researcher communicated with the pupils mainly through the means of email. The project’s findings indicate that the family values that the children bring to school may not coincide with those of their teacher. This raises the question of how far the school and its teachers have the right to challenge values that are learned in the home and that underpin family life.     

The Use of Assessment Data for School Improvement Purposes

Hampshire LEA has carried out two longitudinal studies: from reception intake to the end of Year 2, and from the end of Year 2 to the end of Year 6. A total, respectively, of 161 and 114 schools and about 6400 and 4700 pupil records have been analysed. Test scores at baseline (entry to reception), Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 have been used, together with pupil and school level variables. Multilevel models have been fitted and show that schools differ along several dimensions, both by curriculum subject and by prior attainment of pupil. The research sought ways of communicating the results to head teachers in ways which were meaningful without destroying the underlying complexity of the relationships uncovered. The paper describes how this can be done, in ways which can assist the process of school improvement.     

An ethnographic action research project: national curriculum,historical learning and a culturally diverse Melbourne primary school

ABSTRACT

This paper uses ethnographic action research to explore how the objectives of the Australian Curriculum Intercultural Understanding can be achieved in a culturally diverse Year 5/6 (ages 10–12) primary school class in Melbourne. It examines whether a history unit on migration, that uses a structured historical inquiry approach, encourages culturally diverse students to develop a more critical and reflexive understanding of multiculturalism. Using Banks’ multicultural framework and Bath’s approach to ethnographic action research, I argue that the oral history component of a Year 5/6 history unit supported students to develop their Intercultural Understanding. I suggest that ethnographic action research is an effective approach for investigating the implementation of new teaching initiatives.     

From Head of Year to Year Curriculum Coordinator and Back Again?

This article is an account of the development of the course From Head of Year to Year Curriculum Coordinator? The story of its origins, its development and outcomes provides an opportunity to explore the impact of educational changes on conceptions of pastoral care, its management and organization, and how NAPCE has had to change the pattern and nature of its activities to support its members. It allows us to consider the enduring but changing role of the Head of Year.
Caroline Lodge worked for 25 years in urban comprehensive schools in Coventry and London, in many different roles (including Head of Year) before moving on. She is now occupied with earning a living as lecturer, writer, researcher, teacher, consultant and trainer and is also a student.     

Head Start Children: School Mobility and Achievement in the Early Grades

Abstract

The relationship of 2 school mobility indices (school changes and parental perceptions of mobility effects) to 2nd-grade academic achievement was examined. The sample comprised 90 children who had attended Head Start and had made the transition to public school. Data also were obtained from the children's mothers. School mobility was defined as the number of school transfers over 3 years (kindergarten to Grade 2). Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that frequent school changes in the primary grades were related to lower achievement levels even after controlling for the child's sex and the effects of achievement prior to the school moves.     

KAIZEN: school‐wide quality improvement

Abstract

It is evident that secondary schools organise themselves in different ways for the purposes of pastoral organisation. In general these can be characterised as either horizontal or vertical structures, depending on whether a Year or House system has been adopted. From a survey of secondary schools in one particular local education authority, it appears that the most common and popular approach for secondary schools to organise pastoral care is based on a Year (horizontal) system in which Heads of Year have overall responsibility for pupils in one age‐group. However, one potential problem is that such an arrangement may give rise to an artificial separation of pastoral and academic concerns. In comparing and contrasting the respective advantages of Year and House systems of pastoral organisation and management, David Fincham examines a model in which a school sets out to combine pastoral and academic concerns by establishing a vertical (House) system. Whilst acknowledging that pastoral care implies something more than the setting up of a formal organisation for management purposes, he proposes that academic and pastoral concerns can in fact be integrated effectively through a vertical system.     

An experimental study evaluating professional development activities within a state funded pre-kindergarten program

This paper describes the implementation and evaluation for scaling up a comprehensive early childhood teacher professional development program into 11 communities across 2 years with funding through state legislative actions. The comprehensive program had four major components based on results from a previous multi-condition random assignment study across four states. The previous results demonstrated that the most optimum approach for supporting children??s school readiness included: (1) teacher on-line professional development with facilitation, (2) classroom mentoring, (3) implementation of a research-based curriculum, and (4) technology-driven progress monitoring that informed instruction. The comprehensive professional development program was evaluated in a new state program designed to bring childcare, Head Start, and public school pre-kindergarten together into integrated partnerships. In Year 1, 220 teachers serving 3834 children were randomly assigned to either receive the comprehensive program or not. Teachers who served as controls in Year 1 received the program in Year 2, and those who received the program in Year 1 participated for an additional year in Year 2, allowing for examination of the effects of one versus 2 years of participation. The program improved teachers instructional practices relative to controls, and a second year of participation resulted in greater gains in children??s language and literacy. Results support the need for well-integrated, comprehensive professional development for early childhood educators.     

The Development of the Year Curriculum Coordinator at Burntwood School

This article gives an account of a school in which Year Curriculum Teams were created, consisting of a planned combination of tutors across subject clusters. An enhanced role and perspective for the tutor is described. Subsequent changes were accommodated well by the new system, even though the position regarding tutor continuity was changed. As with other school accounts in this issue, a sense of the particular flavour of the school comes through, alongside the structural themes which may have wide application.
Charles Harper and Yvonne Barry are both members of the Senior Management Team at Burntwood School, which has recently been awarded Beacon status. Charles has taught in a number of schools including in Pennsylvania, USA. He was a Head of Art before moving into senior management. Yvonne has taught in two large comprehensive schools and was a Year Curriculum Coordinator before becoming a senior manager. Both have been involved in training staff and in giving presentations at the Institute of Education, CSCS, QME and various London schools. Charles and Yvonne are members of various working groups and advisory bodies including the Open University and the QCA.     

Developing an emotional awareness programme for pupils with moderate learning difficulties at Durants School

Abstract

Emotional awareness programmes and initiatives in education have a high profile. Training courses in emotional literacy and emotional literacy projects are being promoted nationwide. However, whilst many successful projects and programmes have taken place in the context of mainstream school settings, by comparison relatively fewer projects have been reported in special school settings. A seven-week emotional awareness project was designed for seven pupils in a Year 8 form group (12–13 years of age) who were presenting with emotional and emotional/behavioural difficulties in Durants School, which caters for pupils with moderate learning difficulties. The project drew upon principles of circle time and placed emphasis on multisensory activities and role play. The purpose of the project was to identify whether an emotional awareness programme would lead to an increase in the pupils’ awareness and understanding of their own emotions, and whether an awareness of other people’s feelings/emotions could be integrated as a core module of the school’s personal, social and health education curriculum. This project illustrates that an emotional awareness programme can be adapted creatively for pupils with special educational and learning needs without involving expensive resources, and can give pupils life skills that can be applied both in and out of the classroom.     

Cartoons as visual representations of the development of primary school children’s understanding of bullying behaviours

ABSTRACT

This study adopts a creative methodology to investigate how cartoons can serve as visual representations of primary school children’s understanding of bullying and compares how their understanding develops over time. The study was carried out in Northern Ireland where the Addressing Bullying in Schools (Northern Ireland) Act 2016 will require schools to follow a new statutory definition of bullying. To investigate the behaviours that children associate with bullying, a set of 16 original stick figure cartoons was devised. The cartoons were shown to a sample of Year 3 and Year 7 pupils from two different primary schools in Northern Ireland (N = 90). Pupils were asked to record which scenarios they considered to be bullying or not bullying. They were then invited to write their own definitions of bullying and to creatively illustrate them using stick figures. A total of eight gender-specific pupil focus groups were conducted across the two schools to explore the key elements which the pupils considered significant to their understanding of bullying. The study highlights the value of this creative participatory approach and found a wide range of behaviours which children associate with bullying but also considerable variation among pupils in terms of their understanding. Levels of understanding in Year 7 were more nuanced than those in Year 3, but there were no discernible differences by pupil gender. Conclusions are drawn in terms of the new legislation in Northern Ireland, but also in relation to the benefits of adopting a creative research methodology using cartoons as visual representations with children to explore complex pastoral issues.