The Early Literacy Support Programme (ELS) and the blend and clash of national educational policy ideologies in England

In this article we consider the development of key policy issues in England, related to the area of literacy learning and children who are considered to have difficulties in literacy in their early years. We trace the tensions which have arisen since the 1980s between different policies and practices in these areas. These tensions include pressures to raise standards of literacy and to support children with difficulties, and the establishment of a prescribed curriculum for young children. In particular, we focus on the blend and clash of national educational policy ideals in areas related to literacy and children who have been categorised as having ‘special educational needs’, and how these have influenced the development of the Early Literacy Support Programme (ELS) (DfES, 2001 Department for Education and Skills 2001a Early Literacy Support Programme, materials to support teachers working in partnership with teaching assistants London DfES  [Google Scholar]a; 2001 Department for Education and Skills 2001b Early Literacy Support Programme, session materials for teaching assistants London DfES  [Google Scholar]b). This is a programme set up by the Department for Education and Science in England for children in Year 1, aged 5 to 6 years old.     

Developing identities in the workplace: students’ experiences of distance early childhood teacher education

In Aotearoa New Zealand, many early childhood teachers gain their teaching qualification via distance study while working in an early childhood centre. Early childhood teachers work in a team environment, and it is important to understand more about how distance students negotiate changes in their workplace practice as their professional knowledge develops. This article draws on a study that explores students’ experiences of distance teacher education as a process of changing participation in the workplace. Distance study supported increasingly confident participation as students saw more meaning in their daily work. The students’ identities and their workplace cultures and practices influenced what students paid attention to and the decisions they made when negotiating changes within their teams. Their experiences suggest that strengthening students’ relational agency at work is a useful focus for distance early childhood teacher education programmes.     

CHE Principles: facilitating authentic and dialogical semi-structured interviews in educational research

This paper examines the values of the CHE principles of Connectivity, Humanness and Empathy as a guiding framework for maximizing the ethical and methodological advantages of semi-structured interview research practices. The authors draw from two separate educational studies and apply the CHE principles to analyse and evaluate the effectiveness of decision-making in facilitating sustainable relationships with the participants in each study. Findings highlight that dialogical relations with participants were evident in both studies, and identify significant junctures where decision-making and actions influenced effective rapport-building and respectful and reciprocal relationships with participants in the research. The CHE principles emerge as providing a robust framework for educational researchers to employ when auditing their decision-making prior to and during their engagement in qualitative interviews.     

Creating an Ofsted story: the role of early years assessment data in schools’ narratives of progress

This paper explores the growing importance of measures of progress in judgements of schools’ effectiveness in England, with a focus on the role of the early years (settings for children aged 2–5) in providing data for these measures. Qualitative data from a research project involving three diverse school-based and pre-compulsory early years settings are used to explore how teachers and school leaders prioritise the collection of data in their every-day practice, in order to show how children make continual progress. The need for a narrative of progress as children move up through the primary school, an ‘Ofsted story’ for the school inspection service, is discussed alongside recent policy which requires a ‘baseline’ assessment at age four. We argue that there is a reification of progress in schools and early years settings, and that this changes the status of early years within the sector.     

How fast can we read in the mind? Developmental trajectories of silent reading fluency

The silent reading fluency is not an observable behaviour and, therefore, its evaluation is perceived as more challenging and less reliable than oral reading fluency. The present research is aimed to measure the silent reading speed in a sample of proficient students, assessed by an original silent reading fluency task, based on behavioural indicators of the silent reading speed. A total of 325 high school and university skilled students (age range 14–23 years) have been assessed using 3 tasks aimed to evaluate the oral reading speed (lists of words, lists of pseudowords and narrative text) and one task aimed to measure the silent reading speed. The average silent reading speed in our sample was around 12.5 syll/sec, almost double than the oral reading speed rate. The silent reading speed had an increase from 9.13 to 12.38 syll/sec from the first year of high school (ninth grade) to the fifth year of University. Conversely, the oral reading speed remained substantially unchanged for the entire academic course. Our results showed that the reading fluency in silent mode tends to increase up to the last years of University and it may be considered the most rapid and efficient reading mode. This study highlights the importance of including both silent and oral reading modes in the assessment of the older students and young adults, since silent reading is the main reading mode for proficient readers.     

Lipid peroxidation and antioxidant vitamins in urolithasis

The present, study was conducted to determine the level of malondialdehyde (MDA) as an index of free radial induced lipid peroxidation and antioxidant vitamins-vitamins A, vitamin C and vitamin E in 75 confirmed cases of urolithiasis. Significantly high level of MDA (p<0.001) with significantly low levels of vitamin E (p<0.001) and vitamin A (p<0.001) with no significant decrease in vitamin C (p>0.05) were observed in the plasma of urolithiasis cases as compared to normal controls. In conclusion, it appears that a role of lipid peroxidation and oxidative function exists in the pathogenesis of urolithiasis. But, the exact mechanism how this occurs remains to be elucidated.     

Educational attainment in the short and long term: was there an advantage to attending faith,private, and selective schools for pupils in the 1980s?

ABSTRACT

This paper asks whether private, selective, and faith schools in England and Wales in the 1980s provided an academic advantage to their pupils, both in the short and longer term. Using longitudinal data from the 1970 British Cohort Study, we examine academic outcomes in compulsory schooling and further education, and the highest qualification gained by age 42. School sector differences are substantially attenuated by controlling for prior pupil characteristics. Nevertheless, a residual effect of private, grammar, and secondary modern schooling remains, both in the short and long term, controlling for both pupil and school characteristics. In the case of faith schools, however, the apparent advantage is restricted to the short term once pupil characteristics are controlled. A unique feature of our analysis is that we control for the individual’s faith of upbringing, which is important in reducing what could otherwise be seen as a distinctive Catholic school advantage.     

A twin-study of sleep difficulties in school-aged children

This study examines frequency, overlap, and genetic and environmental influences on sleep difficulties, which are understudied in school-aged children. The Sleep Self Report and the Children's Sleep Habits Questionnaire were completed by 300 twin pairs (aged 8 years) and their parents. Child report suggested more frequent sleep problems than parent report (e.g., regular sleep onset delay was reported by 45% of children and 17% of parents). Associations between most of the sleep difficulties were small but significant (e.g., r(s)=.16 for parent report of bedtime resistance and sleep onset delay). Twin correlations based on parent reports suggest greater genetic influence (M=50%) than those based on child self-report (M=18%). Possible rater effects should be considered when evaluating children's sleep problems.