Pupil mobility in schools and implications for raising achievement

This paper examines the causes of pupil mobility and good practice in schools to address mobility issues. Pupil mobility is defined as ‘a child joining or leaving school at a point other than the normal age at which children start or finish their education at that school’. The first part draws upon evidence of a survey, which explores the views of headteachers on the nature and causes of pupil mobility in schools and the priority they give to addressing pupil mobility issues in their schools. It examines the cause of mobility in schools in the context of mobile groups. This is followed by the challenges for managing mobility and strategies to address pupil mobility in schools. The second part of the paper outlines successful strategies that minimize the effects of mobility in schools. Evidence is drawn from case‐study research and focuses on the school systems, pastoral care and access to learning which combine to support the induction, assessment and monitoring of newly arrived pupils in school and effective use of data for self‐evaluation. Examples of flexible curriculum organization, innovative approaches to additional support and effective administrative procedures are drawn upon. Evidence reflects the views of a range of school staff, parents/carers and pupils in the case‐study school, as well as the judgements of senior researchers. Policy implications for government and for all concerned with school performance are highlighted, as well as many practical suggestions for raising achievement of mobile pupils     

Funding,reputation and targets: the discursive logics of high-stakes testing

This paper provides insights into teacher and school-based administrators’ responses to policy demands for improved outcomes on high-stakes, standardised literacy and numeracy tests in Australia. Specifically, the research reveals the effects of the National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN), and associated policies, in the state of Queensland. Drawing suggestively across Michel Foucault’s notions of disciplinary power and subjectivity, and Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of social fields, the research utilises interviews with teachers and school-based administrators to reveal how high-stakes, standardised testing practices served to discursively constitute performative teacher subjectivities around issues of funding, teacher and school reputation and target-setting within what is described as the ‘field of schooling practices’. The paper argues that the contestation evident within this field is also reflective and constitutive of more educative schooling discourses and practices, even as performative logics dominate.     

Examining the Influence of Multiple-Choice Test Formats on Student Performance

Innovative Higher Education - Learning gains associated with multiple-choice testing formats that provide immediate feedback (e.g., IFAT®) are often greater than those for typical...     

Print Media

Elizabeth L. Eisenstein, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979---$49.50 for the two volume set)

Roy Harley Lewis' Antiquarian Books: An Inisder's Account (New York: Arco, 1979---$10.00)

Jack Lindsay's William Morris: His Life and Work (New York: Taplinger, 1979---$14.95)

Thomas Weyr's Reaching for Paradise: The Playboy Vision of America (New York: Times Books, 1979---$12.50)

Book Publishing Worldwide, A Publisher's Weekly Extra (New York: R.R. Bowker, 1979---S6.95, paper)

Scholarly Communication: The Report of the National Enquiry (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979---$3.95, paper)

Charles B. Osburn's Academic Research and Library Resources: Changing Patterns in America (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1979---$18.95)

Robert Egan's The Bookstore Book: A Guide to Manhattan Booksellers (New York: Avon Books, 1979---$5.95, paper)     

Big Math for Little Kids: The Effectiveness of a Preschool and Kindergarten Mathematics Curriculum

Research Findings: Big Math for Little Kids (BMLK) is a mathematics curriculum developed for use with 4- and 5-year-old children. To investigate the BMLK curriculum's effect on children's mathematics knowledge, this cluster-randomized controlled trial randomly assigned child care centers to provide mathematics instruction to children, using either the BMLK mathematics curriculum or the centers’ business-as-usual curriculum, over a 2-year period when children were in prekindergarten and kindergarten. Participants in the study were 762 children and their teachers at 16 publicly subsidized child care centers. The study assessed children's mathematics knowledge using the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth Cohort (ECLS-B), Direct Mathematics Assessment, a measure of young children's mathematics knowledge that is not aligned with the curriculum. The ECLS-B scores of children in the BMLK group increased significantly more than did those of children in the comparison group. The study also included exploratory analyses to examine whether children in the BMLK group demonstrated evidence of improved mathematical language. Practice or Policy: These results indicate that the BMLK curriculum, which is designed to help teachers use play-based, developmentally appropriate mathematics instruction, has a positive impact on young children's mathematics knowledge as measured by a general mathematics assessment that is not aligned with the curriculum.