Towards a Taxonomy of Mentoring

Initial Teacher Education in England and Wales is currently undergoing substantial change. In particular, the government has insisted on increased time for school‐based work, on the development of training partnerships between schools and higher education providers, including the transfer of training funds from universities to schools, and on a competence model of assessment. This article focuses on one of the new partnership training courses. Using two of the areas of competence, Subject Knowledge and Subject Application, it explores the reality of partnership from the perspectives of students, school mentors and university tutors as they work through the first year of the new course. Finally, the writers present a series of questions for all those involved as the basis for developing such courses and for ensuring the quality of teacher education.     

A profile graph for interpreting the Detroit Tests of Learning Aptitude

Diagnostic information from any test is of little value unless the results can be interpreted to parents and teachers in ways they can understand and find useful. The Profile Graph for Selected Subtests of the Detroit Tests of Learning Aptitude was designed as a diagnostic aid to focus interpretation of Detroit results on intraindividual ability strengths and weaknesses as related to a child's own expected level of functioning. Using the Profile Graph can expedite communication to parents and teachers and facilitate educational placement and program planning decisions for learning disabled children.     

Adopting and adapting: school leaders in the age of data-informed decision making

The concept of data-informed decision making (DIDM), a term used interchangeably with data-driven decision making (DDDM) and data-based decision making (DBDM), is relatively new to Irish education and the school planning process. This research sought to clarify what data principals use and how they use that information for school improvement considering new school self-evaluation requirements. The paper begins by charting the rise internationally of data use in school planning, decision making and accountability. It proceeds to describe the policy context in this area in Ireland and then reports recent research with school leaders around how data is collected and used in their work. Although the paper focusses on Ireland, it is tentatively suggested that school leaders, teachers and policymakers in other countries, and there are many, which have come late to the expectation that school improvement and accountability should be heavily data-informed may find the efforts of Irish principals in this regard of interest.     

Developing Summarization Skills through the Use of LSA-Based Feedback

This paper describes a series of classroom trials during which we developed Summary Street, an educational software system that uses Latent Semantic Analysis to support writing and revision activities. Summary Street provides various kinds of feedback, primarily about whether a student summary adequately covers important source content and fulfills other requirements, such as length. The feedback allows students to engage in extensive, independent practice in writing and revising without placing excessive demands on teachers for feedback. We first discuss the underlying educational rationale, then present some results of the trials conducted with the system. We describe the collaborative process among researchers and teachers which enabled the development of a viable and supportive educational tool and its integration into classroom instruction.     

From looking at our schools (LAOS) to whole school evaluation -management, leadership and learning (WSE-MLL): the evolution of inspection in irish schools over the past decade

This paper attempts to provide an overview of the key assumptions underpinning the Whole School Evaluation (WSE) inspection policy developed in Ireland since 2003. Beginning with a documentary analysis the paper argues that the capacity to generate useful self evaluative data in schools was seen as being at the heart of the model of school evaluation proposed by the Department of Education and Science. It further suggests that while the rhetoric of self evaluative capacity building has been key to the emerging system the lack of a meaningful structural response within schools means that this has remained aspirational. The latter part of the paper seeks to test this contention, examining the research base in the area of school evaluation and inspection in Ireland and conducting a number of targeted focus groups with school leaders. For the most part the initial contention is confirmed although there is a sense that there may be significant new pressures emerging in the near future that could cause the whole system to be revisited and perhaps be radically overhauled. An initial indicator of these potential changes can be seen in the emergence of a refined WSE Management, Leadership and Learning inspection policy which has yet to be widely implemented.     

Curriculum differentiation for handwriting and occupational therapy/teacher partnership: collaboration or conflict?

This article examines the differences in learning support provision for English and mathematics in Irish primary schools. Questionnaires were completed by 172 learning support teachers in Irish primary schools, as part of a national assessment of English and mathematics. Few respondents (3%) provide learning support for mathematics only, over one-third (36%) provide support for English only, and the remainder provided support for both subjects. Despite the implied equivalence of English and mathematics in the Learning Support Guidelines for teachers in Ireland, considerable differences were noted for English and mathematics in terms of caseloads, in-career development, practices and attitudes. Findings provide an indication of provision prior to the introduction of a new ‘general allocation model’ of support announced by the Irish Department of Education and Science.     

Emerging teachers–emerging identities: trust and accountability in the construction of newly qualified teachers in Norway,Germany, and England

Within the context of globalisation, this article problematises some of the literature on teachers’ professional identities in which a convergence and homogenisation of the profession is implied. It achieves this by focusing on the early experiences of 32 newly qualified teachers in Norway, Germany, and England. The article explores conceptions of identity, deployed for this research, relating these to high- and low-trust forms of trust and accountability in teaching. Aspects of similarity and difference between the three education systems are then used to focus on generic as well as culturally specific issues raised by some of the interview extracts.