Contracting Headteachers as Leaders: an analysis of the NPQH

Within the restructuring of the public sector there is a complex process involving challenges to professional practice. This paper seeks to describe and understand this through analysing the integration of commercial contracting into the professional practice and status of headteachers. It is argued that a key feature of this process is training and this is the context in which a critical evaluation of the National Standards for Headteachers combined with the National Professional Qualification for Headteachers (NPQH) is located. Commercial contracting is being overlain on top of democratic notions and practices of the social contract, and centrist determined NPQH training and assessment is being overlain on top of pluralist professional development opportunities. Aspiring and in‐post headteachers are being presented with a model of contractual leadership which is in tension with educational values and it is argued that as a consequence alternative and more humane traditions are being marginalised     

Thinking Theory: The field of education management in England and Wales

The field of education management has grown rapidly in the past 30 years with members positioning themselves in all parts of the education system. The main claim for distinctiveness is working with and on behalf of the practitioner, and intellectual positioning is based on the nature of intervention with the practitioner such as empirical research, course provision, and consultancy. In undertaking an intellectual analysis of the field, Bourdieu's theory of practice, developed through and with Habitus and Field, is used to think with and to develop an understanding of the 'possibilities' and 'traps' for the professional practice of field members.     

Experimental study of the critical speed response,of a jeffcott rotor with acceleration

A small, lightly damped rotor (ζ=0.0088) was experimentally tested for a variety of acceleration and deceleration rates. In each case, the amplitude response was plotted as a function of operating speed, with the acceleration rate considered. In each case the results are compared with theoretical predictions. The results agree within 6% at the peak response. The results of the analysis indicate that for high acceleration rates the critical amplitude response may be reduced by a factor of four or more. The frequency of the effective critical speed may be shifted by up to 20%. Furthermore, a beating frequency was observed in the amplitude data after the rotor had passed through the critical speed. This phenomenon is shown to be the vector sum of a synchronous component of amplitude and a nonsynchronous transient component (at the critical speed). The transient nonsynchronous component is shown explicitly via electronic band-pass filtering, as is the forced response component. Finally, spectral analyses were performed over a range of operating speeds, yielding waterfall diagrams and further verification of the existence of the two components.     

Children's Memory and Comprehension of Two Science Programmes

A total of 111 children, 55 aged 8 to 9 years and 56 aged 14 to 15 years of age, watched one of two single‐topic prime‐time science programmes. Recall and comprehension scores following the viewing of the programmes were assessed. In addition, a number of demographic factors including age, sex, linguistic fluency, prior television viewing and reading habits were investigated as possible predictors of learning from television. It was found that age was a significant factor in both recall and comprehension, but even more important was general knowledge. Sex and linguistic fluency was neither systematically nor frequently associated with good performance. Prior viewing habits concerning science programmes on television and reading behaviour were found to have particular effects but were not major predictors of performance. Knowledge growth (defined as differences in performance between pre‐ and post‐test performance on key, repeated, items specifically addressed by the viewed programme) was consistently observed. This major finding indicated clearly that children can learn prime‐time television science information.