A non‐statutory framework for religious education: issues and opportunities

This paper considers issues in religious education that ought to be addressed by the recent non‐statutory framework for England. It outlines problematic features of the current situation and paints a generally welcoming picture of the educational opportunities afforded by this new initiative.     

Policies on special needs education: competing strategies and discourses

This paper critically examines the array of policy approaches that have been adopted in the field of special needs education in Scotland over recent years. These are characterized in the following ways: (1) supporting or changing the child—an individualized approach; (2) making schools inclusive for all—a systems approach; (3) challenging the mainstream—an anti‐discrimination approach. Each approach creates different distributions of power, accountability and resource allocation. They formulate categories and eligibility requirements that can both include and exclude children (and their parents), and create rights and duties with varied potential and limitations. Thus, the policy approaches may aver their promotion of inclusion but, in fact, they create a new quilt of inclusive and exclusive policies and practice. This is further examined through the analysis of official statistics, which suggests that there has been little difference in the proportion of children who are excluded spatially from mainstream schools and classrooms. Recent legislation, the Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Act 2004, claims to underpin a radical new approach to promoting inclusion. However, many features of the Act suggest that it will reinforce the power of professional groups, rather than investing more power in children and their parents. There is a real danger that, whilst policy frameworks shift, practices remain the same as a result of inertia and resistance to change.     

Gipsy Hill Training College graduates: once,always and everywhere a modern woman teacher in the interwar years

This article examines the ways in which Gipsy Hill Training College’s (GHTC) graduates represented their lives and work in the college magazine, the Gipsy Trail. The so-called ‘Wraggle Taggle News’ featured snippets from married and single women teachers at every stage of their lives and work in Britain and overseas by the late 1930s. It will be shown that graduates integrated discourses of the modern woman and Gipsy Hill’s modernist ideals of individual autonomy, and educational and social progressivism into their paid work and domestic situations, leisure and propaganda work across their life course. Indeed, it was a case of ‘once a teacher, always a teacher’ and everywhere a modern woman teacher in the interwar years.     

Improving student achievement

A cognitive processing capacity model of teaching and studying improved immediate posttest and delayed posttest performances of low-ability students, while it reduced performance differences between the low- and high-ability students. A skeletal study outline and a restudy and retest provision also made positive contributions to performance.     

“Losing Touch”: Teachers on teaching and learning

Teachers recruited to a cohort study in 1978 were interviewed to elicit their views on issues surrounding the education system and teaching profession. Qualitative data were derived from a semi‐structured interview and quantitative data included a self‐report measure of temperament and character. The findings highlight a “mismatch” between the characteristics or attributes of teachers and the shifting role of teachers to accommodate administrative and “social work” duties for which they have not been trained. This shift, in turn, takes them away from their core business of teaching. Furthermore, a common attribute of cooperativeness in this teaching cohort is more aligned with the teaching role which may explain teachers' frustration in having to accommodate an independent working style of administrator. Greater use of administrative support staff and counseling services to free teachers to do what they have been trained is more likely to reduce levels of work dissatisfaction. Mentoring of new graduates is more likely to buffer the stress as they make the transition from a learning to a teaching environment. A mentoring matrix is offered which features a bi‐directional exchange of “tried and true ideas” of experienced teachers and “new ideas” of new graduates.     

Towards a framework for the validation of early childhood assessment systems

American early childhood education is in the midst of drastic change. In recent years, states have begun the process of overhauling early childhood education systems in response to federal grant competitions, bringing an increased focus on assessment and accountability for early learning programs. The assessment of young children is fraught with challenges; psychometricians and educational researchers must work together with the early childhood community to develop these instruments. The purpose of this paper is to present a conceptual framework for the validation of such instrumentation and examine its implications for early childhood educators. We formulate a validity argument for early childhood assessments providing a pivotal link between validity theory and early education practice. Recommendations for the assessment field are also considered.