The transition to adulthood for autistic young people with additional learning needs: the views and experiences of education professionals in special schools

Education professionals (n = 41) in special schools were interviewed about supporting their autistic pupils transitioning to adulthood following the introduction of the Children and Families Act 2014. Our participants explained how they lacked the time to fully implement knowledge gained from training, leading to growing reliance on experiential expertise. While our participants reported employing a variety of methods to elicit the voices of pupils, they were uncertain how effective and ethical these were. Further, a lack of available opportunities meant that participants felt they could not always support young people in achieving their goals. Based on these findings, we recommend greater investment in the implementation of staff training, more flexibility for schools to be able to meaningfully elicit and act on pupils' voices, and better vocational opportunities for autistic young people with additional learning needs. This would enable the principles of the Act, which have been widely lauded, to become a closer reality.     

Does musical training improve school performance?

In a retrospective study, we compared school performance of 53 children practicing music (group 1) with 67 controls not practicing music (group 2). Overall average marks as well as average marks of all school subjects except sports were significantly higher in children who do (group 1) than in those who do not practice music (group 2). In a multiple regression analysis, musical training, parent’s income, and educational level (grades) correlated significantly with overall average marks. A slight decrease of overall average marks over 4 years from grades 3 to 6 was found in the control group only. Musical training evidently correlates with children’s better performance at school, but is obviously part of a multifactorial dependence. Continuous musical training appears to help achieve and maintain school performance at a high level over time.     

Internationale Konferenz über Sport und Leibeserziehung Helsinki,August 1959

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Fachspezifisches Unterrichtscoaching im Praktikum

It has been repeatedly shown that teaching placements are highly valued by student teachers. However, there is very little knowledge on the impact of different forms of support for placements on the learning of future teachers. One model to support placements is Content-Focused Coaching^SM. In a quasi-experimental intervention study, we investigated the impact of this form of support using questionnaires, video recordings and interviews with dyads of practical teaching staff and their placement students. The results of the survey show that practical teaching staff trained in Content-Focused Coaching^SM (intervention group N_IG?=?16) integrated basic elements of this model into their repertoire and that their teaching practice is significantly different to that in the control group (N_KG?=?16), which supports placement students in the traditional way. Indicators for learning in the context of lesson meetings, furthermore, give evidence that placement students in the intervention group achieve significantly better learning results than their counterparts supported in the traditional manner. The assessment of teaching quality, based on the video recordings, was also significantly better than for the control group.     

Erfolgsfaktoren von Lehrstellenmarketing in der dualen berufsbildung: das beispiel Schweiz

SUCCESS FACTORS OF APPRENTICESHIP MARKETING IN A SYSTEM OF DUAL VOCATIONAL TRAINING: THE CASE OF SWITZERLAND – The dual system of vocational training, utilizing both company training and vocational school, is generally acknowledged to be a successful model, but a decreasing number of trainee posts in Switzerland poses a crisis for the approach. One strategy for overcoming the problem involves offering incentives for companies to create new trainee posts. The present study explores the necessary conditions for successfully influencing the number of trainee posts through apprenticeship marketing. A comparision of qualitative case studies of six marketing projects demonstrates that while context, in the sense of basic structural conditions and political sensibility for the problematic, plays a role in the success of a project, what is central is above all the form of the trainee-post marketing project itself. This has to do with the behaviour of the actors involved as well as the choice of the mode of governance and project organization. The latter has to do with making available requisite technical and personal resources, coordination on the part of the project direction, and giving those responsible the necessary room to act in implementing the project.     

CRITERIA AND PROCEDURES FOR THE RECOGNITION OF FOREIGN QUALIFICATIONS

The criteria and procedures for the recognition of foreign qualifications are not sufficiently known to most evaiuators of foreign qualifications. This lack of knowledge results in inappropriate and incorrect evaluations and recognition decisions. The purpose of this article is to explain who evaluates and reaches decisions as to foreign qualifications, what the role of national recognition centres is, how such centres co‐operate internationally, and how international co‐operation has led to the advancement of agreed upon methods, criteria, and procedures for the recognition of foreign qualifications. The biggest step forward in this respect is the Draft Recommendation on General Procedures and Criteria for the Evaluation of Foreign Qualifications that was recently developed by an expert group and which, in its final form, will be a subsidiary text of the Council of Europe/UNESCO Convention.     

Piaget's Cognitive Psychology and its Consequences for the Teaching of Science

Summaries

English

Dr Kubli investigates several central statements from Piaget's cognitive psychology and their meaning for science eduction in that he attempts to clarify them. Among these statements are theses such as: ‘The basis of thought is action’ and ‘The development of thought is characterized by an ever more flexible equilibrium of the structure of the operative entirety’. These statements are supported by Piaget's experiments. In this article, interpretations which appear most suitable for use in deriving consequences for science education are presented. Some characteristic levels of thinking in children are explained in terms of the child's difficulty to switch from a subjective egocentric assimilation of the material world to an objectively verifiable one. The conclusion derived from this is a general one: the communication of the teacher must be conducted as reversibly as possible by presenting in his teaching those of his own assimilation schemata which can be equilibrated by the pupils with the schemata already available to them.     

The parents anonymous service provider/service recipient experimental training project

These preliminary evaluation results suggest that the training approach is positively perceived by participants and that it has positive effects in changing their attitudes and behavior.