Classroom Organisation and Teaching Approaches at Key Stage One: meeting the needs of children with and without additional educational needs in five inner city schools

This study is based on case studies of five inner city schools and focuses on organisation and teaching approaches used by teachers of Year 2 classes. It also addresses teaching approaches adopted and support for children with ‘additional’ educational needs, operationalised in terms of both special educational needs (not necessarily statemented) and English language needs. Planning was almost universally carried out on a weekly basis, with longer‐term planning also being apparent. Varied responses in relation to teachers’ aims and teaching approaches adopted emerged. These were frequently reported to have changed as a result of the National Curriculum. The majority of teachers reported that they grouped children on the basis of their ability. Children with language needs and with special educational needs were not equally distributed amongst the schools in the study and the support available for these children differed markedly. The findings are discussed in the context of past research and current policy.     

School Work,Homework and Gender

This paper explores female and male students' attitudes towards school work in terms of application and achievement. The data are drawn from interviews with students, teachers, careers officers and welfare officers in three semi‐rural comprehensive schools in one local education authority (LEA) [1]. (The students were in their last year of compulsory schooling, Year 11, and were aged 16 [2].) The three schools had invited the authors to explore why boys were achieving below their potential in terms of course work and end of course grades. The findings of the study show how school, peer group and community factors influence students' attitudes towards school work and homework. However, the situation is not just one of boys' under‐performance: the pattern of girls' achievement at 16 (the school leaving age) is not always carried through post‐16 or into career destinations. The problem is one of ‘equalising opportunities’ for all young people, taking into account the different patterns of need at different stages in their school careers.     

Mother–Child Attachment From Infancy to the Preschool Years: Predicting Security and Stability

Relations between maternal mind‐mindedness (appropriate and nonattuned mind‐related comments), children's age‐2 perspective‐taking abilities, and attachment security at 44 (n = 165) and 51 (n = 128) months were investigated. Nonattuned comments predicted insecure preschool attachment, via insecure 15‐month attachment security (44‐month attachment) and poorer age‐2 perspective‐taking abilities (51‐month attachment). With regard to attachment stability, higher perspective‐taking abilities distinguished the stable secure groups from (a) the stable insecure groups and (b) children who changed from secure to insecure (at trend level). These effects were independent of child gender, stressful life events, and socioeconomic status (SES). The contribution of these findings to our understanding of stability and change in attachment security from infancy to the preschool years is discussed.     

European Dissertation Summaries

Over the past decade, Donald Schön's conceptualization of professional practice as reflection‐in‐action has gained wide currency. This paper reports on a seminar, based on Schon's ideas, to assist elementary teachers in making Science a more significant part of their instructional programmes. A detailed analysis of the efforts of two of the experienced teachers involved points to problems related to: (i) the efficacy of reflection‐on‐action in facilitating reflecting‐in‐action; (ii) disjunctions between conceptual and action components of teachers' frames; and (iii) the role of substantive teacher intervention in assisting children in learning to use non‐common‐sense ways of knowing such as Science.