Raising attainment in mathematics — The story of Wolverton School

This paper has arisen from a case-study undertaken as part of ‘Whole School Action on Numeracy’, one of six linked projects in the Leverhulme Numeracy Research Programme. Studied over four years, ‘Wolverton’ School emerged as a success story in terms of consistently increasing attainment results in mathematics. The research revealed some of the tensions that exist for schools in the current atmosphere of pressure to raise levels of attainment. Decisions have to be made about curriculum coverage, about setting, about teaching to the test. These tensions together with the strategies adopted by the school to promote the development of numeracy form the subject of the paper which draws from teacher and headteacher interviews, followed by analysis by the research team, with an additional section summarising the responses from an LEA primary adviser from a different authority who was interviewed and asked to comment on the first two sections of the paper. The Epilogue brings the story up to date with comments from a recent interview with the Headteacher as he moves on to a new school.     

Language and culture: Critical components of multicultural teacher education

This article identifies components of a course on multiculturalism in teacher education. The course proposes four stages of awareness: ethnic identity exploration; development of knowledge in language and literacy acquisition; refinement of a repertoire for cultural ways of teaching and learning; and selection of a teaching style. A variety of readings and activities for teacher education are proposed.     

Assessment of Evidence in University Students' Scientific Writing

The purpose of the study presented in this paper is to examine uses of evidence inuniversity students' writing of scientific argument. The study was conducted in anintroductory level oceanography course in a large public university. In this course students draw on large-scale geological data sets provided by an interactive CD-ROM,`Our Dynamic Planet' (Prothero 1995), to write a scientific technical paper. We examined the uses of evidence in two ways. First, we conducted interviews with undergraduate oceanography students n = 9, non-oceanography undergraduate students n = 8 , and course instructors n = 4 to assess the differences in interpretation of uses of scientific evidence for high ranked and low ranked student papers from a previous academic year. Second, we applied our proposed argumentation analysis to student writing to examine the formulation of evidence in these high and low ranked papers. We draw on these findings to discuss ways of teaching students the construction of argument in scientific writing.     

Professionals' attributions of censure in father-daughter incest

Despite the recent increase in interest in the area of child sexual abuse, few studies have explored the attitudes of professionals involved in working with children. The present study investigates variables relating to the attribution of censure by two professional groups (teachers and social workers), to a victim of father-daughter incest, the father, and nonparticipating mother. Subjects were given one of four brief histories of a 14-year-old girl who had been sexually abused by her father. Cases varied according to whether the child had/had not resisted her father's advances and whether she had/had not had other sexual experiences. Subjects then completed a questionnaire and indicated the extent to which they attributed censure to the child, her mother, and father, and the extent to which they believed she would be affected by her experiences. Results showed that responses were influenced by the level of resistance, other sexual experiences, and respondents' sex and occupation.     

A study of handwriting in written stories of normal and learning disabled children

Written stories of normally achieving and learning disabled children in grades one through three were compared, using a Handwriting Evaluation Scale designed for this study. The subjects also were given tests for receptive language, figure copying and spelling. The Non-LD and LD groups differed on figure copying, spelling and written productivity, but not receptive language. The Non-LD grade level groups differed significantly on two components of the handwriting scale (Letter Size and Control), while the LD grade level groups differed on three components (Letter Formation, Alignment and Spacing, and Letter Size). The most pronounced differences between the LD and normally achieving children were on Formation and Size. A separate analysis of the third grade stories revealed that handwriting was less related to productivity than spelling and visual-motor skills. Nevertheless, the results indicated that many LD students have weak visual-spatial-motor skills. Implications for intervention are discussed.