Naïve change agent or canny political collaborator? The change in leadership role from nursery school to Children's Centre

This article presents initial findings from a consideration of early years Labour government policy from 1997 to date and from a case study of an early years leadership journey. The article explores the social policies underlying early years initiatives that have impacted upon early years leadership journeys and roles. The challenge of the role is highlighted through the first author's (Lesley Curtis) leadership experiences and we suggest that limited support for leaders of integrated centres has been available to date. The case study questions and explores whether Curtis is a naïve change agent or a canny political collaborator as she travels on her leadership journey and discovers new insights into the nature of her early years leadership role.     

Teachers' implementation of gender-inclusive instructional strategies in single-sex and mixed-sex science classrooms

Debate continues over the benefits, or otherwise, of single-sex classes in science and mathematics, particularly for the performance of girls. Previous research and analyses of the circumstances surrounding the implementation of single-sex classes warn that the success of the strategy requires due consideration of the nature of the instructional environment for both boys and girls, together with appropriate support for the teachers involved. This article reports the circumstances under which teachers were able to implement gender-inclusive strategies in single-sex science classes in coeducational high schools and documents some of the difficulties faced. The study was part of the Single-Sex Education Pilot Project (SSEPP) in ten high schools in rural and urban Western Australia. Qualitative and quantitative data were gathered during the project from teachers, students and classroom observations. Overall, it was apparent that single-sex grouping created environments in which teachers could implement gender-inclusive science instructional strategies more readily and effectively than in mixed-sex settings. Teachers were able to address some of the apparent shortcomings of the students' previous education (specifically, the poor written and oral communication of boys and the limited experience of girls with 'hands-on' activities and open-ended problem solving). Further, in same-sex classrooms, sexual harassment which inhibited girls' learning was eliminated. The extent to which teachers were successful in implementing gender-inclusive instructional strategies, however, depended upon their prior commitment to the SSEPP as a whole, and upon the support or obstacles encountered from a variety of sources, including parents, the community, students, and non-SSEPP teachers.     

An Analysis of Teaching Competence in Science Teachers Involved in the Design of Context-based Curriculum Materials

The committees for the current Dutch context-based innovation in secondary science education employed teachers to design context-based curriculum materials. A study on the learning of science teachers in design teams for context-based curriculum materials is presented in this paper. In a correlation study, teachers with (n?=?25 and 840 students) and without (n?=?8 and 184 students) context-based curriculum material design experience were compared on context-based competence. Context-based competence comprises context handling, regulation, emphasis, design, and school innovation. Context-based teaching competence was mapped using both qualitative and quantitative research methods in a composite instrument. Due to the differences in design team set-up for different science subjects, teachers with design experience from different science subjects were also compared on their context-based competence. It was found that teachers with design experience showed more context-based competence than their non-designing colleagues. Furthermore, teachers designing for biology showed more context-based competence than their peers from other science subjects.     

Learning to Teach Creative Writing

Is it possible to teach people to write fiction? A more important and helpful question is: how do we teach creative writing? And who are the teachers? A published writer is not necessarily qualified to teach creative writing. To helpfully share their declarative knowledge with students, a writer must embrace the art and craft of teaching, consider how different students learn and create the optimum setting to enable learning. There is a parallel challenge for the writer with the student, as each is faced with challenges around their previously held assumptions about ways of learning.     

AD/HD is a bio‐psychosocial condition requiring support from integrated services

This article reports on how integrated services can provide coordinated support for children with AD/HD and their families. The author reports on the effectiveness of a problem‐based approach to interagency working by exploring the use of two models of good practice from education, health and social care to provide a framework for working across disciplines. It identifies how children with AD/HD could usefully inform professionals and parents about their experience of living with the condition and so influence the services they receive. Suggestions are made as to how the framework can be applied in practice with children and how the framework can be used to identify the effectiveness of support which in turn can inform further research and practice.     

Singing One's Way to Self-Regulation: The Role of Early Music and Movement Curricula and Private Speech

Research Findings: Although the role of language and private speech in the development of behavioral self-regulation has been studied, relations between behavioral self-regulation and children's experiences with other symbolic systems, such as music, have not yet been explored. Eighty-nine 3- and 4-year-old children (42 of whom had been enrolled in Kindermusik music and movement classes, and 47 demographically similar children who had not experienced structured early childhood music classes) completed a battery of laboratory self-regulation tasks and a selective attention task during which their private speech was reliably transcribed and categorized. Children currently enrolled in Kindermusik classes showed better self-regulation than those who were not currently enrolled (d = .41), and they also used more relevant private speech during the selective attention task (d = .57), a verbal strategy that was positively related to performance. Children exposed to the music program were also more likely to engage in the facilitative strategy of singing/humming to themselves during a waiting period in which they had to inhibit their desire to examine a gift, and they were less likely to call out socially to the experimenter, a strategy negatively associated with performance and self-regulation. Practice or Policy: Implications for early childhood education are discussed.     

Student and Police Partnerships: Cultivating Student Success and Community Development

Scholarship on service-learning and experiential learning increasingly demonstrates benefits for student access and success, but evidence is still needed of the impact of these strategies on sustainable development of communities and their infrastructure. This case study examines a university Police and Society course that partners with four police departments to use both experiential learning and service-learning in the form of ride-alongs, simulation trainings, and written and physical examinations, as well as hosting a police–community relations event. Focus groups of students and officers reveal how service-learning and experiential learning build capacity for police–community relations. Orienting students toward officer procedures, requirements, and culture creates a learning opportunity for both students and departments, while police–community relations activities humanize officers and build public understanding and trust.     

Tradition,tension, and transformation: a structuration analysis of a game warden service in transition

Independence and competence define the traditional characteristics of a game warden. External pressure to transform the game warden service into a more culturally and ethnically diverse state law enforcement agency, however, creates tensions surrounding these characteristics in the organization's structurationally defined agency and reflexivity of law enforcement; duality of structure in office memos and citation counts; social integration and institutional reproduction of law enforcement training, use of decoys, and search and seizure procedures; and time-space distanciation of working a 40-hour week or having complete responsibility for a territory. The present study examined how these tensions interact with the traditional assumptions of independence and competence to transform the meaning of these characteristics, and of the game warden service itself.     

'Am I the same?' Decision-making processes during the transition from school

This paper describes the kinds of decisions that young people with special educational needs and their families have to make as the time to leave school approaches. While these choices may be familiar, what is less familiar is how such decisions are made. The Code of Practice ( DfE, 1994 ; DfES, 2001 ) provides guidance on the support to be provided during the transition from school, but this only partially reflects the complexities of reality. The seven types of decision-making processes that are identified here are an attempt to describe some of these complexities as experienced by young people and their parents or carers. The paper concludes by suggesting that these insights could contribute to the emerging role of the Connexions Service Personal Advisers in providing more sensitive and effective support during the transition phase.