How effective is parental prosecution as a method of improving school attendance among primary‐aged children?

Just under half a million children and young people in state schools in England miss school every day. Indeed, improving school attendance has remained a key aim for successive governments. Various strategies have been adopted at both national and local levels in an attempt to tackle the persistent issue of school attendance with varying degrees of success. This study explores the effectiveness of one of those strategies – that of parental prosecutions – as a means of improving children and young people's school attendance. It reports on the effectiveness of parental prosecutions while highlighting some of the emerging patterns among a cohort of those prosecuted within one local authority during one academic year.     

Researching the Implementation of Educational Policy: A backward mapping approach

Misjudging the ease of policy implementation is recognised as one of the most common planning mistakes. If implementation is not planned and structured, effective management of change may give way to ad hoc adjustments and short-term strategies for coping, with a subsequent dilution of policy efficiency. Developing countries can ill afford the wasted resources that result, but little research attention has been directed at providing information about implementation processes that policy makers can draw on. This article discusses a model of 'backward mapping' that was applied in India, and generated a variety of useful insights which have contributed to learning for policy. In contexts where comparatively little is known about the implementation process, the use of such models to generate this kind of learning can improve our understandings of the 'black box' of implementation, and open up new options for policy strategies to achieve policy goals.     

The Use of Research to Improve Professional Practice: a systematic review of the literature

In a keynote address to the Teacher Training Agency Annual Conference, Professor David Hargreaves suggested that teaching could become an evidence-based profession if educational researchers were made more accountable to teachers. This systematic literature review set out to explore: how teachers use research; which features of research encourage teachers to use research findings in their own practice; whether medical practitioners make greater use of research findings than teachers; and approaches to dissemination. Two key ideas emerge from this review. First, there appear to be common barriers to research use in both medicine and in education. Findings suggest that there is a need to create a culture in the public sector which supports and values research. There are, however, a number of factors, which appear to be more specific to the education field. Key differences in the way that research knowledge is constructed in the social sciences has led to researchers being challenged about their findings, particularly in relation to the context, generalisability and validity of the research. For these reasons the development of communication networks, links between researchers and practitioners, and greater involvement of practitioners in the research process, have emerged as strategies for improving research impact.     

Sparking the imagination: creative experts working collaboratively with children,teachers and parents to enhance educational opportunities

This article suggests that child poverty and unequal educational opportunity are inextricably linked. It is argued that even from an early age children from poorer backgrounds are disadvantaged in terms of their preparedness to thrive in the formal school environment. Educational achievement is strongly influenced by attitudes and much research suggests that children from less advantaged backgrounds feel less in control at school and lack confidence in performing traditional school tasks. The ‘Sparking the Imagination’ project set out to try on a small scale to co‐ordinate efforts in raising educational opportunity for children from disadvantaged backgrounds by focusing on the context in which teaching and learning takes place. It was also deemed necessary to introduce measures to raise the motivation and aspirations of all involved and this was achieved through the engagement of children, teachers, parents and creative experts in collaborative learning within the classroom.     

Beyond the Head of Year

This paper explores current tensions in the role of the Head of Year in the light of recent changes in schools' contexts. Three broad themes are explored to consider the implications for the role of the Head of Year: a sustained and sharper emphasis on improving the attainment or performance of young people, a change to some of the deeper structures of the school, and the changing relationship of the school to the community. This is discussed using the example of five schools that worked together to explore the role so that it more closely served their purposes, a group that met to discuss what lies 'beyond the Head of Year'.     

Martyrdom and Crusading in the Thirteenth Century: Remembering the Dead of Louis IX's Crusades

Death and remembrance of the dead were of great significance to Christians in the Middle Ages, and those men and women who were believed to have died as martyrs for the faith were worthy of particular renown. In the context of the crusades, during which thousands of Christian participants placed their lives at risk, the possibility that those who died were martyrs was therefore inevitably raised. Belief relating to the martyrdom of crusaders has interested historians for some time. Thus far, though, attention has largely been focused on the earliest stages of the crusade movement and the first crusade in particular. These studies suggest that after this time a popular belief that crusaders could be, and often were, martyrs was firmly established. This paper is intended to extend this debate, which has largely ignored how ideas relating to Christian martyrdom developed beyond the initial stages of the crusade movement. For, while the possibility that crusaders might achieve martyrdom is consistently present in our source material for later crusades, this does not necessarily mean that the issue had become uncontroversial. This subject will be tackled through an examination of material relating to the campaigns of the French king Louis IX (d. 1270) in North Africa and the Levant during the mid- and later-thirteenth century. The first part of the paper is intended to illustrate some of the inconsistencies present in approaches to the subject of the martyrdom of crusaders in this period. The second part will focus on a specific text, the Vie de saint Louis of John of Joinville (d. 1317), in order to show that the lack of clarity which characterises the wider picture concerning martyrdom and crusading should not deter us from trying to explore and explain the attitudes of individuals.