Physical EducationWith the woes of the England football team continuing to fill the papers, and the build-up for the 2012 Olympics already in full swing, it seems an appropriate time to look at information about developing the sporting abilities of future generations.The QCA's PE and School Sport website contains a w…
WikipediaA confession: I look at Wikipedia nearly every day. Whether I want information on classic films, historical figures, a region of the world or almost anything I can think of, it's likely to contain an article that's relevant to my interests. So where's the problem?As you may know, Wikipedia's main fl…
Bullying ResourcesThe latest report from the parliamentary Education and Skills Committee is the result of an investigation into bullying. The final document stretches to 288 pages, but for the busy people among us a summary of the main conclusions is provided on pages 5-6.It is only a few months since the publicatio…
Preschool BehaviorsToday there was a Washington Post article reprinted in the Salt Lake Tribune, Study: Day Care Can Lead to Bad Behavior. It was very similar to an article that I talked about in the blog last year. Some recent research studies suggest that children in daycare and preschools seem to display more behav…
ICT ReportsI've received a number of enquiries about ICT in schools recently, so it seems a good time to draw attention to some recent reports in this area.Anyone with an interest in ICT is strongly advised to take a look at The Impact of ICT in Schools: a Landscape Review; this was published by Becta in Decem…
New Green PaperToday sees the launch of the green paper Raising Expectations: Staying in Education and Training Post-16; the paper outlines the government's proposals to ensure that all children stay in some form of education or training until their 18th birthday. The consultation period to allow discussion ofthe …
She's Back!We have a pet turtle that lives in our pond. When we went to retrieve her for winter hibernation in November, we couldn't find her. We concluded that she had moved on to greener pastures. Imagine our delight in finding "Gertrude" on the edge of our pond this week. The grandchildren are thrilled to k…
£1 Billion for Child PovertyAccording to the media, the cornerstone of Gordon Brown's budget this afternoon will be a £1 billion pledge to tackle child poverty. Presumably his researchers have been doing a lot of reading lately, as there have been a number of reports published on this topic in recent months.Delivering on Child…
Communicating with MakatonA story in today's Guardian talks about the rise in usage of Makaton among young children; although the system was originally developed for people with learning disabilities or speech problems, Makaton is proving to be a useful tool for encouraging language development with children under five.More …
Free Conference PapersNext time you're carrying out a piece of educational research it may be worth taking a look at Education-line; this is a free collection of conference papers, working papers and other electronic literature, all of which are available in full text, and are fully referenced. Linked to the site is the …
Parenting StrategyAnother day, another government initiative... Today sees the publication of Every Parent Matters, a DfES document which sets out how the government aims to help parents improve their children's education and life chances. Among the pledges is a drive to designate 2008 as a National Year of Reading, …
New Early Years Foundation CurriculumYesterday saw the launch of the government's new statutory guidance for the Early Years Foundation Stage. The framework, which comes into effect in September 2008, is intended to build on and replace the current Birth to Three Matters guidance, Foundation Stage for three and four year olds, and nati…
Education Reports from YesteryearMany of the posts on this blog are concerned with current events, so today it's time for something different. If you're interested in viewing education from a historical perspective, then you should certainly pay a visit to Derek Gillard's website. Derek is a retired headmaster who has been obtainin…
Foreign Languages in Primary SchoolsA Lord Dearing-led review is recommending that foreign language lessons should be compulsory from the age of seven. The review, which was announced last October, was set up to examine how to encourage more children to take language courses to GCSE standard. The full report is available online.…
Comfort BlanketsDoes anyone remember Linus from the Peanuts cartoon strip? It looks like his creator was onto something; according to new research from the University of Bristol, children do indeed show a marked preference for their own 'special' objects or toys (although most parents have suspected this for years)…
Great Preschool ProgramsI recently visited the Coast Episcopal School in Pass Christian, Mississippi. I was amazed at the preschool program that they provide for 3-5 year-old children. Several benefactors had donated money and helped build an amazing little preschool building. The playground was huge with vegetable gard…
School Councils & CitizenshipToday's headlines include the publication of a report on Citizenship Education by the House of Commons Education Select Committee, which recommends that all schools should set up councils to allow pupils a say in the running of their school. However, the report is proving controversial, with a numbe…
New Literacy / Fathers ResearchYou wait for days for an early years story to make the news, and then two come along at once...A new Ofsted report published this morning warns of weaknesses in the foundation stage in the learning of language and literacy, and identifies an achievement gap between boys and girls even at this early …
Breaking the Google HabitIt's sometimes easy to forget this, but Google is not the only search engine on the internet! If you are going to use the Web for research, then it's good practice to make use of other search tools to ensure that you do not miss information that could be relevant to you. If you enter the same search…