School CouncilsA new piece of research looking at school councils, and the role that they can play in allowing pupils to become involved in decision making has just been published. The report, entitled Real Decision Making? School Councils in Action was commissioned by the DCSF and looks at the work of school coun…
Guidance / Briefing Papers for SchoolsIf you work in a school or early years setting, you'll know that bodies like the DCSF regularly issue briefing papers for staff on a wide range of topics - for example, guidance for SENCOs, or information on literacy teaching, SENDA, the new Foundation Stage framework and much much more. If your wor…
Healthy EatingIt's induction week at the College, which may make it difficult to add regular updates this week, as everyone's so busy. So today's entry is just a short post to cover the story of a pilot study on Tyneside, which is going to investigate the effects of healthy school meals on children's behaviour an…
Finding the LeaksWe have been creating two ponds and a stream in our back yard. It has taken a long time because it has been so hot this summer. Once we had everything in place, the water level kept going down, signaling a leak (or two) somewhere. We have redone the stream/pond numerous times. Even though the de…
New Cyberbullying CampaignThe DCSF has launched a new campaign to tackle the problem of cyberbullying. The homepage for the campaign can be viewed here, while a full set of guidance entitled Safe To Learn has been issued for use by teachers and other school staff. Advice for these members of staff is also available from the …
RSS FeedsIf you use this site regularly, you should notice that the news headlines at the right of the page are changed daily. While I’d like to claim that this is the result of my hard work, in actual fact this information is updated automatically through the use of an RSS feed.RSS Feeds are actually quite …
Education At A GlanceContinuing the international theme from last week's post, the OECD has just published the latest annual edition of Education At A Glance, which compares performance at all levels of education between countries around the world.Among the findings that may interest our students is the statistic that s…
Language & CommunicationLast week the DCSF announced that it was launching a review into the support services that are currently available for children with speech, language and communication difficulties. The review is scheduled to be published next summer, and will tackle a range of issues that affect the 89,000 school-a…
International ResourcesThere's a global flavour to today's post, as we take a look around some of the internet resources which contain information on childcare and education issues around the world.Most people know about UNICEF and the work that they do, but if you need 'academic' material then it's worth visiting the web…
HLTA StaffStudents on our HLTA courses may be interested in a new report from the NFER. Research into the Deployment and Impact of Support Staff who have Achieved HLTA Status is possibly the first published piece of research to take an in-depth look at the effectiveness of Higher Level Teaching Assistants sin…
Child Poverty & EducationFollowing the trend of several recent posts, another new report dealing with the issues surrounding poverty has just been released. Chicken and Egg: Child Poverty and Educational Inequalities is a new publication from the Child Poverty Action Group which explores how children from poor backgrounds c…
New Research from OnTheWebThe latest issue of OnTheWeb (see this previous post for details of the service) is up to its usual high standard, with links to dozens of new pieces of research from the UK and abroad. Highlights from this month's edition include reports such as Children’s Views and Experiences of Parenting, Unders…
ConferencesAs part of your professional development, it's necessary to stay on top of your subject by extensive reading of items such as journal articles, reports or relevant newspaper articles (or even resources such as this blog!). However, if possible it is also worth attending academic conferences; these a…
NAEYC VisitI had the opportunity to briefly visit the NAEYC headquarters in Washington DC this past week. I was part of a discussion about what are the most crucial issues in early childhood. It was refreshing and enlightening to talk with experts who have donated so many hours to the cause of children. I thin…
Chavs and Chav-notsHot on the heels of yesterday's post, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation seems to be attempting some sort of record by today publishing eight (!) individual reports on different aspects of child poverty. Obviously that's a lot of reading for even the most passionate followers of this subject, so the JRF…
Child PovertyBarnardo's has just published a new report on child poverty. It Doesn't Happen Here: The Reality of Child Poverty in the UK is a piece of research which is based on interviews with children from 40 poor families. At the same time, Barnardo's had commissioned a YouGov poll of 2000 adults, which gauge…
Ready To Read: New Phonics ResearchNew research from the Civitas thinktank suggests that primary school pupils who receive intensive "synthetic phonics" lessons can see significant progress in their reading abilities in a short space of time. The report, entitled Ready to Read, comes in the week that synphetic phonics has been adopte…
Nutrition & School MealsThis week there have been some confusing stories in the news on how well children are eating. Most of the headlines have focused on new figures which show that since the drive to introduce healthier school food began, the number of pupils actually eating school meals has fallen by over 400,000. Yet …
Inequality in ChildhoodA major new report from the National Children's Bureau (NCB) explores the link between childrens' schools and families and their outcomes in life. Reducing Inequalities is the title of the research, which encompasses topics such as whether pre-schooling or a child's social class have any bearing on …