Here we are poised to begin another new year. There is always much talk about resolutions and what we want to change about ourselves for th...
Review of 2008
As this is the period when reviews of the year are published, today's post gathers together some of the most significant childhood and e...
Children's Plan / Play Strategy
Two documents released last week by the DCSF: It is 12 months since the publication of the Children's Plan (see this previous post for ...
The Child Care Transition
Readers with an interest in early years provision in other countries should be interested in a new report from UNICEF . Published yesterday,...
Monitoring Poverty & Social Exclusion
This week has seen the 10th anniversary of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation's annual Monitoring Poverty and Social Exclusion report. The ...
Wider Workforce Week
Many of our readers may be interested to learn that this week is Wider Workforce Week on Teachers TV. All week the service (Freeview Channel...
Rose Review - Interim Report
Since January of this year, Sir Jim Rose has been carrying out an independent review of primary education in the UK, on the instructions of ...
Faith Schools & Community Cohesion
The issue of faith schools is in the news again, following the release of a new report from the Runnymede Trust . This new research is likel...
Someday...
I am in the middle of interviewing students from my Introduction to Teaching courses at the university. I am so excited about the number of ...
Homes Fit for Families
Something for our Family Support Workers today; a few months ago the Family & Parenting Institute published Homes Fit for Families: An ...
More Bits 'n' Bobs
Details of more useful items which have been published in the last week: The latest report from Every Child A Reader suggests that the prog...
DCSF reports
There is always plenty of new research and reports being published in the Childhood and Early Years sectors, but lately there seems to have ...
Children's Services / Bullying
Here's a round up of several items of interest from recent weeks, which fall into two broad areas: children's services and bullying....
Yaa..Well...There's Always Mashed Potatoes.
I was excited to help in my granddaughter's first grade class recently. She has a great teacher, but I still thought about telling her t...
Play for a Change
Several students I know are doing research into children's play at the moment, so hopefully all of them (and many other readers) will fi...
Education For All
The latest edition of UNESCO's annual global monitoring report for education makes for depressing reading. In previous years the organis...
New Laws on Forced Marriages
Last year the Forced Marriage (Civil Protection) Act 2007 was voted through by parliament, and from today this legislation is to be impleme...
Children and Young People in Mind
When the Children's Plan was published by the DCSF in December last year, one of the announcements that it contained was for an independ...
What Happened?
If you think the blog looks different, you'd be right! Unfortunately we had some technical problems with the previous template which was...
Pupil Attainment
The DCSF has just released detailed statistics on pupil attainment for the last academic year, which are broken down by various pupil charac...
CCInform (Again!)
It's a slow news day, so I'd just like to take another opportunity to remind students about CCInform which is now located behind the...
Working Together
Based on recent comments, know that nothing brings out the passion in people like politics (and religion). It would be nice if everyone woul...
Ofsted Annual Report
Today sees the publication of Ofsted's annual report, which gives an overall picture of the state of education in England. The latest re...
Britain & Beyond
Following on from yesterday's post, here are some details of another recent survey. Britain and Beyond is the name of a new report from...
Breaking The Cycle
A poll commissioned by the charity Barnardos has uncovered some rather negative statistics; according to the research which they have commis...
School and Money
We are in such a shaky economic time right now that I worry about the effects it will have on educational funding. Almost 50% of funding for...
A Mixed Bag
Need some reading for the weekend? Once again the latest issue of the OnTheWeb newsletter (see this previous post for details of this excel...
Harnessing Technology 2008
Becta have just released their latest annual Harnessing Technology report; this review focuses on the use of ICT in schools and further edu...
Raising the Bar
The Daycare Trust has today published a new briefing which I suspect most of the blog's readers will support wholeheartedly. The report...
Educational Provision for Autistic Children
The Autism Education Trust (AET) was launched last year by the DCSF, to investigate improve educational support for children in England who...
Ending Child Poverty: Thinking 2020
A new week, a new child poverty report... The government's pledge to end child poverty by 2020 is well known; back in June, the Child Po...
It Is History!
Like many Americans, I had a hard time sleeping last night after hearing President-elect Obama's acceptance speech. His speech was fille...
Learning Outside The Classroom
A new DCSF backed website has recently been lauched for educators in England. It's title is Learning Outside The Classroom , and it'...
Getting On, Getting Ahead
Yesterday saw the publication of Getting On, Getting Ahead , a discussion paper from the government's Strategy Unit. The report is based...
Fostering Families
A new publication from the Fostering Network examines an area of policy that is often disregarded; the report, entitled Fostering Families ...
Information Sharing
Wednesday's blog post talked about the role of children's trusts in coordinating services, so perhaps it's timely that this week...
Family Support Workers
Today's post is aimed at our students on the Family Support Workers foundation degree course. I spoke with some of you in the library on...
Are We There Yet?
Today's post title is nothing to do with children in the back seat of a car... In 2003 the Victoria Climbie Inquiry delivered its final...
Hot and Cold
This past week, I had the opportunity of doing workshops in Los Angeles and Anaheim, California as well as Atlantic City, New Jersey. When I...
Children's Survey / Gifted Children
Ofsted has just published its annual Tellus3 survey which asks 10-15 year olds in England a range of questions covering the five Every Child...
New Child Poverty Research
Child poverty is one of those topics that seems to be perenially in the news, but even those who follow it closely may be surprised to learn...
Every Child Matters article
Today's post is simply to point you towards an article which appeared in yesterday's Guardian, which some of you may find interestin...
Children's Emotional Development and Wellbeing
The Office for National Statistics has just released a lengthy new report entitled Three Years On , which takes a detailed look at the devel...
Families & Relationships
The Centre for Research on Families and Relationships (CRFR) is a department of the University of Edinburgh. Research carried out by the Ce...
Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Children
Today's post may be the longest this blog has ever seen; last months issue of OnTheWeb (see this previous post for details of this exce...
The Millennium Cohort Study
The Millennium Cohort Study is a huge ongoing project which is examining the social conditions which today's children will encounter as...
ICT in Secondary Schools
Today's post is for our ICT bods. Last month Becta produced a series of reports on the subject of Web 2.0 within secondary school (for ...
Quality Child Care
In the last weeks we have been talking about quality child care in my Introduction to Teaching course. Research tells us that quality chil...
Children & Young Person's Bill
This week the Children & Young Person's Bill received another reading in the House of Commons, which means it is one step closer to ...
Poverty & The Media
Occasionally students make enquiries about how the media reports on early years or social issues, so if you're doing research in that ar...
Sage Journals - Special Offer
This is just a short post to inform all readers that if you log onto Athens and choose the Sage Journals site, you will be able to access al...
We're in this Together!
I did a math workshop in Nashville this week and it was wonderful. What a great group of teachers and caregivers! It is always such a treat ...
Step by Step
I had an engaging conversation last evening with past early childhood friends about developmental stages in learning. I was in Orlando to ta...
Dissertations
Following on from yesterday's post, if you're about to embark on writing your dissertation, then you're probably at the stage of...
DCSF Research
Usually around this time of year, our final year degree students are expected to have some idea of what topic they would like to focus on fo...
Ceruk Plus
Ceruk Plus is a database which contains details of thousands of completed or ongoing research projects relating to education or children...
Foundation Stage Results
Last Thursday saw the publication of the latest Foundation Stage results from the DCSF, outlining the achievements of children in this age g...
Mathematics: Understanding the Score
Several headlines today are devoted to the content of the latest report from Ofsted. Mathematics: Understanding the Score examines evidence...
As Long As It Takes
The Action for Children charity has made headlines with its latest report. Entitled As Long as it Takes : A New Politics for Children , th...
Welcome Back!
Judging by the higher number of visits the blog has been getting in recent days, you're all gearing up to start the new term, so today...
One-Day Bloom
We have a hardy Hibiscus in our yard which bloomed for this first time this fall. It is amazingly beautiful with a dark red bloom that measu...
Latest from OnTheWeb
As usual the latest issue of OnTheWeb (see previous post for details) is packed with details of new reports and research relating to educat...
School Food Trust
In the wake of Jamie Oliver's series on school dinners, the School Food Trust was established to improve school food and the education ...
The Next Generation
The Centre for Social Justice is a thinktank which investigates how solutions can be found to the problems of poverty and the lives of thos...
Time for Play
In June the National Children's Bureau published Play and Exercise in Early Years: Physically Active Play in Early Childhood Provision ....
Education At a Glance
One for the number crunchers today... The OECD has just published Education At a Glance 2008 , it's latest annual comparison of educatio...
No, Not Yet!
We just recently completed a deck that has been in the planning for several years. As I sit out under the tree that grows from the middle, I...