War and peace in the classroom: moments of reprieve; a strategy for reflecting on – and improving – students’ classroom behaviour

In this article I intend to outline a strategy for supporting trainee teachers on Certificate in Education (Cert Ed) and Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) courses in developing their ability to deal with disruptive student behaviour in their classes. I describe a particular class-based, peer-reflective practice and demonstrate how this has been effective in impacting on helping trainees to deal with teaching disruptive or challenging groups. The rationale for exploring this issue, and the problematic national context in which disruptive student behaviour takes place, is outlined. I then explore a strategy for offering trainee support and peer reflection by sharing a case study of two trainees’ classes where students were particularly disruptive. I examine how this reflective strategy helped support these trainees to improve their practice. Before concluding, some epistemological questions are raised as to the problematics of how teachers know whether improvements took place

Volume 5 #2 Full Issue

Volume 5 #2 Full Issu

Setting standards for preventative services to reduce child health inequalities in Greater Manchester

Recent policy documents such as Every Child Matters and the National Service Framework for Children, Young People and Maternity Services have indicated a fundamental shift in ways of thinking about child health, emphasising the crucial role of preventative action as well as treatment for ensuring that children have the best possible chance to reach their full potential. This is paramount in deprived areas, where child poverty translates itself into social disadvantage that affects the life chances of children from birth onwards. Whilst the NHS cannot tackle the fundamental drivers of child poverty, it can make a substantial contribution to improving the health and life chances of children living in deprived areas through making sure that parents have access to the services they need and have the information and support to make the best choices about the health and development of their children. The World Health Organisation (WHO) in its strategy on equity in health states that disparities in health status between different groups in the population should be reduced by improving the health of the disadvantaged. Hence, the National Service Framework for Children, Young People and Maternity Services set down 11 standards that define, in general terms, the aims and objectives of services for all children (standards 1-5), services for particular groups of children and young people (standards 6-10) and maternity services (standard 11). These standards underpin a more generic health inequalities target that sets the goal of a reduction of at least 10% in the gap in infant mortality between manual groups and the population as a whole in 2010

The School Improvement Partnership Programme: Using Collaboration and Enquiry to tackle Educational Inequity

No abstract available

Measuring the Impact of Youth Voluntary Service Programs

Summary and Conclusions of a meeting of international experts hosted by the World Bank and Innovations in Civic Participation to discuss evaluation of the impact of youth civic engagement on development

Scoping a vision for formative e-assessment: a project report for JISC

Assessment is an integral part of teaching and learning. If the relationship between teaching and learning were causal, i. e. if students always mastered the intended learning outcomes of a particular sequence of instruction, assessment would be superfluous. Experience and research suggest this is not the case: what is learnt can often be quite different from what is taught. Formative assessment is motivated by a concern with the elicitation of relevant information about student understanding and / or achievement, its interpretation and an exploration of how it can lead to actions that result in better learning. In the context of a policy drive towards technology-enhanced approaches to teaching and learning, the question of the role of digital technologies is key and it is the latter on which this project particularly focuses. The project and its deliverables have been informed by recent and relevant literature, in particular recent work by Black andIn this work, they put forward a framework which suggests that assessment for learning their term for formative assessment can be conceptualised as consisting of a number of aspects and five keystrategies. The key aspects revolve around the where the learner is going, where the learner is right now and how she can get there and examines the role played by the teacher, peers and the learner. Language: English Keywords: assessments, case studies, design patterns, e-assessmen