The language of dissent – how school leaders adjust to policy change

Education has changed recently in the England and leadership of schools has changed with it. This paper examines the language of dissent, the political opposition of school leaders who meet the challenges of the educational system resulting from the government policies. They question whether these policies really serve the pupils and the community effectively. It is based on a wider piece of research involving interviews with head teachers and senior managers in a range of schools; it illustrates their frustrations at delivering a prescriptive curriculum. The research takes a grounded theory approach; throughout the interview process, themes emerged and were developed through layers of analysis. This led to the construction of a framework based on the ideas of power, ethics, resistance, and mistrust. This explains the views of school leader in conceptual terms, and it was found that they use of any form of control at their disposal, bring their own values to education, subvert where they see necessary, and at best tolerate policy

COVID, home schooling and inequalities

Introduction: One major effect of the COVID-19 lockdown has been the closure of schools and the switch to home learning for most children through online or hybrid models of teaching and learning. However, questions would be asked about the quality of this model, especially in the light of recent policy moves to reduce educational differences across the country. Research Aim: The aims of this article are to draw together recent research into home schooling during the COVID-19 pandemic and provide a theoretical explanation against a policy background with a stated aim of reducing inequalities in education. Method: A literature review was carried out of articles that relate to the experiences of home schooling for children and families as well as more general effects of lockdown. Results: Results show clear differences in home schooling experiences in terms of resources and attitudes, and school provision. Concepts of cultural capital and cultural deprivation have been used to show how inequalities continue to persist despite recent policy aimed at reducing inequalities. Conclusions: Home schooling has brought inequalities into sharp focus over how schools deliver home schooling and how children and families are able to take advantage of what has been provided. It indicates that a cultural shift is needed. Education has been devolved to the level of the individual and for real change to take place, a more collective approach is needed. Education has been devolved to the level of the individual and for real change to take place, a more collective approach is needed. Keywords: levelling up, home schooling, cultural capital, cultural deprivation, material deprivation

Phylogenomic identification of five new human homologs of the DNA repair enzyme AlkB

BACKGROUND: Combination of biochemical and bioinformatic analyses led to the discovery of oxidative demethylation – a novel DNA repair mechanism catalyzed by the Escherichia coli AlkB protein and its two human homologs, hABH2 and hABH3. This discovery was based on the prediction made by Aravind and Koonin that AlkB is a member of the 2OG-Fe(2+ )oxygenase superfamily. RESULTS: In this article, we report identification and sequence analysis of five human members of the (2OG-Fe(2+)) oxygenase superfamily designated here as hABH4 through hABH8. These experimentally uncharacterized and poorly annotated genes were not associated with the AlkB family in any database, but are predicted here to be phylogenetically and functionally related to the AlkB family (and specifically to the lineage that groups together hABH2 and hABH3) rather than to any other oxygenase family. Our analysis reveals the history of ABH gene duplications in the evolution of vertebrate genomes. CONCLUSIONS: We hypothesize that hABH 4–8 could either be back-up enzymes for hABH1-3 or may code for novel DNA or RNA repair activities. For example, enzymes that can dealkylate N3-methylpurines or N7-methylpurines in DNA have not been described. Our analysis will guide experimental confirmation of these novel human putative DNA repair enzymes

Universal and Non-Universal First-Passage Properties of Planar Multipole Flows

The dynamics of passive Brownian tracer particles in steady two-dimensional potential flows between sources and sinks is investigated. The first-passage probability, $p(t)$, exhibits power-law decay with a velocity-dependent exponent in radial flow and an order-dependent exponent in multipolar flows. For the latter, there also occur diffusive ``echo'' shoulders and exponential decays associated with stagnation points in the flow. For spatially extended dipole sinks, the spatial distribution of the collected tracer is independent of the overall magnitude of the flow field.Comment: 7 pages, LaTe

From setting to strategy: a study into perspectives on higher education of experienced early years practitioners, a 'paradigm shift' on two levels

Research was carried out on the Isle of Wight, in the United Kingdom, to determine the impact of Higher Education (HE) in childhood studies as studied at a Further Education (FE) college. The original aims were to find out what a childhood studies graduate ‘looks like’ and what degrees in the sector offer employers. It also set out to evaluate the impact of the Graduate Practitioner Competences (GPCs) offered by HE providers. Research took the form of focus groups with childhood studies undergraduates and on analysis. The participants focus was on professional progression and personal development beyond the early years setting. Findings pointed to an appreciation of the skills and abilities of childhood graduates by managers but, once embarked on HE programmes, Early Childhood Education Care (ECEC) practitioners tend to look to develop their careers beyond the setting they are employed. The participants used their degrees to move away from the role of ECEC practitioner into more ‘professional’ positions such as teaching and social work. It was not possible to evaluate the impact of GPCs in the way intended, because the participants had little knowledge of this new government initiative. This constitutes a paradigm shift in two ways: first, students begin to see the opportunities available to them and look for career development, and second, the research on this group took a different direction to that first anticipated. It began to focus not on the impact of HE on practitioners in the ECEC workforce, but on the perceived benefits to practitioners in terms of career progression and self-satisfaction. It is recommended that for further research on GPCs be carried out on practitioners at earlier stages in their careers

Superpatterns and Universal Point Sets

An old open problem in graph drawing asks for the size of a universal point set, a set of points that can be used as vertices for straight-line drawings of all n-vertex planar graphs. We connect this problem to the theory of permutation patterns, where another open problem concerns the size of superpatterns, permutations that contain all patterns of a given size. We generalize superpatterns to classes of permutations determined by forbidden patterns, and we construct superpatterns of size n^2/4 + Theta(n) for the 213-avoiding permutations, half the size of known superpatterns for unconstrained permutations. We use our superpatterns to construct universal point sets of size n^2/4 - Theta(n), smaller than the previous bound by a 9/16 factor. We prove that every proper subclass of the 213-avoiding permutations has superpatterns of size O(n log^O(1) n), which we use to prove that the planar graphs of bounded pathwidth have near-linear universal point sets.Comment: GD 2013 special issue of JGA

Language, self-esteem, and academic achievement: mature students’ emotionally incited stories

Through empirical evidence we have found that female students reflect their emotions through the language they use. This paper examines responses of 24 adult female students in higher education on Early Childhood Studies (ECS) programmes. It draws on qualitative interview data from a recent research project and interactions in meetings. The aim of the research was to determine the views of students on perceived benefits of higher education to their early childhood, education, and care (ECEC) practice in a sector that is notoriously low paid and carries low status. The research was undertaken in a further education (FE) college on the Isle of Wight in England to establish the impact of HE in childhood studies. What started as research into early years policy morphed into a very unexpected and emotional response. The language used also revealed the insecurities and lack of confidence of this student group as they embarked on, and during their time as students in HE. Our experience as professionals working in higher education, is that adult female students can express their levels ambition (or lack of) through their language, especially where they feel they do not really belong in higher education, and where their prospects of success are tempered by their view of themselves and their perceived ability

Characterization of the cofactor-binding site in the SPOUT-fold methyltransferases by computational docking of S-adenosylmethionine to three crystal structures

BACKGROUND: There are several evolutionarily unrelated and structurally dissimilar superfamilies of S-adenosylmethionine (AdoMet)-dependent methyltransferases (MTases). A new superfamily (SPOUT) has been recently characterized on a sequence level and three structures of its members (1gz0, 1ipa, and 1k3r) have been solved. However, none of these structures include the cofactor or the substrate. Due to the strong evolutionary divergence and the paucity of experimental information, no confident predictions of protein-ligand and protein-substrate interactions could be made, which hampered the study of sequence-structure-function relationships in the SPOUT superfamily. RESULTS: We used the computational docking program AutoDock to identify the AdoMet-binding site on the surface of three MTase structures. We analyzed the sequence divergence in two distinct lineages of the SPOUT superfamily in the context of surface features and preferred cofactor binding mode to propose specific function for the conserved residues. CONCLUSION: Our docking analysis has confidently predicted the common AdoMet-binding site in three remotely related proteins structures. In the vicinity of the cofactor-binding site, subfamily-conserved grooves were identified on the protein surface, suggesting location of the target-binding/catalytic site. Functionally important residues were inferred and a general reaction mechanism, involving conformational change of a glycine-rich loop, was proposed