Intended or unintended? Issues arising from the implementation of the UK Government’s 2003 Schools Workforce Remodelling Act

The United Kingdom (UK) Government's 2003 Workforce Remodelling Act (DfES, 2003) contained nine key points aimed at supporting teachers and schools to raise educational standards without adding additional workload responsibilities. In September 2005 planning, preparation and assessment (PPA) time was introduced. This allows for all teachers to have 10% of their timetable to plan lessons, prepare resources and assess pupils' work. This raises issues of what 10% of their time, with pupils, teachers relinquish for PPA. One common solution in primary schools seems to have been to employ coaches (particularly football coaches) to teach Physical Education (PE) lessons. The purpose of this study was therefore to identify the knowledge, skill and understanding of a group of community-based football coaches working in PPA time in primary schools and to understand the implications for schools, coaches and coach educators. Results showed that these coaches had very little knowledge of the National Curriculum Physical Education (NCPE) and used a narrow range of teaching methods. Some of their pedagogical decision making had a negative consequence on pupils' learning. Thirteen of the twenty-one coaches studied did not plan in the short, medium or long term. There was evidence of routine action (Dewey, 1933) although there was some evidence of reflection. These findings are discussed in relation to the implications of employing coaches to teach the NCPE in schools and also in relation to what Continuing Professional Development (CPD) coaches need to develop the necessary knowledge, skills and understanding for working in schools. Although there is a clear PE focus to this current study, there are implications for the teaching of other subjects in primary schools in England and for the use of sports coaches within education in other national contexts. Despite differences in government policies and practices in schools, in many countries there are likely to be issues with the status, delivery and resourcing of PE

Making physical education relevant: Increasing the impact of initial teacher training

This paper is developed from concern that, despite a number of developments and initiatives in physical education over recent years, there has been little change in the teaching of the subject. This has resulted in many young people being alienated from physical education and therefore physical activity. The paper focuses on how initial teacher training (ITT) contributes to this lack of change by focusing on the development of knowledge for teaching and the technical competence to deliver this. It then considers ways in which ITT could contribute to developing ‘knowledgeable teachers’ who are able to make change. The paper focuses on two aspects identified as relevant for trainee physical education teachers: socialisation and knowledge for teaching. It recognises that the issues are complex and that change is difficult. It also recognises that ITT cannot change things by itself. However, it argues that by maintaining the status quo, the subject will not develop so that it is relevant to today’s youngsters

Eleutherodactylus thorectes

Number of Pages: 2Integrative BiologyGeological Science

OpenPING: A Reflective Middleware for the Construction of Adaptive Networked Game Applications

The emergence of distributed Virtual Reality (VR) applications that run over the Internet has presented networked game application designers with new challenges. In an environment where the public internet streams multimedia data and is constantly under pressure to deliver over widely heterogeneous user-platforms, there has been a growing need that distributed VR applications be aware of and adapt to frequent variations in their context of execution. In this paper, we argue that in contrast to research efforts targeted at improvement of scalability, persistence and responsiveness capabilities, much less attempts have been aimed at addressing the flexibility, maintainability and extensibility requirements in contemporary distributed VR platforms. We propose the use of structural reflection as an approach that not only addresses these requirements but also offers added value in the form of providing a framework for scalability, persistence and responsiveness that is itself flexible, maintainable and extensible. We also present an adaptive middleware platform implementation called OpenPING1 that supports our proposal in addressing these requirements

The Role of Structural Reflection in Distributed Virtual Reality

The emergence of collaborative virtual world applications that run over the Internet has presented Virtual Reality (VR) application designers with new challenges. In an environment where the public internet streams multimedia data and is constantly under pressure to deliver over widely heterogeneous user-platforms, there has been a growing need that distributed virtual world applications be aware of and adapt to frequent variations in their context of execution. In this paper, we argue that in contrast to research efforts targeted at improvement of scalability, persistence and responsiveness capabilities, much less attempts have been aimed at addressing the flexibility, maintainability and extensibility requirements in contemporary Distributed VR applications. We propose the use of structural reflection as an approach that not only addresses these requirements but also offers added value in the form of providing a framework for scalability, persistence and responsiveness that is itself flexible, maintainable and extensible

Eleutherodactylus amadeus

Number of Pages: 2Integrative BiologyGeological Science

Interoperating with heterogeneous Mobile Services

Mobile applications are now developed upon a wide range of service development platforms, commonly referred to as middleware. However, the diversity of those available presents a problem for mobile client development. How can a single client implementation interoperate with heterogeneous service implementations

Psychosocial and educational outcomes of weight faltering in infancy in ALSPAC

OBJECTIVES: To investigate whether infants with weight faltering have impaired psychosocial and educational outcomes in later childhood. DESIGN: Follow-up of infants with weight faltering in a large UK cohort study. SETTING: The Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC). PARTICIPANTS: 11 534 term infants from ALSPAC with complete weight records. Weight gain (conditional on initial weight) was calculated for three periods: from birth to 8 weeks, 8 weeks to 9 months, and birth to 9 months. Cases of weight faltering were defined as those infants with a conditional weight gain below the 5th centile, and these were compared with the rest of the cohort as the control group. OUTCOMES: Between 6 and 11 years, social, emotional and behavioural development was measured by direct assessment of the children and parental and teacher report. Educational outcomes included Standardised Assessment Test results at 7 and 11 years and Special Educational Needs status at age 11. RESULTS: Differences seen on univariate analysis in attention, non-verbal accuracy, educational attainment and special educational needs became non-significant after adjustment for confounding. Children with weight faltering in infancy did not differ from controls on any measures of self-esteem, peer relationships, experience of bullying, social cognition, antisocial activities, anxiety, depression or behavioural problems. CONCLUSIONS: Weight faltering in early infancy was associated with poorer educational outcomes in later childhood, but these associations were explained by confounding. The subsequent psychosocial development of infants with slow weight gain was not different from that of their peers