Stepping up in modern foreign languages: professional development across the primary to secondary school transition

The government funded two-year project, Stepping Up in Modern Foreign Languages (MFL), sought to align MFL teaching across the transition between primary and secondary schools. This paper describes the results of the project evaluation that was conducted using Cultural-historical Activity Theory as its research approach. This approach viewed the project as a system and enabled the identification of a number of contradictions within that system. The most significant finding is the impact of the project's participatory or 'bottom-up' approach. This involved MFL specialists from mostly secondary schools taking time to conduct needs analysis exercises with colleagues in primary schools and listening carefully to their concerns. This led to the development of bespoke training courses with programmes and materials being shared across the project via an online platform. A further analysis of the findings framed by the five significant dimensions of transition [Galton, M., J. Gray and J. Ruddock. 1999. The Impact of School Transitions and Transfers on Pupil Progress and Attainment. Cambridge: Homerton College. DCSF Research Report no. 131.] shows how the project's emphasis on building social capital, rather than specific teaching resources, facilitated progress in four out of the five dimensions. The paper concludes with a consideration of some implications for practice and policy level

Society and Learning Research Priority Area - Research share September 2021

The session, held in September 2021, is an introduction to the work of Society and Leaning Research Priority Area (RPA), in which we examine the nature and role of the RPA as well as the ways in which it supports research in the university. The largest part of the event is an opportunity for staff to share a slide on their research, including the focus of the work, ongoing and potential projects, and opportunities for others to get involved

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead