Contributing to the debate: the perspectives of children on gender, achievement and literacy

There has been much debate about the underachievement of boys in the United Kingdom (UK), fuelled by continuing evidence that shows girls achieving better than boys in most exams, and boys continuing to dominate special needs education and school exclusions. Various theories have emerged, with boys’ poor performance being attributed to a changing economic infrastructure, to the results of poor parenting or to innate biological differences where, for example, they are perceived as being less able than girls to learn language. In this paper, I contribute to the debate by reporting a selection of the findings from a research project in a cluster of schools, where students from Year 1 (ages 5-6) to Year 11 (ages 15-16) and their teachers were interviewed about their perceptions and attitudes to learning and gender, and were observed in the classroom. While I provide much comment about raising standards and improving classroom practice for all students, I specifically focus on underachieving boys and on literacy. Data on the perceptions of children in Years 4 and 5 (ages 8-10) are presented here. Findings relating to the Early Years children and their teachers are reported in Wood (2001) and data on patterns of interaction and response in Years 1- 8 in Myhill (2002)

Concerned citizens: children and the future

Copyright © 2006 SAGE PublicationsRecent initiatives in England have promoted education for citizenship, including teaching about topical global issues, for both primary and secondary pupils. Little is known, however, of primary children’s interest in this area or the extent to which they see themselves as active citizens. This article reports on a study into primary children’s hopes and fears for the future at personal, local and global levels, their action for change and the contribution of schools. The research replicates a similar study undertaken 10 years ago. Findings indicate that children are concerned about particular local and global issues - including poverty, conflict, violence and the environment - and want solutions. There are differences in the responses of girls and boys, and in the responses of the 1994 and 2004 cohorts. Possible reasons for these are discussed as are curriculum implications for citizenship education in both primary and secondary schools

'Heaven help the teachers!' Parents' perspectives on the introduction of education for citizenship

This is a postprint of an article whose final and definitive form has been published in the Educational Review © 2004 Copyright Educational Review; Educational Review is available online at http://www.informaworld.comEducation for citizenship has the teaching of social and moral education, community involvement and political literacy at its core. Perhaps more than any other curriculum area, the influence of the home is significant, yet little is known of the extent to which parents support the teaching of citizenship. This paper presents the findings from a case study into the perspectives of thirty-six parents in two primary and one secondary school. Although there is diversity of opinion among the parents, the majority support the work of their child's school in social and moral education and want more information about what is done. There is less support for community involvement and for the teaching of political literacy, although this varies according to the age of the child and social class

'Heaven help the teachers!' Parents' perspectives on the introduction of education for citizenship

This is a postprint of an article whose final and definitive form has been published in the Educational Review © 2004 Copyright Educational Review; Educational Review is available online at http://www.informaworld.comEducation for citizenship has the teaching of social and moral education, community involvement and political literacy at its core. Perhaps more than any other curriculum area, the influence of the home is significant, yet little is known of the extent to which parents support the teaching of citizenship. This paper presents the findings from a case study into the perspectives of thirty-six parents in two primary and one secondary school. Although there is diversity of opinion among the parents, the majority support the work of their child's school in social and moral education and want more information about what is done. There is less support for community involvement and for the teaching of political literacy, although this varies according to the age of the child and social class

Educating for Europe: The knowledge and understanding of British children

This is a postprint of an article whose final and definitive form has been published in Education 3-13; Education 3-13 is available online at http://www.informaworld.comTeacher educators from eight European countries undertook a collaborative study into children's understanding of their own national and European identity, their understanding of the geography and cultures of Europe and finally their understanding of how countries are governed. The views of the British children are reported here, set alongside a summary of those from the seven other countries. Findings indicate a confusion with the notion of British identity, a limited understanding of Europe's geography and peoples, but a high level of acceptance of those from other cultures and countries. The implications for geography teaching and for teaching about identity, tolerance, respect and European citizenship are discussed

Making global connections: The knowledge, understanding and motivation of trainee teachers

This is a postprint of an article whose final and definitive form has been published in Teaching and Teacher Education Copyright © 2006 Elsevier Ltd. Teaching and Teacher Education is available online at http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journal_browse.cws_homeThis article begins by noting some of the global concerns that young people have today and highlights the crucial role of global education in responding to such concerns. It then considers the importance of teacher training in such matters and reports on a preliminary study relating to the initial training of teachers in England. In particular this raises questions about the knowledge and understanding that such students bring to their courses. It concludes by identifying some of the consequent dilemmas faced by teacher trainers working in this context

Risk stratification of patients admitted to hospital with covid-19 using the ISARIC WHO Clinical Characterisation Protocol: development and validation of the 4C Mortality Score.

OBJECTIVE: To develop and validate a pragmatic risk score to predict mortality in patients admitted to hospital with coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19). DESIGN: Prospective observational cohort study. SETTING: International Severe Acute Respiratory and emerging Infections Consortium (ISARIC) World Health Organization (WHO) Clinical Characterisation Protocol UK (CCP-UK) study (performed by the ISARIC Coronavirus Clinical Characterisation Consortium-ISARIC-4C) in 260 hospitals across England, Scotland, and Wales. Model training was performed on a cohort of patients recruited between 6 February and 20 May 2020, with validation conducted on a second cohort of patients recruited after model development between 21 May and 29 June 2020. PARTICIPANTS: Adults (age ≥18 years) admitted to hospital with covid-19 at least four weeks before final data extraction. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: In-hospital mortality. RESULTS: 35 463 patients were included in the derivation dataset (mortality rate 32.2%) and 22 361 in the validation dataset (mortality rate 30.1%). The final 4C Mortality Score included eight variables readily available at initial hospital assessment: age, sex, number of comorbidities, respiratory rate, peripheral oxygen saturation, level of consciousness, urea level, and C reactive protein (score range 0-21 points). The 4C Score showed high discrimination for mortality (derivation cohort: area under the receiver operating characteristic curve 0.79, 95% confidence interval 0.78 to 0.79; validation cohort: 0.77, 0.76 to 0.77) with excellent calibration (validation: calibration-in-the-large=0, slope=1.0). Patients with a score of at least 15 (n=4158, 19%) had a 62% mortality (positive predictive value 62%) compared with 1% mortality for those with a score of 3 or less (n=1650, 7%; negative predictive value 99%). Discriminatory performance was higher than 15 pre-existing risk stratification scores (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve range 0.61-0.76), with scores developed in other covid-19 cohorts often performing poorly (range 0.63-0.73). CONCLUSIONS: An easy-to-use risk stratification score has been developed and validated based on commonly available parameters at hospital presentation. The 4C Mortality Score outperformed existing scores, showed utility to directly inform clinical decision making, and can be used to stratify patients admitted to hospital with covid-19 into different management groups. The score should be further validated to determine its applicability in other populations. STUDY REGISTRATION: ISRCTN66726260

Effects of antiplatelet therapy on stroke risk by brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases: subgroup analyses of the RESTART randomised, open-label trial

Background Findings from the RESTART trial suggest that starting antiplatelet therapy might reduce the risk of recurrent symptomatic intracerebral haemorrhage compared with avoiding antiplatelet therapy. Brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases (such as cerebral microbleeds) are associated with greater risks of recurrent intracerebral haemorrhage. We did subgroup analyses of the RESTART trial to explore whether these brain imaging features modify the effects of antiplatelet therapy

Where can a Trappist-1 planetary system be produced?

We study the evolution of protoplanetary discs that would have been precursors of a Trappist-1-like system under the action of accretion and external photoevaporation in different radiation environments. Dust grains swiftly grow above the critical size below which they are entrained in the photoevaporative wind, so although gas is continually depleted, dust is resilient to photoevaporation after only a short time. This means that the ratio of the mass in solids (dust plus planetary) to the mass in gas rises steadily over time. Dust is still stripped early on, and the initial disc mass required to produce the observed 4 M⊕ of Trappist-1 planets is high. For example, assuming a Fatuzzo & Adams distribution of UV fields, typical initial disc masses have to be >30 per cent the stellar (which are still Toomre Q stable) for the majority of similar mass M dwarfs to be viable hosts of the Trappist-1 planets. Even in the case of the lowest UV environments observed, there is a strong loss of dust due to photoevaporation at early times from the weakly bound outer regions of the disc. This minimum level of dust loss is a factor of 2 higher than that which would be lost by accretion on to the star during 10 Myr of evolution. Consequently, even in these least irradiated environments, discs that are viable Trappist-1 precursors need to be initially massive (>10 per cent of the stellar mass).TJH is funded by an Imperial College London Junior Research Fellowship. CJC acknowledges support from the DISCSIM project, grant agreement 34113, 7 funded by the European Research Council under ERC-2013-ADG. This work was partly developed during and benefited from the MIAPP ‘Protoplanetary discs and planet formation and evolution’ programme. The photoevaporation models in this paper were run on the COSMOS Shared Memory system at DAMTP, University of Cambridge operated on behalf of the STFC DiRAC HPC Facility. This equipment is funded by BIS National E-infrastructure capital grant ST/J005673/1 and STFC grants ST/H008586/1, ST/K00333X/1. DiRAC is part of the National E-Infrastructure

Health, education, and social care provision after diagnosis of childhood visual disability

Aim: To investigate the health, education, and social care provision for children newly diagnosed with visual disability.Method: This was a national prospective study, the British Childhood Visual Impairment and Blindness Study 2 (BCVIS2), ascertaining new diagnoses of visual impairment or severe visual impairment and blindness (SVIBL), or equivalent vi-sion. Data collection was performed by managing clinicians up to 1-year follow-up, and included health and developmental needs, and health, education, and social care provision.Results: BCVIS2 identified 784 children newly diagnosed with visual impairment/SVIBL (313 with visual impairment, 471 with SVIBL). Most children had associated systemic disorders (559 [71%], 167 [54%] with visual impairment, and 392 [84%] with SVIBL). Care from multidisciplinary teams was provided for 549 children (70%). Two-thirds (515) had not received an Education, Health, and Care Plan (EHCP). Fewer children with visual impairment had seen a specialist teacher (SVIBL 35%, visual impairment 28%, χ2p < 0.001), or had an EHCP (11% vs 7%, χ2p < 0 . 01).Interpretation: Families need additional support from managing clinicians to access recommended complex interventions such as the use of multidisciplinary teams and educational support. This need is pressing, as the population of children with visual impairment/SVIBL is expected to grow in size and complexity.This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited