Learner agency in urban primary schools in disadvantaged contexts: Report to Society for Educational Studies

This project aimed to develop new theoretical understanding of the nature and extent of children’s learner agency in primary education. From a sociocultural perspective, having the capacity to exercise learner agency is essential for meaning-making and therefore deep and effective learning. Existing international research suggests that children attending schools with significant intakes of children from ‘disadvantaged’ backgrounds may develop ‘passive’ and disengaged orientations to learning in response to the strong pressure on many of these schools to raise attainment. Learner agency can be defined as volitional activity which has an effect on learners’ peers and teachers, for example in terms of their understanding of a concept or phenomena. Learner agency is both constrained and enabled by sociocultural practices, including, as in this research, the modes of pedagogy used by teachers. A multiple case study design (Yin 2009) was selected to enable collection of rich data using multiple methods within and compare across different schools. Four case study schools with above national average (26.7% in 2013) proportion of pupils eligible for Free School Meals (as a proxy for ‘disadvantage’) and located in urban settings in Greater London. Data was collected in the four schools through semi-structured interviews with Year Five teachers and children and Year Five lessons were observed by the researcher as a non-participant observer, across the curriculum. All four classrooms were characterised by a mixture of competence-based and performative pedagogy, although the dominant mode varied across schools. The higher the proportion of disadvantaged children at the school, the more performative the pedagogy was.The project provides new empirical evidence about the nature and extent of children’s learner agency in disadvantaged urban primary schools; it has led to the development of theoretical understandings of learner agency in such contexts. The data suggests that learner agency is constrained and enabled in complex ways, which depend on teachers’ pedagogical practices. This extends existing research in such contexts, which has mainly focussed on children’s agency in constructing their social and learner identities and positioning as learners (e.g. Youdell 2006; Reay 2006). The study took a new theoretical approach to researching agency in disadvantaged schools, drawing on sociocultural theory to develop understandings of learner agency. The project also contributes significantly to developing sociocultural understandings of learner agency by identifying how it is constrained and enabled in relation to Bernstein’s (2000) modes of pedagogy

Understanding boys (dis)engagement with reading for pleasure: Project findings

Why do boys from low-income families appear to read for pleasure far less than other groups of young people? This research project provides new evidence that how reading is taught in schools influences different boys’ orientations to and engagement with reading for pleasure. It offers evidence that boys’ (dis)engagement is not simply a gender issue and that it also involves teacher perceptions of other aspects of boys’ social and learner identities, including ‘ability’, ethnicity and social class. The research was funded by the British Academy and the Leverhulme Foundation

NP3 – New Purposes, New Practices, New Pedagogy: Meta-analysis report

This is the main report of the findings of the NP3 project, which looked at children's use of ICT outside school and the extent to which this influenced pedagogy inside primary schools

In-work poverty: a systematic review

Government strategy is committed to halving child poverty in the United Kingdom (UK) by 2010 and eradicating it by 2020. A range of policy initiatives have made encouraging progress, with 600,000 children lifted out of poverty in the last ten years. Yet, the total number of poor children living in working households has stayed the same at 1.4 million (nearly half of all poor children). If the ambitious targets are to be met, it will be important that the next phase of the strategy for tackling child poverty prioritises these families. The systematic review detailed in this report was commissioned by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). Systematic reviewing is a specialist technique which employs standardised and explicit methods to minimise the risk of drawing the wrong or misleading conclusions from a body of evidence. Explicit reporting of how the review was conducted allows others to assess the validity of its findings

Extragalactic Globular Clusters in the Near-Infrared: V. IC 4051 and NGC 3311

We present the results of combined optical and near-infrared photometry for the globular cluster systems of the giant ellipticals IC 4051 and NGC 3311. We use the reduced age-metallicity degeneracy in (V-I) vs.(V-H) color-color diagrams to derive the cumulative age distribution within the red sub-population of globular clusters and to search for age sub-populations. The age distribution is then compared to the one determined for simulated globular cluster systems in order to set constraints on the relative age and size of these globular cluster sub-populations. In both galaxies we find a significant fraction of globular clusters with ages between 2- 5 Gyr. We also investigate the metallicity distribution in both systems. Small number statistics prevent us from making any definite statements concerning NGC 3311, but we find that the derived metallicity distribution of the IC 4051 clusters strongly depends on the assumed age distribution. Based on our most likely result that finds a large number of young/intermediate age clusters (~2 Gyr) within the selected globular cluster sample, we find metallicity peaks at $\sim$ -0.2 for the old clusters and +0.8 for the young clusters. Only few very metal poor clusters are found. However, the metallicity distribution within the young/intermediate globular cluster population is significantly affected by our choice of the applied Single Stellar Population model. The mean metallicity of the second generation of globular clusters changes from the above mentioned and extremely high +0.8 dex to +0.2 dex. Note that the model dependency becomes less severe with an increasing age of the cluster population.Comment: 21 pages, 21 figures, A&A, accepte

Evaluation of Hackney Learning Trust's Reading Programmes

The Open University were commissioned to evaluation Hackney Learning Trust's reading programmes: Destination Reader (for KS2) and Daily Supported Reading (for KS1). The reading programmes provide detailed pedagogies for teaching reading for schools in areas characterised by low social mobility and higher levels of poverty. Fifteen schools though south eastern England were included in the evaluation during the time period January 2018 - June 2019. The aim of the evaluation was to understand: the impact of the programmes on reading attainment and progress; teachers' knowledge and skills in teaching reading; children's reading skill, engagement and independent problem solving; changes in reading culture in the schools. The methodology consisted of in-depth case studies of 5 schools over 1.5 years; analysis of pupil reading test data; a pre-programme survey and a follow up survey 1.5 years later. The evaluation found that reading cultures in the schools were transformed to prioritise and value reading to a greater degree than before. Teachers felt more confident and knowledgeable about teaching reading and teachers and children were highly engaged with the programmes which were firmly embedded in all five case study schools. However, there was no evidence of a consistent increase in reading attainment across the 15 schools. Also, there was no evidence of an increase in children's enjoyment of reading or engagement with the new reading skills they learnt as part of the programmes. The former finding may be due to the short timeframe of the evaluation and the latter finding may be because children very quickly became fully engaged with the programmes

(8aS)-7,8,8a,9-Tetra­hydro­thieno[3,2-f]indolizin-6(4H)-one

In the mol­ecular structure of the title compound, C10H11NOS, the central six-membered ring of the indolizine unit adopts an envelope conformation, the maximum deviations from the mean plane of the ring being 0.533 (2) Å. The fused thieno ring is nearly coplanar [mean deviation = 0.007 (2) Å]. The conformation of the fused oxopyrrolidine ring is close to that of a flat-envelope, with a maximum deviation of 0.339 (3) Å. The crystal structure is stabilized by C—H⋯O hydrogen bonds