Education in the Scottish Parliament (Parliamentary Report 44[2])

This paper follows on from the previous bulletin (Redford 2012), which covered the education remit of the Parliament's Education and Culture Committee between September 2011 and January 2012. The following bulletin covers the same remit of the Education and Culture Committee from February to August 2012

Education in the Scottish Parliament (Parliamentary Report 45[1])

This paper follows on from the previous bulletin (Redford 2012), which covered the education remit of the Parliament's Education and Culture Committee between February and June 2012. The following bulletin covers the same remit of the Education and Culture Committee from September 2012 to January 2013

Education in the Scottish Parliament (Parliamentary Report 39[2])

This paper follows on from the previous bulletin (Redford, 2007), which covered the business of the Parliament's Education Committee between September 2006 and January 2007. The bulletin is presented in two parts: the first covers committee proceedings during the second part of the 2006 - 7 parliamentary year (Session 2, January 2007 to April 2007) and the end of the 2003 - 2007 Parliament; the second the start of the 2007 - 2011 Parliament (Session 3) and the establishment of a new Education Lifelong Learning and Culture Committee

Interprofessional communication in education: a case study

This thesis is concerned with communication in interprofessional practice, an issue which is identified as a ‘difficulty’ but ‘essential’ in the literature. The research is based on a case study focusing on the communication between professionals in a series of planning meetings held to support the transition of a child with additional support needs from playgroup into the nursery class of a primary school in Scotland. The study explores the dynamics and complexities of communication through the theoretical frameworks of ethnography of communication and Dewey’s concept of communication as participative action. This joint analysis illustrates the way in which the group worked together to make something in common and the extent of commonality that was needed for them to work actively together. The findings show the interprofessional group functioning as a speech community with a bounding feature of working with the child. The soft-shell of this community illustrates a flexibility of practice and the ability of the group to expand or contract to meet the needs of the child and family. The way in which the participants worked together to agree the outcomes they were working towards is an illustration of Deweyan communication, making something in common between them. This process included the recognition of the competence and responsibility of individual professions. The study demonstrates that the doctors who were members of the interprofessional group were recognised as holding more power than the other members of the group and were bound by the outcomes and procedures of their own profession. This difference affected the dynamics of communication within the interprofessional team. The findings add to our understanding of the complexities of communication in an interprofessional team and show that communication in a Deweyan sense can strengthen the work of an interprofessional group and develop their support for the child or family they are working with

Developing pedagogies that work for Pre-Service and Early Career Teachers to reduce the Attainment Gap in Literacy, Numeracy and Health and Wellbeing. Research Question 3: What other practice or research might assist us in our purpose?

This report contributes to the Scottish Council of Deans of Education project related to the Scottish Attainment Challenge. It presents a literature review that responds to the third research question of the SCDE collaborative project: What other practice or research might assist us in our purpose? The purpose of this phase was to resource professional conversations and thinking in the teacher education sector, and to inform the final trial phase of the project. A literature search was undertaken using a range of strategies, to identify published accounts of innovative work from beyond Scotland in the following fields: initial teacher education for high poverty settings; pedagogies in literacy, numeracy and health and wellbeing; mentoring and induction. Each group of studies is summarised under themes with their potential for the SAC, ITE programmes and professional learning noted

Social capital, social inclusion and changing school contexts: a Scottish perspective

This paper synthesises a collaborative review of social capital theory, with particular regard for its relevance to the changing educational landscape within Scotland. The review considers the common and distinctive elements of social capital, developed by the founding fathers – Putnam, Bourdieu and Coleman – and explores how these might help to understand the changing contexts and pursue opportunities for growth

Undertaking Professional Enquiries

First paragraph: The purpose of this chapter is to set out what happens when a teacher undertakes a professional enquiry in a classroom. Professional enquiry follows a cycle that is used as the basis of both action research and experiential learning. Here, we keep both of these aspects of enquiry in mind and describe the content and process of professional enquiry: content a focus on a particular aspect of pupils’ learning and an experiment, in the form of an intervention, to improve pupils’ skills and understanding in relation to this chosen area – and process a pattern of actions, underpinned by a set of principles, whereby both teacher and learners change their practice and their relations as part of a joint learning experience. We shall use an account of a classroom-based enquiry carried out in a primary school as part of the process of working towards the award of Chartered Teacher status to illustrate the major stages of conducting an enquiry. Each of these stages is examined in detail and linked to other experiences of undertaking classroom enquiries

Practitioner research and excellence in teaching

This paper explores the relationship between established teachers’ professional learning and their use of practitioner enquiry, or action research, as a means of improving the quality of their classroom teaching. It reports on one aspect of a ten-month pilot study jointly funded by the Scottish Government and the General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS) to explore means of evaluating the impact of the Chartered Teacher initiative on pupil learning. Whilst the study found evidence for the beneficial effects of teachers’ engagement in practitioner research, as part of the requirement of Chartered Teacher programmes, it also raised a number of issues as to exact nature of participants’ learning and whether current approaches to the use of practitioner research in teacher education need to be revised.  Full text of this work will be available from the Scottish Educational Review web pages: http://www.scotedreview.org.uk/content/2010/42[2]