Improving teaching quality to compensate for socio‐economic disadvantages: A study of research dissemination across secondary schools in England

Since 2011, schools in England have received funds designated for improving the educational outcomes of students facing socio-economic disadvantages (SED). In response to concerns regarding the effective expenditure of these funds, school leaders have been increasingly required to justify their spending decisions and to demonstrate how decisions are informed by research evidence. As a consequence, schools appear to be increasingly attempting to reduce SED attainment gaps by improving the quality of teaching across the school. This article reviews this endeavour to bring research evidence to bear on classroom practice. It draws upon data from a large qualitative study of interviews with 167 school staff and a survey at 285 schools. In addition, I report on a review of 100 school policy documents, a review of the evidence, and a study of examination data and teacher attitudes at one school. I argue that the mechanisms to put research into practice are failing in this case. A wide variety of practices are being justified by a small number of studies of questionable relevance. In some schools, attempts to be guided by research have not had the expected positive impact, which has caused weariness and frustration. I also present evidence that, in some contexts, certain kinds of improvements to teaching may widen SED attainment gaps. I conclude that there are bureaucratic and linguistic faults in the mechanisms to disseminate research evidence in this case and argue that education researchers should incorporate these mechanisms more comprehensively into their field of study

The Objectivity of our Measures: How many Fundamental Units of Nature?

The fundamental constants of nature, as presented by modern science, can be conceived as natural measures of the universe. In comparison, the standards of the International System of Units, including the kilogram and the meter, are mind-made and hand-crafted to meet the demands of human life. In this paper, the gap between the natural and the conventional is squeezed from two directions. In the first place, we come to understand why the metric measures were originally conceived, by the best of scientists, as being “taken from nature” and “in no way arbitrary”. The kilogram of yesteryear was anchored in yesteryear's science and is reasonably considered natural with respect to that science. We also review a contemporary debate amongst physicists that questions whether any quantity, being necessarily written with units, can be truly fundamental. Modern notions of a fundamental constant are put under the spotlight; the kilogram emerges as bound up with contemporary science today as ever it was. In the picture being painted here, our measures are drawn as dynamic entities, epistemic tools that develop hand-in-hand with the rest of science, and whose significance goes much further than a metal artefact dangled from an abstract number line

And how experiments begin: the international prototype kilogram and the Planck constant

The artefact that has defined the kilogram since 1889 is to be retired and the kilogram will instead be defined by fixing the value of the Planck constant. In this paper, I detail some of the elements of this reform, believing that the case study should prompt philosophers to reassess the role scientific standards play in the progress of the physical sciences. A metrological account of scientific standards should explain metrology’s more theoretical motivations and also acknowledge its empirical contribution to the physical sciences. I present three theses towards this end. I develop a more thoroughgoing and yet much weaker version of Bridgman’s operational attitude. I present a picture of the physical sciences united by metrology. Finally, I present the case for a quiet form of realism that attempts to accommodate both the more theoretical and the more pragmatic motivations of the metrologist

Optimierung im englischen Schulsystem: Was Schüler*innen sagen

This is an accepted manuscript of an article published by Psychosozial-Verlag in Psychosozial. The article is available on the journal website: https://www.psychosozial-verlag.de/26449 The accepted version of the publication may differ from the final published version.Dieser Beitrag untersucht die Auswirkungen von extremer Optimierung bzw. der Marktideologien des Neoliberalismus im Rahmen der englischen Schulpolitik. Gerade da sie in der Bildungsforschung noch unterrepräsentiert sind, benutzen wir die Meinungen von Schüler*innen, die wir in einem Forschungsprojekt gesammelt haben, um dieses Thema zu analysieren. Das Projekt untersuchte Schulen, die die Unterstützung und Versorgung benachteiligter Schüler*innen zu verbessern und die negativen Auswirkungen der neoliberalen (Optimierungs-)Politik auszugleichen versuchten. Es zeigt sich, dass der Fokus der Optimierung auf Leistung und Standardisierung die Effektivität von Ausgleichsmaßnahmen begrenzt sowie die Möglichkeiten beschränkt, auf die Meinungen der Schüler*innen zu hören oder das Lernen mit ihren Interessen und Kontexten zu verbinden

Teacher quality, recruitment, and retention: Rapid Evidence Assessment

This rapid evidence assessment identifies areas for future research on teacher quality, recruitment and retention, with the aim of informing the focus of the Education Endowment Foundation’s (EEF’s) future research commissioning on this topic. Given that ensuring access to quality teaching for disadvantaged pupils is expected to be a key mechanism for narrowing the disadvantage gap in attainment, there is a strong rationale for the EEF to build the evidence base on the recruitment and retention of quality teachers. The report set out to scope the field and summarise existing evidence on this topic. The report also identifies gaps in the research; for example, areas that have been researched qualitatively but not investigated experimentally or developed into a testable intervention. The rapid evidence assessment includes two reviews, each summarising a key area of research: - Review 1 focused on measures of (or proxies for) teacher quality commonly used in the literature. - Review 2 focused on strategies for the recruitment, retention and distribution of quality teachers to schools serving disadvantaged communities

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

Safety, immunogenicity, and reactogenicity of BNT162b2 and mRNA-1273 COVID-19 vaccines given as fourth-dose boosters following two doses of ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 or BNT162b2 and a third dose of BNT162b2 (COV-BOOST): a multicentre, blinded, phase 2, randomised trial

Background Some high-income countries have deployed fourth doses of COVID-19 vaccines, but the clinical need, effectiveness, timing, and dose of a fourth dose remain uncertain. We aimed to investigate the safety, reactogenicity, and immunogenicity of fourth-dose boosters against COVID-19.Methods The COV-BOOST trial is a multicentre, blinded, phase 2, randomised controlled trial of seven COVID-19 vaccines given as third-dose boosters at 18 sites in the UK. This sub-study enrolled participants who had received BNT162b2 (Pfizer-BioNTech) as their third dose in COV-BOOST and randomly assigned them (1:1) to receive a fourth dose of either BNT162b2 (30 µg in 0·30 mL; full dose) or mRNA-1273 (Moderna; 50 µg in 0·25 mL; half dose) via intramuscular injection into the upper arm. The computer-generated randomisation list was created by the study statisticians with random block sizes of two or four. Participants and all study staff not delivering the vaccines were masked to treatment allocation. The coprimary outcomes were safety and reactogenicity, and immunogenicity (antispike protein IgG titres by ELISA and cellular immune response by ELISpot). We compared immunogenicity at 28 days after the third dose versus 14 days after the fourth dose and at day 0 versus day 14 relative to the fourth dose. Safety and reactogenicity were assessed in the per-protocol population, which comprised all participants who received a fourth-dose booster regardless of their SARS-CoV-2 serostatus. Immunogenicity was primarily analysed in a modified intention-to-treat population comprising seronegative participants who had received a fourth-dose booster and had available endpoint data. This trial is registered with ISRCTN, 73765130, and is ongoing.Findings Between Jan 11 and Jan 25, 2022, 166 participants were screened, randomly assigned, and received either full-dose BNT162b2 (n=83) or half-dose mRNA-1273 (n=83) as a fourth dose. The median age of these participants was 70·1 years (IQR 51·6–77·5) and 86 (52%) of 166 participants were female and 80 (48%) were male. The median interval between the third and fourth doses was 208·5 days (IQR 203·3–214·8). Pain was the most common local solicited adverse event and fatigue was the most common systemic solicited adverse event after BNT162b2 or mRNA-1273 booster doses. None of three serious adverse events reported after a fourth dose with BNT162b2 were related to the study vaccine. In the BNT162b2 group, geometric mean anti-spike protein IgG concentration at day 28 after the third dose was 23 325 ELISA laboratory units (ELU)/mL (95% CI 20 030–27 162), which increased to 37 460 ELU/mL (31 996–43 857) at day 14 after the fourth dose, representing a significant fold change (geometric mean 1·59, 95% CI 1·41–1·78). There was a significant increase in geometric mean anti-spike protein IgG concentration from 28 days after the third dose (25 317 ELU/mL, 95% CI 20 996–30 528) to 14 days after a fourth dose of mRNA-1273 (54 936 ELU/mL, 46 826–64 452), with a geometric mean fold change of 2·19 (1·90–2·52). The fold changes in anti-spike protein IgG titres from before (day 0) to after (day 14) the fourth dose were 12·19 (95% CI 10·37–14·32) and 15·90 (12·92–19·58) in the BNT162b2 and mRNA-1273 groups, respectively. T-cell responses were also boosted after the fourth dose (eg, the fold changes for the wild-type variant from before to after the fourth dose were 7·32 [95% CI 3·24–16·54] in the BNT162b2 group and 6·22 [3·90–9·92] in the mRNA-1273 group).Interpretation Fourth-dose COVID-19 mRNA booster vaccines are well tolerated and boost cellular and humoral immunity. Peak responses after the fourth dose were similar to, and possibly better than, peak responses after the third dose