First Steps: briefing document for schools

The Extending Learning Opportunities document is an update of the Study Support Code of Practice and is recommended for use by all schools, centres and organisations who deliver study support activities for children and young people. It is a self evaluation tool which takes the user through a quality development process. First Steps is a concept designed to introduce an audience to using the Extending Learning Opportunities document (ELO) in more detail. It essentially guides the audience through a simple set of questions; the responses to which will address certain themes in the ELO. The concept lends itself to local interpretation and a number of LAs have designed their own First Steps programme for use with schools and centres who are interested in using the ELO. One particular LA used the model as a “readiness indicator” for schools and settings and made it a requirement before engaging with the ELO. Alternatively schools could adapt the approach to benchmark performance across departments or targeted groups

Study support essentials: guidance for school governors

This document is a valuable guide for school governors as it enables them to use the guidance in this document to support their school’s teaching and learning activities outside of the curriculum. It empowers governors to ask leading and challenging questions of their school’s extending learning opportunities strategy. Thereby support the school to raise pupil attainment, attendance and behaviour which all contribute to School Improvement and Performance

Study support essentials: guidance for Ofsted Framework 2012

The well-being of children and young people encompasses, amongst other things, enhanced self-esteem through personal achievement and a confidence in learning behaviours. The Study Support strategy articulated in this document supports professionals in developing an inspirational vision for the children and young people in their care. If this vision is to be realised, professionals need to be both knowledgeable and skillful in utilising pedagogies that engender deep learning. This Study Support strategy will enhance children and young people’s enjoyment, engagement and attainment thereby contributing to the overall performance and improvement agenda in any given school

Study support essentials: guidance for academies

This guidance supports academies in considering the case for sustaining and extending provision and offers frameworks for self-evaluation. The case studies provide a wealth of ideas to stimulate discussion and inspire fresh approaches to meet the needs of today’s students. Practical recommendations from QiSS (Quality in Study Support and Extended Services) to aid strategic and operational planning are based on many years of research and experience as the national leader in the field

Perforated tunnel exit regions and micro-pressure waves:geometrical influence

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The authors are grateful to the following bodies that provided financial support for the project: (i) China Scholarship Council, (ii) National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. U1334201 and (iii) UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (Grant No. EP/G069441/1).Peer reviewedPublisher PD

LiDAR mapping of tidal marshes for ecogeomorphological modelling in the TIDE project

The European research project TIDE (Tidal Inlets Dynamics and Environment) is developing and validating coupled models describing the morphological, biological and ecological evolution of tidal environments. The interactions between the physical and biological processes occurring in these regions requires that the system be studied as a whole rather than as separate parts. Extensive use of remote sensing including LiDAR is being made to provide validation data for the modelling. This paper describes the different uses of LiDAR within the project and their relevance to the TIDE science objectives. LiDAR data have been acquired from three different environments, the Venice Lagoon in Italy, Morecambe Bay in England, and the Eden estuary in Scotland. LiDAR accuracy at each site has been evaluated using ground reference data acquired with differential GPS. A semi-automatic technique has been developed to extract tidal channel networks from LiDAR data either used alone or fused with aerial photography. While the resulting networks may require some correction, the procedure does allow network extraction over large areas using objective criteria and reduces fieldwork requirements. The networks extracted may subsequently be used in geomorphological analyses, for example to describe the drainage patterns induced by networks and to examine the rate of change of networks. Estimation of the heights of the low and sparse vegetation on marshes is being investigated by analysis of the statistical distribution of the measured LiDAR heights. Species having different mean heights may be separated using the first-order moments of the height distribution

Temporal acceleration of a turbulent channel flow

We report new laboratory experiments of a flow accelerating from an initially turbulent state following the opening of a valve, together with large eddy simulations of the experiments and extended Stokes first problem solutions for the early stages of the flow. The results show that the transient flow closely resembles an accelerating laminar flow superimposed on the original steady turbulent flow. The primary consequence of the acceleration is the temporal growth of a boundary layer from the wall, gradually leading to a strong instability causing transition. This extends the findings of previous direct numerical simulations of transient flow following a near-step increase in flow rate. In this interpretation, the initial turbulence is not the primary characteristic of the resulting transient flow, but can be regarded as noise, the evolution of which is strongly influenced by the development of the boundary layer. We observe the spontaneous appearance of turbulent spots and discontinuities in the velocity signals in time and space, revealing rich detail of the transition process, including a striking contrast between streamwise and wall-normal fluctuating velocities

Applicability of frozen-viscosity models of unsteady wall shear stress

The validity of assumed frozen-viscosity conditions underpinning an important class of theoretical models of unsteady wall shear stress in transient flows in pipes and channels is assessed using detailed computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations. The need for approximate one-dimensional ð1DÞfx; tg models of the wall stress is unavoidable in analyses of transient flows in extensive pipe networks because it would be economically impracticable to use higher order methods of analysis. However, the bases of the various models have never been established rigorously. It is shown herein that a commonly used approach developed by the first authors is flawed in the case of smoothwall flows although it is more plausible for rough-wall flows. The assessment process is undertaken for a particular, but important, unsteady flow case, namely, a uniform acceleration from an initially steady turbulent flow. First, detailed predictions from a validated CFD method are used to derive baseline solutions with which predictions based on approximate models can be compared. Then, alternative solutions are obtained using various prescribed frozen-viscosity distributions. Differences between these solutions and the baseline solutions are used to determine which frozen-viscosity distributions are the most promising starting points for developing 1Dfx; tg models of unsteady components of wall shear stress. It is shown that no frozen-viscosity distribution performs well for large times after the commencement of an acceleration. However, even the simplest approximation (laminar) performs well for short durations—which is when the greatest amplitudes of the unsteady components occu