An investigation of the new independent Christian schools: what kind of citizens are they producing?

This thesis investigates a network of new independent Christian schools in England, with special reference to their teenage pupils. The place of faith-based schools in British society currently constitutes a contentious issue; the nature of this controversy is explored before a description and evaluation of the schools and their educational aims is given. A wide-ranging survey is then described. This survey investigated the views, values and beliefs of 695 teenage pupils who were receiving their education in the schools in 2006. Its purpose was to discover to what extent the aims of the schools were being realised amongst their older pupils. At the same time, the survey was designed to address the criticisms aimed at faith-based schools, particularly the charge that such schools might be inadequately preparing young people for life as citizens of modern Britain. The results reveal an unusual cohort of young people. The majority of the pupils claim to hold religious beliefs and values which differ from the current norms of British society but which would not necessarily jeopardise acceptable British citizenship. The data indicate that the schools are achieving their aims of enabling pupils to develop and retain the belief system and moral position taken by their parent bodies and founding churches. The results show that male pupils hold the same beliefs as female pupils and that the older pupils are as likely to be religious as are the younger. These findings differ from those found by similar surveys conducted in other British contexts. Finally, the data reveal the existence of a small subset of pupils who claim not to hold religious beliefs and whose views and values differ substantially from those of the majority of their fellow pupils. The data also suggest that the anomalous position of these pupils is not necessarily detrimental to their well-being

Experiencing education in the new Christian schools in the United Kingdom : listening to the male graduates

The new independent Christian schools developed by parents and evangelical churches in the United Kingdom since the late 1960s remain controversial among both Christian and secular educators. In response to this controversy, the present study traced 106 men who had graduated from these schools between 1985 and 2003 and analysed their evaluation of the education they had received in these schools within four main themes: the quality of the education, the context of Christian and moral nurture, the quality of relationships (among the pupils, with the teachers and with the wider world) and preparation received for life after leaving school. Although there were some issues of criticism, the balance of opinion among the former pupils within all four areas was generally supportive of the new independent Christian schools, which were generally perceived as having prepared them well for life

The Gaussian formula and spherical aberration of the static and moving curved mirrors from Fermat's principle

The Gaussian formula and spherical aberrations of the static and relativistic curved mirrors are analyzed using the optical path length (OPL) and Fermat's principle. The geometrical figures generated by the rotation of conic sections about their symmetry axes are considered for the shapes of the mirrors. By comparing the results in static and relativistic cases, it is shown that the focal lengths and the spherical aberration relations of the relativistic mirrors obey the Lorentz contraction. Further analysis of the spherical aberrations for both static and relativistic cases have resulted in the information about the limits for the paraxial approximation, as well as for the minimum speed of the systems to reduce the spherical aberrations.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figures, uses iopart. Major revisions on the physical interpretations of the results. Accepted for publication in J. Op

Multi-exon COL5A1 deletion in a child with classical Ehlers-Danlos syndrome : A case report expanding the allelic spectrum and showing evidence of parental gonosomal mosaicism

Classical Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (cEDS) is a rare inherited autosomal dominant connective tissue disorder with core clinical features including skin hyperextensibility, abnormal scarring, and generalized joint hypermobility. Classical EDS is predominantly caused by small pathogenic variants in the genes COL5A1 and COL5A2 and occasionally by a COL1A1 point mutation p.(Arg312Cys), while gross deletions or duplications are uncommon. Gonosomal mosaicism is thought to be exceedingly rare with only two cases reported in the literature. We report a child with cEDS due to a rare gross deletion of exons 2-65 in the COL5A1 gene, inherited from an unaffected mosaic father. The level of mosaicism in the father was approximately 43% in leucocyte cells and 30% in DNA extracted from skin. Our results expand the allelic spectrum of cEDS variants and suggest that parental mosaicism needs to be considered in patients with suspected cEDS, given its implication for genetic counseling.Peer reviewe

Defining and assessing spiritual health : a comparative study among 13- to 15-year-old pupils attending secular schools, Anglican schools, and private Christian schools in England and Wales

This article argues that the nation's commitment to young people involves proper concern for their physical health, their psychological health, and their spiritual health. In this context the notion of spiritual health is clarified by a critique of John Fisher's model of spiritual health. Fisher developed a relational model of spiritual health, which defines good spiritual health in terms of an individual's relationship to four domains: the personal, the communal, the environmental, and the transcendental. In the present analysis, we make comparisons between pupils educated in three types of schools: publicly funded schools without religious foundation, publicly funded schools with an Anglican foundation, and new independent Christian schools (not publicly funded). Our findings draw attention to significant differences in the levels of spiritual health experienced by pupils within these three types of schools

Analyzing Market-based Opportunities in the Mango Supply Chain of Davao City: A Rapid Market Assessment

Products and services become meaningful when available and positioned from the customer’s perspective. Exploring the supply chain of mango in Davao City, Southern Philippines, unveils different nodes having different characteristics and buying requirements. We analyzed market-based opportunities in the mango supply chain to inform mango producers which attractive markets they should prioritize as well as identified opportunities for improvement in production and marketing. We utilized a rapid market assessment (RMA) approach to identify the different market nodes and their characteristics. Snowball sampling was used to determine the respondents for this study. A total of 28 face-to-face interviews were done using a semi-structured questionnaire. From the producers’ point of view, we assess the relative attractiveness of the nodes by employing a simple scoring method on the data on volume of requirement, buying price (at the time of interview), support services provided to farmers, and stage of node life cycle. Results show that the exporters’ node has the highest attractiveness score followed by direct wholesalers, primary wholesalers, and processors. We recommend the following practical suggestions for producer groups to target these attractive markets: (1) improve overall quality of mangoes; (2) perform sorting and grading; (3) adopt cost-effective postharvest technology; and (4) develop cost-effective off-season production farming system

Public discourses on multilingualism in the UK: triangulating a corpus study with a sociolinguistic attitude survey

This paper investigates public discourses of multilingualism in Britain. In contrast to previous research that focused on specific varieties, we examine multilingualism as a metalinguistic construct and are interested in what is frequently said about multilingualism. More specifically, we explore the extent to which media discourses are consonant or diverge from the attitudes of lay people. Media discourses are investigated using a corpus-assisted discourse study approach and large press corpora. Results from the corpus study were incorporated in an attitude survey distributed to 200 participants living in a larger town in Britain. Our study shows that while positive media discourses were mostly shared by the general public, some of the negative themes, especially related to immigration, were challenged. Our study shows the usefulness of triangulating corpus-linguistic methods with a survey to provide a more comprehensive understanding of public discourses about language matters and offers implications for promoting multilingualism in society

Will they be back? A framework to guide rare macrophyte conservation decisions in lakes

Shallow lake restoration typically focusses on the re-establishment of macrophytes. The likelihood of a species returning to a site is contingent on dispersal, proximity to propagule sources, and the on-site propagule-bank viability. We explore the potential of palaeoecological records in combination with botanical surveys and distribution maps, to ascertain the loss of three submerged macrophytes (Littorella uniflora, Najas flexilis, and Elatine hydropiper) from, respectively, two lakes (Barton Broad, Norfolk and Esthwaite Water, Cumbria) and one lake landscape (Greater Glasgow, Scotland). We discuss re-establishment likelihood when accounting for species' autoecology and current water-chemistry conditions. L. uniflora is widespread in the United Kingdom but absent locally in Norfolk without known seed bank, hence is unlikely to naturally recolonise Barton Broad. Furthermore, current conditions are unsuitable for this species suggesting that nutrient reduction is required prior to translocation. N. flexilis is extinct in Cumbria and the long distances involved (>100 km) for recolonisation of Esthwaite Water suggest that spatial dispersal is unlikely, rendering the seed bank the last chance of natural recovery. Alternatively, translocation may be feasible. E. hydropiper is a nationally scarce species in the United Kingdom yet would have only a short dispersal distance (~10 km) to recolonise Loch Libo, hence there being no requirement for translocation. In exploring the recovery possibilities for the three focal plant species, we develop a time–space integrated framework that can be employed to guide conservation decisions for other species, enabling a more rational use of translocations in the future, in line with international guidelines