Evaluating the Foundation Phase: Key findings on practitioner and stakeholder views on the future of the Foundation Phase

The Foundation Phase (introduced in 2008) provides a developmentally appropriate experiential curriculum for children aged 3-7 in Wales. The Welsh Government commissioned independent evaluation (led by WISERD) aims to evaluate how well it is being implemented, what impact it has had, and ways in which it can be improved. The three-year evaluation utilises a range of mixed methods at a national and local scale. This is one of four papers focused on impact. It draws on 239 classroom/setting observations, 341 practitioner interviews, 604 school/setting survey responses, 1,008 parent/carer survey responses, 37 Local Authority interviews and four non-maintained organisation interviews

Implementing curriculum reform in Wales: the case of the Foundation Phase

The Foundation Phase is a Welsh Government flagship policy of early years education (for 3 to 7-year old children) in Wales. Marking a radical departure from the more formal, competency-based approach associated with the previous Key Stage 1 National Curriculum, it advocates a developmental, experiential, play-based approach to teaching and learning. The Learning Country: a Paving Document (NAfW 2001) notes that following devolution, Wales intended to take its own policy direction in order to ‘get the best for Wales’. Building on a three-year mixed methods independent evaluation of the Foundation Phase we discuss in detail the aims and objectives of the Foundation Phase, including the context to its introduction, the theory, assumptions and evidence underlying its rationale, and its content and key inputs. We then contrast this with how the Foundation Phase was received by practitioners and parents, how it has been implemented in classrooms and non-maintained settings, and what discernible impact it has had on young children’s educational outcomes. The paper concludes with a critical analysis of the policy process and identifies a number of contextual issues during the inception of the Foundation Phase that has, it could be argued, constrained its development and subsequent impact. We argue that these constraints are associated with an educational policy landscape that was still in its infancy. In order for future education policy to ‘get the best for Wales’ a number of important lessons must be learnt

Measuring forces between protein fibers by microscopy

We propose a general scheme for measuring the attraction between mechanically frustrated semiflexible fibers by measuring their thermal fluctuations and shape. We apply this analysis to a system of sickle hemoglobin (HbS) fibers that laterally attract one another. These fibers appear to “zip” together before reaching mechanical equilibrium due to the existence of cross-links into a dilute fiber network. We are also able to estimate the rigidities of the fibers. These rigidities are found to be consistent with sickle hemoglobin “single” fibers 20 nm in diameter, despite recent experiments indicating that fiber bundling sometimes occurs. Our estimate of the magnitude of the interfiber attraction for HbS fibers is in the range 8 ± 7 kBT/μm, or 4 ± 3 kBT/μm if the fibers are assumed, a priori to be single fibers (such an assumption is fully consistent with the data). This value is sufficient to bind the fibers, overcoming entropic effects, although extremely chemically weak. Our results are compared to models for the interfiber attraction that include depletion and van der Waals forces. This technique should also facilitate a similar analysis of other filamentous protein assembles in the future, including β-amyloid, actin, and tubulin

Evaluating the Foundation Phase: key findings on children and families

The Foundation Phase (introduced in 2008) provides a developmentally appropriate experiential curriculum for children aged 3-7 in Wales. The Welsh Government commissioned independent evaluation (led by WISERD) aims to evaluate how well it is being implemented, what impact it has had, and ways in which it can be improved. The three-year evaluation utilises a range of mixed methods at a national and local scale. This is one of four papers focused on implementation. It draws on 239 classroom/setting observations, 341 practitioner interviews, 604 school/setting and 671 Year 2 survey responses, 1,008 parent/carer survey responses, 37 Local Authority interviews, four nonmaintained organisation interviews and direct work with children

Choice, competition, and segregation in a United Kingdom urban education market

There has been a great deal of research into school choice and the education quasi‐market that has dominated compulsory school provision in the United Kingdom since the early 1980s. Much of this research fails to address the context in which processes of choice exist alongside the patterns and outcomes of choice and competition, leading to considerable dispute within UK debates on the impact of school choice. The apparent contradiction can be bridged by focusing on the geographic particularities of the education market at various scales. This article examines one urban education market in the United Kingdom. In mapping the context and patterns of school choice and competition, the article begins to offer new insights into understanding recent trends in social segregation between schools. Such an approach to studying the impact of open enrollment and the marketization of compulsory schooling represents a necessary shift toward the development of a geography of school choice