Teaching grammar and testing grammar in the English primary school: The impact on teachers and teaching of the grammar element of the statutory test in Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar (SPaG) in England

In the academic year 2012-2013, Year 6 primary school pupils in England sat the first of a new statutory test in Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar (‘SPaG’) as part of their end of primary school assessments in English. This UKLA funded research examines the impact on teachers and their teaching of the grammar element of the statutory SPaG test. The aim of the research has been to evaluate the nature and the extent of changes to the teaching of grammar and to wider literacy teaching since the introduction of SPaG. The research explores teachers’ responses to teaching grammar to a statutory test format, and how teachers have implemented rapid curriculum change in their classrooms. The research explores issues of teacher knowledge, understanding, skill and enjoyment in relation to grammar, at their own level and for teaching pupils. In this research, teachers also discuss their observations of how pupils have responded to explicit grammar teaching and the grammar test. As part of this research we accessed Department for Education data on pupils by gender, ethnicity, language and deprivation in relation to SPaG attainment in 2014, to examine SPaG attainment patterns nationally. The research also analysed SPaG attainment for groups of pupils in four Local Authorities (anonymised as Castlehaven, Longcliffe, Narrowgate and Norchester), specifically in relation to pupils’ ethnicity, languages, deprivation and special educational needs. Main findings: In English primary schools, since the introduction of the statutory SPaG test: • Time spent teaching decontextualized and contextualised grammar has increased significantly; • Grammar is now taught explicitly and formally as a classroom literacy routine; • The grammar test format influences teaching content and approaches; • Teachers observe that pupils enjoy learning grammar and taking the test; • Teachers disagree about the extent to which explicit grammar teaching and testing have a positive impact on pupils’ language and literacy skills; • Teachers feel more confident about teaching grammar. Additional desk-based research indicates: • Ethnic and linguistic minority pupils perform as well as, or better than, white and native English speaking pupils on the SPaG test; • Pupil socioeconomic deprivation is the strongest indicator of low performance on SPaG; • Socioeconomically disadvantaged pupils perform better on SPaG when they are learning in classrooms that are linguistically and ethnically diverse

A DRY MATTER QUALITY APPROACH TO PLANNING FORAGE-BEEF SYSTEMS

Livestock Production/Industries,

Researching collaborative artistic practice.

In this paper we offer discussion of collaboration in artistic practice, based on a two-and-a-half-year-long research project undertaken by artists/researchers at the University of Waikato, working in collaboration with local performers. Grounded in kaupapa M¯ori, feminist and phenomenological research methodologies, this research project provided a context for exploring existing understandings of collaborative processes in the arts, and for immersion in and development of alternative processes, across artistic mediums and cultures. Drawing on contemporary understandings of cross-cultural and intercultural practices in the arts, we discuss how shared conceptualisation of ideas, immersion in different creative processes, personal reflection and development over extended periods of time were found to foster collaboration. In this paper we will explore the value and nature of relationships within collaboration, and discuss how selfdetermination or tino rangatiratanga might be maintained within the context of collaborative performance art

The making of a quinologist: Cinchona, collections, and science in the work of John Eliot Howard (1807-1883)

The subject of this thesis is the career of the quinologist and industrialist, John Eliot Howard (1807-1883), his cinchona bark collections and scientific work. The approach is collections-based, combining archival and object-based research, to understand Howard’s collections assemblages, scientific practices, networks of specimen and knowledge exchange. Howard’s primary collections and archives are in the Economic Botany Collection and Library and Archives of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.Working in his family’s pharmaceutical factory at Stratford, Howard had the financial, technological and cultural resources to develop specialist expertise relating to cinchona and its constituent quinoline alkaloid, helping to develop the discipline of quinology. His career reflects wider historical developments including scientific specialisation, evolution of species and mass pharmaceutical manufacture. Howard’s extensive research led to expert consultation work for the Government’s British-Indian cinchona project, and the family firm becoming Britain’s leading quinine suppliers. Much historical research has been done on cinchona collection in South America and its transplantation in South Asia, less is known about the ways in which these collections and the knowledge they generated were mobilised within Britain. This thesis asks how the work of Howard, located far from the fields of origin or cultivation of cinchona, influenced its use and that of its alkaloids.Chapter 1 of the thesis introduces a historical context for cinchona research. Chapter 2 presents the methods, the archival and collections sources and the results of a meta-analysis for the Kew specimens. Chapter 3 introduces Howard and the development of his family business. Chapter 4 explores his professional development as a cinchona expert and his influence within quinology. Chapter 5 examines Howard ‘in the lab’: his collections and scientific practices. Chapter 6 analyses how Howard developed his scientific interests as he moved ‘out of the lab’ into the garden. Chapter 7 then explores Howard’s circulated works through his books, illustrations, distribution and reception. The final chapter presents conclusions and a view of future research beyond the thesis.<br/

James Shirley, The Dukes Mistris : an old-spelling edition

James Shirley's The Dukes Mistris was licensed in 1 636 and published in 1638. The play has not previously been edited in accordance with modern bibliographical standards; the only available text outside copies of the original Quarto is the modernised edition prepared by William Gi'fford and Alexander Dyce for The Dramatic Works and Poems of 1833. This edition aims to revive critical and dramatic interest in the play itself while establishing a text which will provide a sound basis for scholars and students of Renaissance drama alike. My edition is based on a collation of twenty copies of the 1638 Quarto (at least six of each of the three variant states which exist). All variant readings deriving from press correction are recorded. The original spelling has been retained and punctuation is emended sparingly. All emendations are included in the textual footnotes, and substantive emendations are discussed in the commentary. The commentary includes interpretive comments, glosses, textual notes, dramatic analogues and explanation of contemporary references. The Dukes Mistris, a tragicomedy, was written during a period when Charles I was ruling without Parliament and when prlciosite was flourishing at court. One of the most significant aspects of the play, I believe, is its relevance to the contemporary political and social situation.' The introduction to the edition discusses in some detail the thematic concerns of the play and their context: love and service, the royal prerogative and Platonic love. While the ideas of the play add considerable interest, they are set in a chain of love entanglements which are conventional in tragicomedy. Shirley's dramatic craftsmanship is approached from the perspective of tragicomedy and its conventions since the language, characterisation and structure of the play reflect his skilful blending of tragic and comic modes. The Dukes Mistris makes no profound statements but it is successful tragicomedy and effective theatre. In play-text, introduction and commentary, the staging of the play receives consideration in the hope that this edition will encourage production on the modern stage

Four--Dimensional Metrics Conformal to Kahler

We derive some necessary conditions on a Riemannian metric $(M, g)$ in four dimensions for it to be locally conformal to K\"ahler. If the conformal curvature is non anti--self--dual, the self--dual Weyl spinor must be of algebraic type $D$ and satisfy a simple first order conformally invariant condition which is necessary and sufficient for the existence of a K\"ahler metric in the conformal class. In the anti--self--dual case we establish a one to one correspondence between K\"ahler metrics in the conformal class and non--zero parallel sections of a certain connection on a natural rank ten vector bundle over $M$. We use this characterisation to provide examples of ASD metrics which are not conformal to K\"ahler. We establish a link between the `conformal to K\"ahler condition' in dimension four and the metrisability of projective structures in dimension two. A projective structure on a surface $U$ is metrisable if and only if the induced (2, 2) conformal structure on $M=TU$ admits a K\"ahler metric or a para-K\"ahler metric.Comment: A new example added. Final version, to appear in Mathematical Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Societ