On the 11th of March 2020, the World Health Organisation declared a global pandemic due to the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, later defined as COVID-19 (WHO, 2021). The pandemic disrupted many aspects of society but greatly impacted how primary school children were educated, with many children needing to learn from home (Chattopadhyay et al., 2022). This study aimed to examine the impact on children in UK primary schools from the perspective of school staff. As previous research often focussed on children, parents, teachers and headteachers, this study aimed at gaining the opinions and viewpoints of all staff working at primary schools, including lunchtime supervisors and administrative managers. To achieve this, an electronic questionnaire was circulated through emails sent directly to schools and distributed online through closed social media groups. The data from this research comes from ninety-three participants and found that children’s personal, social, and emotional development had been most impacted …
The experiences and perceptions of teachers working with primary school students with autism in Lagos State, Nigeria, were investigated in this dissertation. This study fills the literature gap by exploring the challenges, opportunities, attitudes, knowledge, and strategies teachers employ to support the unique learning needs of children with autism, serving as a much-needed response to the evolving global educational landscape for students with autism. The research employed a mixed methods design, where primary school teachers in Lagos were the research participants. Thirty-one participants answered the Google Form, and 5 participants presented for the semi-structured interviews on ZOOM. The quantitative and qualitative results of this research underscore the intricate nature of working with students with autism, reiterating the importance of continuous professional development and readily available resources to improve the quality of education and the overall well-being of children with autism in Nigeria.Th…
The present qualitative study was focused on educational staff in a Swiss Special School setting and aimed to investigate their understanding of the Nurture Approach and attunement, the effectiveness of training in attunement and the impact of this training on their practice. The study followed staff pre and post training over a total period of 9 months. Data from focus group discussions, questionnaires and participant observations were collected. The tools and guidelines by Education Scotland (2023) were recognized as helpful strategies by educational staff. The results of the Adult Temperament Questionnaire (ATQ) and the Neuroception of Psychological Security Scale (NPSS) suggested an increase in self-awareness of staff for their behaviour and for their environment following the training. The participant observations and the statements pronounced by participants in the focus group discussions revealed discordances. This demonstrates the importance for including data from the natural environment…
Introduction There is a long tradition of school uniform within the UK, yet the topic receives relatively little attention in UK-based research, particularly compared with other parts of the world. In my experiences within FE, I have encountered a prevailing narrative that uniform benefits students’ academic and vocational successes, yet I have not seen robust evidence to support this; whilst some studies explore such correlations, few – perhaps none – are situated within FE; yet this research setting has witnessed diminishing numbers of students adhering to uniform policy, against a backdrop of socioeconomic disruption caused at least in part by Covid-19. Accordingly, this research aims to explore purpose and effects of uniform in FE, with a view to informing future policy design within the setting. Participants and Methods The research was set in a large FE college in South-East England. Following an extensive literature review, which provides both justification and direction for the research, a particular…
The international COVID-19 pandemic produced three national lockdowns in England between 2020 and 2021, two of which involved unprecedented periods of school closures. Widespread school closure is an unheard-of phenomenon in the English school system, resulting in challenges to leadership not previously encountered. Due to the unprecedented nature of the circumstances, leadership research in this context is non-existent in the English school system. This research, which explores leadership in a rural primary school, also addresses another gap in the research literature: rural schools, which are underrepresented in both research and policy in recent history. This interpretative case study investigates one headteacher’s leadership style, role and priorities before, during and after lockdown. The headteacher was interviewed and their Senior Leadership Team completed a questionnaire. The results of both were analysed and comparisons between the three periods were drawn. Research findings illustrate that leade…
This interpretivist case study approach shines light on how Reception teachers can support the development of young children’s writing, a topic that can be complex for teachers within the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS). The aim of this study was a reflection of practice within the teacher-researchers own classroom. This research is beneficial to provide further guidance to develop practice, as well as a tool to explore areas of supporting the development of young children’s writing abilities. Six children from a single Reception class in a primary school were observed during three different role play spaces; a home corner, a vets and a cafe. The main source of data for this research came from observations of the children’s play. Photographs of children’s work were also collected in order to show the impact of this research. A reflective log was used alongside the observations and samples of work to record specific incidences throughout the research. These data collection methods allowed for a triangulati…
This research study addressed mainstream primary teachers' knowledge, understanding and beliefs on inclusive practice. The initial problem was understanding why teachers feel so poorly equipped with the ability to teach children with SEND and embrace an inclusive approach for all learners. To achieve this, we had to look at their beliefs and values on inclusion and identify what training needs arose from them. The data revealed confusion between SEND and inclusion. The research used key readings and tools already in place and tried and tested in the education sector, such as Learning without Limits (Hart et al. 2012) and Universal Design for Living (Carrington et al., 2020), The inclusive practice project in Scotland (Rouse and Florian, 2009), Knowing, Doing and believing (Rouse, 2006)
While feedback is widely acknowledged to be a particularly powerful influence on student learning, there is also robust evidence that students do not always perceive it as useful or even respond to it. Similarly, although it is recognised that feedback is only effective if it is acted on, the whole topic of student engagement with feedback is complex and still remains both relatively under-represented and lacking clear definition in the literature. Consequently, Ellis (2010) proposed a tripartite model involving specific variables to allow a more systematic investigation of student engagement with corrective feedback. Accordingly, informed by this framework and using a naturalistic mixed-methods Action Research paradigm, the current study contributes to this generally under-researched area by primarily investigating cognitive, behavioural and affective engagement of university Foundation-level students with written formative feedback. In particular, it explores their main challenges when implementing it by ex…
These are many kinds of Learning Disabilities. Dyslexia is one of them and also affects children the most and about 5%-15% of people are diagnosed with dyslexia to varying degrees. These Learning Disabilities are now being developed further in China, but are still unknown to the general public. This means that not many teachers and schools will have targeted intervention and help for those children who have dyslexia. But for other countries, there has been a history of studying dyslexia and understanding and designing different types of effective school/classroom interventions. This systematic review locates, evaluates, and summarizes empirical research published in peer-reviewed journals from 1970 to 2022 on classroom interventions for dyslexia. The purpose of the review was to investigate the effectiveness of different interventions for dyslexia. A search of 9 different electronic databases in August 2022 resulted in 9 articles meeting the review inclusion criteria. A narrative synthesis of the findings…
Study Focus There is substantial existing research about reluctant and dyslexic readers showing that presenting reading material with increased spacing between each letter (expanding the tracking) compared to the default, facilitates more accessible reading. Also specialised fonts have been designed to facilitate reading by dyslexics. Much of this research, however, has been undertaken with adolescents and adults, or in other languages which may bear more phonetic correspondence than English. Additionally, there is existing neurological-based evidence that interventions to facilitate reading are more effective in younger children. This has informed the purpose of this research to focus on whether young, struggling learners of English may benefit from the same. Research Design and Findings A feasibility study was conducted to determine whether there was sufficient merit to undertake a fully generalizable research project post MA. Twelve volunteers, aged 7-9, participated in a standardised reading task in…