ABSTRACTBackground: Changes in England’s education policy have increased the autonomy of schools, thus substantially altering the nature of the role played by local government. Concurrently, a sharp rise in referrals to children’s social care services, together with budgetary pressures, have led local authorities to seek to manage demand by emphasising the role of other agencies in providing early help to children and families.Purpose: This article focuses on schools’ engagement with safeguarding and child protection from the perspective of senior education and children’s social care professionals employed within local authorities. It considers the effect of policy developments on the relationship between local authorities and schools in meeting their statutory duties to identify and support vulnerable children and families (safeguarding) and intervening in those considered to be at risk of significant harm (child protection). This research was undertaken as the preliminary stage of a study investigating schools’ decision-making in child protection, their engagement in multi-agency working and the support available to schools.Methods: Scoping interviews were conducted with 68 professionals working in children’s social care or education services in 20 local authorities across England that varied in terms of geographical location and socio-economic diversity. Interview transcripts were analysed qualitatively, using a two-phase process. The analysis included the identification of a thematic framework, mapping and interpretation.Findings: In-depth analysis of the rich interview data allowed exploration of the participants’ perspectives, which elucidate and give insight into some of the emerging pressures that are challenging schools and local authorities, as well as the agencies supporting them. Key factors identified were: increasing school autonomy; the upward trend in the rate of referral to children’s social care services and rising thresholds for accessing those services; and the availability and nature of ‘early help’ for children not meeting the threshold for social care intervention.Conclusions: Pending later data gathered through surveys and directly from schools, the findings from this preliminary study suggest that local authorities face new challenges in working with a fragmented educational community: while their statutory responsibilities remain, the channels by which they are carried out have been severely weakened.

ABSTRACTBackground: To help equip students with 21st century competencies, one popular strategy adopted by governments and schools worldwide is to move from less formal to more engaging school environments through School-Based Curriculum Development (SBCD). In Singapore, the governmental call to Teach Less and Learn More has galvanised SBCD in schools nationwide. Schools have been given more autonomy and greater flexibility to develop diverse approaches in innovating their own curriculum frameworks.Purpose: This study aims to provide a nuanced, retrospective account of the enactment of SBCD via Information and Communication Technology (ICT)-integrated, theme-based programmes in a primary school in Singapore. The research questions that guide this study are: (1) How do the school stakeholders enact SBCD? (2) How does the enactment affect the school stakeholders?Method: This study looked into curriculum innovation using a retrospective lens and employed a case study approach to examine the enactment of SBCD in the school. Five focus group discussions (FGDs) were conducted with the major stakeholders of the school, including two school leaders, ten key personnel and ten teachers across different subjects and grade levels. Thematic analysis of the data was undertaken.Findings: Four themes and twelve associated sub-themes were identified from the analysis of the FGDs. The four themes include experimentation, support, growth and challenges. This whole-school approach to curriculum innovation had a clear focus on mobilizing the school community to tackle the uncertainties of implementing an innovative curriculum. The stakeholders played diverse but intertwined roles throughout different stages of the enactment process, producing strong collegiality amongst the stakeholders. This prevailing collegiality, as embedded in the active participation of the stakeholders in a multiplicity of collective sharing and learning practices, seems likely to help the school achieved desired outcomes.Conclusions: The whole-school approach to curriculum innovation in the case school is promising from the perspectives of teaching-learning and student outcomes, but cannot provide a panacea for all the challenges encountered in the enactment process.

ABSTRACTBackground: The development of a set of questions is a central element of examination development, with the validity of an examination resting to a large extent on the quality of the questions that it comprises. This paper reports on the methods and findings of a project that explores how educational examination question writers engage in the practice of question setting. Although the practice of examination question writing is ubiquitous, limited research has been carried out on how writers actually draft individual examination questions when writing complete examination papers.Purpose: The main aim of this study was to understand more deeply the process of examination question writing.Sample: The study involved 12 experienced educational examination question writers.Design and methods: The first data collection phase involved observing writers whilst they wrote the first draft of a question paper (using a ‘think aloud’ process). Following the observation, the writers took part in an hour-long interview. This led to the construction of a model of question writing. Phase 2 of the data collection process involved validating the proposed question writing model with six additional question writers by means of telephone interviews.Analysis and findings: A model was developed that outlined the key stages of writing that all of the writers moved through in the completion of their question writing task. The question writing model situates the process of writing individual questions in relation to the broader cognitive tasks required in writing a complete paper. It also situates the writing process within the social dimensions of question writing.Conclusions: Iteration in the writing process appears to have an important function. These iterations represent a form of decision-making that is common to the examination question writing culture and appears to be logical and rule bound. Whilst the recognition of iterative behaviour reveals a highly personalised element of question writing, it also reveals a common expectation that the ideas across a subject area are highly inter-related, and that an examination paper should reflect this.

***Call for Papers Extension: Submit by 30 June 2020***Guest Editor: Liz Twist, National Foundation for Educational Research, UKThe 2009 special issue of Educational Research focused on national cu...

ABSTRACTBackground: Across recent school and policy documentation, the priority afforded to the holistic development of the student is increasingly evident: that is, the moral, social and emotional development of the student. However, it remains unclear as to where these outcomes are realised within the multidimensional role of the teacher and the busy environment of the school.Purpose: This article explores teachers’ views on the concept of holistic development.Methods: Semi-structured interviews (n = 43) were carried out, and surveys (n = 126) were administered to school personnel in 18 schools in Ireland. Interview data were analysed qualitatively, using inductive thematic analysis. Descriptive statistics were produced from the survey data.Findings: The findings from the analysis indicate the prioritisation bestowed on holistic development by those surveyed and interviewed, with a focus on students being valued and cared for, developing life skills and feeling happy. However, a tension presents itself through the data in terms of how the prioritisation of the holistic development of the student is achieved in the school environment: that is, via the prescribed curriculum or as a result of the ‘goodwill’ of the teacher.Conclusion: While curricular and policy documentation acknowledge the centrality of both the business of academic work and the business of holistic development in the work of the teacher, findings from this study suggest that the holistic development of the student occurs in extra and co-curricular settings and is largely dependent on the ‘goodwill’ of the teacher.

ABSTRACTBackground: An emerging field of research indicates that the use of learning environments other than the classroom can improve pupils’ academic achievement in several subjects, including their skills in mathematics.Purpose: The aim of this study was to investigate the association between Education Outside the Classroom (EOtC) and pupils’ skills in mathematics.Methods: This explorative, quasi-experimental study involved schoolchildren (aged 9–13 years) from 15 Danish public schools who participated in EOtC over the course of a school year. The mathematical skills of pupils from 23 EOtC maths intervention classes (n=421) and 12 EOtC non-maths comparison classes (n=198) were measured at the start and end of the 2014–2015 school year.Results: Both groups showed improved maths skills; however, we found no significant difference between the EOtC maths and the comparison groups.Conclusion: The results indicate that, in this explorative study, moving maths teaching outside the classroom neither harmed nor improved pupils’ mathematical skills. These results and implications for research are discussed.