Unique in its field, the Encyclopedia of Primary Education brings together a wide-ranging body of information relating to current educational practice in a single indispensable volume. This book provides a series of descriptions, definitions and explanations that engage with important practical and conceptual ideas in primary education and contains over 500 entries incorporating: Curriculum subjects, themes and topics Theories, policies and educational controversies Pedagogical terms relating to teaching and learning Commentaries on current issues in primary education Influential figures in education, both past and present The impact of educational research on policy and practice Based on the author’s extensive experience in primary education, entries combine an interrogation of educational concepts with the pedagogical and practical implications for classroom practice, children’s learning and school management. This handy reference work will be invaluable to anyone currently teaching or training to teach at primary level, teaching assistants, school governors and parents. In fact it is essential reading for anyone with an interest and passion for primary education.
This open access book presents a discussion on human rights-based attributes for each article pertinent to the substantive rights of children, as defined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). It provides the reader with a unique and clear overview of the scope and core content of the articles, together with an analysis of the latest jurisprudence of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. For each article of the UNCRC, the authors explore the nature and scope of corresponding State obligations, and identify the main features that need to be taken into consideration when assessing a State’s progressive implementation of the UNCRC. This analysis considers which aspects of a given right are most important to track, in order to monitor States' implementation of any given right, and whether there is any resultant change in the lives of children. This approach transforms the narrative of legal international standards concerning a given right into a set of characteristics that ensure no aspect of said right is overlooked. The book develops a clear and comprehensive understanding of the UNCRC that can be used as an introduction to the rights and principles it contains, and to identify directions for future policy and strategy development in compliance with the UNCRC. As such, it offers an invaluable reference guide for researchers and students in the field of childhood and children’s rights studies, as well as a wide range of professionals and organisations concerned with the subject.
The Cambridge Primary Review Research Surveys is the outcome of the Cambridge Primary Review – England’s biggest enquiry into primary education for over forty years. Fully independent of government, it was launched in 2006 to investigate the condition and future of primary education at a time of change and uncertainty and after two decades of almost uninterrupted reform. Ranging over ten broad themes and drawing on a vast array of evidence, the Review published thiry-one interim reports, including twenty-eight surveys of published research, provoking media headlines and public debate, before presenting its final report and recommendations. This book brings together the twenty-eight research surveys, specially commissioned from sixty-five leading academics in the areas under scrutiny and now revised and updated, to create what is probably the most comprehensive overview and evaluation of research in primary education yet published. A particular feature is the prominence given to international and comparative perspectives. With an introduction from Robin Alexander, the Review’s director, the book is divided into eight sections, covering: children’s lives and voices: school, home and community children’s development, learning, diversity and needs aims, values and contexts for primary education the structure and content of primary education outcomes, standards and assessment in primary education teaching in primary schools: structures and processes teaching in primary schools: training, development and workforce reform policy frameworks: governance, funding, reform and quality assurance. The Cambridge Primary Review Research Surveys is an essential reference tool for professionals, researchers, students and policy-makers working in the fields of early years, primary and secondary education.
The professional code of the General Teaching Council lists eight new standards, each of them analysed here in detail using questions and activities to describe what trainee teachers need to know, understand and demonstrate as they work towards Qualified Teacher Status. Each of the eight standards cover the following issues: expectations, diversity and achievement personal and professional values values in the classroom values, rights and responsibilities in the wider community the community of the school professional relationships personal and professional development professional responsibility. This practical and jargon-free guide features an extensive range of examples and suggestions for further reading, designed to help those in their early professional development.
Global Perspectives on Value Education in Primary School is a comprehensive book edited by a renowned philosophy scholar from Kastamonu University Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. In this book, readers will find a comprehensive account of how value education can be effectively delivered in primary schools worldwide. It presents an extensive collection of case studies and examples of values education from different countries and cultures and examines the criteria for selecting and differentiating values that are suitable for primary school level, and the methods and approaches for effectively teaching those values. By comparing different approaches and experiences, the book provides valuable insights into the challenges and opportunities for value education in primary schools. This book is highly recommended for anyone interested in values education, including academic scholars, researchers, teachers, university students, and parents. With its rich and diverse range of perspectives and examples, it provides a compelling argument for the importance of values education in our time. Its persuasive problem and solution approach makes Global Perspectives on Value Education in Primary School an essential addition to the literature on education and philosophy.
"This is a timely book, enabling teachers to reflect critically upon their existing work-place practices, which have been so powerfully shaped by the target culture and the logic of performativity that has underpinned it for two decades. More importantly it will empower primary school teachers to play a more active role in effecting curriculum and pedagogical change in their schools and classrooms."Professor John Elliot, School of Education, University of East Anglia, UK This book encourages the reader to question the existing culture of schooling and its practices, which have been shaped and dominated by a target led and outcomes driven agenda. The book draws attention to some of the conflicts that arise in the demand for performance on the one hand and teachers' responsiveness to children and their learning on the other. Sue Cox sets out to show how change might be based on clear understandings of how children learn and how teachers contribute to that learning. She does this by providing frameworks for change and shows how, from these perspectives, participation is key to children's education, both as an account of their learning and as a democratic principle. She explores the potential for transformation in teachers working collaboratively with children in areas such as interaction, curriculum and assessment. An underlying aim of the book is to provide the tools for teachers to develop a principled approach to what they do and how they think in order to challenge, and to re-construct entrenched practices and thinking. This book provides thoughtful reading and promotes reflective thinking for primary teachers and teachers in training, offering insights into new ways of approaching and developing primary education. Sue Cox is Senior Lecturer for The School of Education and Lifelong Learning at the University of East Anglia, UK.
A national system of education cannot function without policy. But the path to practice is seldom smooth, especially when ideology overrules evidence or when ministers seek to micromanage what is best left to teachers. And once the media join the fray the mixture becomes downright combustible. Drawing on his long experience as teacher, researcher, government adviser, campaigner and international consultant, and on over 600 published sources, Robin Alexander expertly illustrates and illuminates these processes. This selection from his recent writing, some hitherto unpublished, opens windows onto cases and issues that concern every teacher. Part 1 tackles system-level reform. It revisits the Cambridge Primary Review, an evidence-rich enquiry into the condition and future of primary education in England, which challenged the UK government’s policies on curriculum, testing, standards and more besides. Here the reform narratives and strategies of successive governments are confronted and dissected. Part 2 follows the development of England’s current National Curriculum, exposing its narrow vision and questionable use of evidence and offering a more generous aims-driven alternative. This section also investigates the expertise and leadership needed if children are to experience a curriculum of the highest quality in all its aspects. Part 3 reaches the heart of the matter: securing the place in effective pedagogy of well-founded classroom talk, a mission repeatedly frustrated by political intervention. The centrepiece is dialogic teaching, a proven tool for advancing students’ speaking, thinking, learning and arguing, and an essential response to the corrosion of democracy and the nihilism of ‘post-truth’. Part 4 goes global. It investigates governments’ PISA-fuelled flirtations with what they think can be adapted or copied from education elsewhere, examines the benefits and pitfalls of international comparison, and ends with the ultimate policy initiative: the United Nations mission to ensure ‘inclusive and equitable quality education’ for all the world’s children. Education in Spite of Policy is for all those teachers, students, school leaders and researchers who value the conversation of policy, evidence and practice, and who wish to explore the parts of education that policy cannot reach.