If we are to improve outcomes, one of the things we need to do is move away from the notion of 'labelling' children and their families. Rather, we need to focus on the needs of such pupils, never forgetting their greatest need is relentlessly high expectations and great teaching. As fragmentation of LAs continues, the need for authoritative, evidence-based guidance and signposting has grown. This book does not provide an exhaustive list of all the challenges that might arise, but it has a good go. Including chapters by Simon Knight; Loic Menzies; Bernard Trafford; Jarlath O'Brien; Mary Myatt; David Bartram; David Weston – and many others.
The genesis for this book, and the strategy within it, is a longstanding commitment from Essex County Council to improve the life chances and life choices of disadvantaged pupils being educated in Essex. The purpose of the book is to set out a strategic, evidence-informed approach with pupils, families, teachers, leaders, system leaders and wider agencies which puts learners first. This approach is rooted in best practice. It centres on improving the day to day learning experiences of disadvantaged pupils, leading to better long term choice and opportunity. Unity Research School and Essex County Council hope it will support efforts to address the impact of socio-economic disadvantage on learning in schools and colleges nationally.
Against the backdrop of Covid-19, this edited volume will utilize a gendered lens to explore the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with a clear focus on challenging the omission of sexuality in relation to the SDGs as well as analyzing the ways in which the SDGs are also equally relevant for Western countries. While acknowledging the importance of these goals, contributors unpack the exclusion of marginalized genders and sexualities as well as how popular media and social media contribute to the wider understanding of issues of gender and sexuality and the SDGs. This volume also dispels assumptions about the irrelevance of SDGs to countries in the West, with a particular focus on the UK. Chapters examine a variety of topics including: HIV/AIDS, sex work, global migration, climate change and environmental sustainability, poverty, education, and sexual harassment. This collection will be of interest to scholars, researchers, and students across Sociology, Gender & Sexuality Studies, Education, Development Studies and Sustainability Studies.
The genesis for this book, and the strategy within it, is a longstanding commitment from Essex County Council to improve the life chances and life choices of disadvantaged pupils being educated in Essex. The purpose of the book is to set out a strategic, evidence-informed approach with pupils, families, teachers, leaders, system leaders and wider agencies which puts learners first. This approach is rooted in best practice. It centres on improving the day to day learning experiences of disadvantaged pupils, leading to better long term choice and opportunity. Unity Research School and Essex County Council hope it will support efforts to address the impact of socio-economic disadvantage on learning in schools and colleges nationally.
Fully updated with the 2015 policy updates from the Department for Education and published in partnership with the National Education Trust, this book provides essential information and advice to help schools make best use of the Pupil Premium grant and improve outcomes for disadvantaged learners. The author is a recognised national expert on the Pupil Premium. He has visited more than 200 schools and has spoken with over 1000 school leaders and here he shares examples of innovation and excellence in their use of the additional funding. Featuring a foreword by Sir John Dunford, DfE Pupil Premium Champion.
Children are already learning at birth, and they develop and learn at a rapid pace in their early years. This provides a critical foundation for lifelong progress, and the adults who provide for the care and the education of young children bear a great responsibility for their health, development, and learning. Despite the fact that they share the same objective - to nurture young children and secure their future success - the various practitioners who contribute to the care and the education of children from birth through age 8 are not acknowledged as a workforce unified by the common knowledge and competencies needed to do their jobs well. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 explores the science of child development, particularly looking at implications for the professionals who work with children. This report examines the current capacities and practices of the workforce, the settings in which they work, the policies and infrastructure that set qualifications and provide professional learning, and the government agencies and other funders who support and oversee these systems. This book then makes recommendations to improve the quality of professional practice and the practice environment for care and education professionals. These detailed recommendations create a blueprint for action that builds on a unifying foundation of child development and early learning, shared knowledge and competencies for care and education professionals, and principles for effective professional learning. Young children thrive and learn best when they have secure, positive relationships with adults who are knowledgeable about how to support their development and learning and are responsive to their individual progress. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 offers guidance on system changes to improve the quality of professional practice, specific actions to improve professional learning systems and workforce development, and research to continue to build the knowledge base in ways that will directly advance and inform future actions. The recommendations of this book provide an opportunity to improve the quality of the care and the education that children receive, and ultimately improve outcomes for children.
The attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers is one of the most insidious social injustices in the developed world. It is a significant factor in the growing inequality of our societies and persists across time and nations. For this reason, narrowing the gap is a top priority for governments and policymakers, and an issue that all schools must tackle. Written by a leading expert in the field of inclusion, Narrowing the Attainment Gap is designed to support school leaders in understanding and reducing the attainment gap in the context of their setting. Drawing on research and his own extensive experience in leading a team that has worked with over 1,000 schools, Daniel Sobel examines the real issues behind the attainment gap and the barriers schools face when trying to narrow it. The book provides a unique approach with hands-on, practical guidance to enable every school leader to develop their own bespoke solutions to meet the needs of their community. Case studies and examples illustrate how these interventions can be put into practice and the impact they can have, while template resources help schools demonstrate to stakeholders the change they are driving at an individual, cohort and whole-school level.
Reaching the Unseen Children provides a powerful and accessible resource for schools working to raise the attainment of all disadvantaged pupils, with particular emphasis on white children from low-income backgrounds. This group – especially boys – consistently on average underperform in the education system, and the effects of COVID-19 will only have widened the gap. Drawing on her long experience of working with disadvantaged and left-behind communities, Jean Gross describes the path that many children take, from early language delays to persistent literacy and numeracy difficulties, which lead to progressive disengagement from learning. She argues that progress will only be made through early intervention and building pupils’ sense of capability, and sets out low-cost, low-effort ways in which teachers can transform outcomes for their students – through the everyday language they use, the expectations they convey, and the relationships they build with pupils and their parents. Providing practical, evidence-based strategies and case studies of schools with outstanding practice, this an essential guide for anyone working in education who is seeking equity for all their pupils.
Decades of research have demonstrated that the parent-child dyad and the environment of the familyâ€"which includes all primary caregiversâ€"are at the foundation of children's well- being and healthy development. From birth, children are learning and rely on parents and the other caregivers in their lives to protect and care for them. The impact of parents may never be greater than during the earliest years of life, when a child's brain is rapidly developing and when nearly all of her or his experiences are created and shaped by parents and the family environment. Parents help children build and refine their knowledge and skills, charting a trajectory for their health and well-being during childhood and beyond. The experience of parenting also impacts parents themselves. For instance, parenting can enrich and give focus to parents' lives; generate stress or calm; and create any number of emotions, including feelings of happiness, sadness, fulfillment, and anger. Parenting of young children today takes place in the context of significant ongoing developments. These include: a rapidly growing body of science on early childhood, increases in funding for programs and services for families, changing demographics of the U.S. population, and greater diversity of family structure. Additionally, parenting is increasingly being shaped by technology and increased access to information about parenting. Parenting Matters identifies parenting knowledge, attitudes, and practices associated with positive developmental outcomes in children ages 0-8; universal/preventive and targeted strategies used in a variety of settings that have been effective with parents of young children and that support the identified knowledge, attitudes, and practices; and barriers to and facilitators for parents' use of practices that lead to healthy child outcomes as well as their participation in effective programs and services. This report makes recommendations directed at an array of stakeholders, for promoting the wide-scale adoption of effective programs and services for parents and on areas that warrant further research to inform policy and practice. It is meant to serve as a roadmap for the future of parenting policy, research, and practice in the United States.
