Something for Everyone

A round up of various bits and pieces which have been published during February:

• Improving the Outcomes for Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Pupils: Literature Review is a new research report commissioned by the DCSF, and should be of interest to any of those students who have enquired about this topic in the past.
• Also new from the DCSF is an investigation into the impact of the government's programme of Extended Flexible Entitlement for Three- and Four Year Olds.
• Families Information Services: Evaluation of Services Provided looks at how local authorities have been implementing Family Information Services (FIS), which were established in April of last year.
• The latest Sure Start Children’s Centres: Survey of Parents has just been published.
• Those of you who work with ICT in schools will be interested in Safeguarding Children Online: How E-Safe are your School and Your Learners, a leaflet from Becta outlining e-safety issues and management strategies.
• Those of you with enquiries about School Parent Partnership should take a look at School-Parent Partnerships: a Short Guide; this has been published by the Family and Parenting Institute, and contains advice for both education professionals and parents, as well as suggestions for further sources of information.
  

Behaviour Review

Since December 2007 Sir Alan Steer has been carrying out a review of school discipline and pupil behaviour. While this is still ongoing, a new interim report from the project explores the links between school policies, behavioural standards and school behaviour and attendance partnerships.

The report ties on closely with the latest set of official statistics on pupil absence, which have been published today. You can access these here.

Future Care

A new publication from the the Children's Rights Director for England reports on feedback from looked after children, and their views on how services for those in care should be shaped in the future. This is linked to the Children and Young Persons Act which was established last year, although guidance on how to interpret it has not yet been published, and it is hoped that this new report will aid that process.

For a full text version of Future Care, just click here. A simple summary of the children's recommendations is also available.

Children & Young People Blogs

The stats from this blog indicate that there are a number of regular readers of this blog which is pleasing to know. However, if you've got time to read more than one blog on a regular basis, then you could do worse than take a look at the collection of blogs which have recently been launched by Children & Young People magazine.

The thinking behind the blogs is to allow the editors and writers to step outside of their usual coverage and continue to write about new developments in the sector, but with a slightly more informal or personal take on events. If you don't want to visit the site on a regular basis, remember that you can subscribe to the blogs via RSS so that the information comes to you - this previous post helps to explain how.

Crime & Public Perceptions

An interesting new report from the National Foundation of Educational Research examines attitudes towards young people as a result of media coverage. Young People, Crime and Public Perceptions: a Review of the Literature looks at statistics on youth crime in recent years, and how perceptions of young people are (or aren't) linked to such trends, given the sometimes sensationalist coverage of exceptional stories in some news outlets. A summary version of the report is also available.

A similar study on young people and the media was published last month by the National Children's Bureau - take a look at this previous post for the details.

Towards a New Primary Curriculum

No doubt about the biggest education story today: the Primary Review (see this previous post for details) has published a two-part report on the curriculum. Although the Primary Review's final report is not due until later in the year, it is releasing its finding ons the curriculum early to contribute to the debate around Sir Jim Rose's 'official' curriculum review which is also due shortly.

Today's report has made headlines because of its conclusion that there is currently too much emphasis on literacy, numeracy and testing, at the expense of other subjects. A 4 page briefing outlining the report's context and findings is available here, while the report itself is divided into two sections. Part 1 identifies issues within the current curriculum provision and sets them into context, while Part 2 summarises this information and sets out proposals for reform. Further press reaction is available here.

Ending Child Poverty

Child poverty was in the headlines yet again yesterday, with most news outlets picking up on the story that the government is struggling to meet its 1999 target of halving child poverty by 2010.

The latest crop of stories have been generated by a study commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF), which investigates the impact that current policies are projected to have on child poverty by 2010 and 2020. The full (and somewhat technical!) data behind the report is available and is entitled Micro-Simulating Child Poverty in 2010 and 2020; if graphs and charts aren't your thing, then take a look at Ending Child Poverty in a Changing Economy, the JRF's summary of the study's findings and conclusions.

For further reading, take a look at the JRF's child poverty site, which gathers together their many publications on this subject in recent years. You can also click on the 'Child Poverty' link in the 'Hot Topics' area in the right sidebar of this screen, which will bring up all of the relevant posts from the blog's archive.

Summer-Born Babies

A new report from Cambridge Assessment, one of the UK's exam boards, has presented evidence that appears to question the government's plans for children to start their schooling aged four. The report, entitled Birthdate Effects: A Review of the Literature from 1990-on, argues that summer-born children are already at a disadvantage when they begin their education, and that lowering the school starting age could exacerbate this issue by causing unnecessary stress and anxiety.

If you'd like some further reading on this topic, try looking at School Starting Age: European Policy and Recent Research, a 2002 conference paper from the NFER.

Truancy

Yesterday it was reported that on average a parent is jailed every two weeks because of their child's truancy. Further information on this area is available from this BBC story, which looks at the impact that such measures can have on families.

If you have an interest in truancy, then you should really pay a visit to the DSCF's School Attendance website; the site contains guidance for staff, information on the national strategy, links to research in this area, and other resources. You may also want to look at Improving School Attendance in England, a National Audit Office report from 2005.

Video Games are Good for Children?!

The media is often full of stories about the detrimental effect of video games on children's development, so it's interesting to hear about a new report which takes the opposite view. The European Parliament Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection has just published a new report which claims that computer games are good for children and teach them essential life skills. The full document doesn't appear to be online, though you can read the official press release summarising its findings by clicking here.

Nurseries or Grandparents?

A new piece of research from the Institute of Education has looked at children whose mothers return to full-time work, leaving them either in the care of grandparents or a nursery. The study concludes that while grandparents can do more to develop a young child's vocabulary, they are less likely to provide the range of other experiences (educational and social) which a young child needs.

The full report of the study appears in the latest issue of Journal of Social Policy, which is available in the library at Summer Row. Readers may also be interested in the two articles below, which give differing perspectives on this issue:
Using grandparents as childcare
Using a nursery as childcare

The Jamie Oliver Effect

It seems that the 'Jamie Oliver Effect' shows no signs of abating. Following on from his TV series on improving school dinners and the subsequent 'Feed Me Better' campaign, the Institute for Social and Economic Research at Essex University has now published Healthy School Meals and Educational Outcomes, a report which examines Key Stage 2 outcomes before and after the reforms introduced by Oliver's campaign. The study concludes that healthy school meals have indeed had a positive impact on educational outcomes.

For further reading on the same topic, try looking at The Link Between Child Nutrition and Health: an Overview of Research in the UK, which was published in August of last year. The websites of the School Food Trust and the British Nutrition Foundation are also useful sources of information.

EPPI-Centre

The Evidence for Policy and Practice Information and Co-Ordinating Centre (aka the wonderfully named EPPI-Centre) is based at the University of London, and produces systematic reviews of topics across the social sciences, although the Centre seems to focus predominantly on education. There are dozens of these reports now available, and as well as being great sources of information in themselves, their reference lists are also worth scanning for ideas for further reading. A list of all the published reports is available by clicking here.

The Good Childhood Inquiry

If you've been reading the papers this week, you've probably noticed the string of stories about modern children's lives in the UK, culminating today in the publication of A Good Childhood: Searching for Values in a Competitive Age, which is the final report from the Good Childhood Inquiry.

The inquiry began its work in September 2006, after being commissioned by The Children's Society. Its brief was to provide an understanding of the lives of children in the UK today, by collecting evidence from children, parents and professionals on subjects such as family, friends, education, and mental health. Although the full version of the final report does not appear to be online (copies will appear in the library shortly), following the first link in this post will take you to the project's website, which provides dozens of documents containing information about the inquiry's methodology, the evidence gathered, and the recommendations that the report contains.

Already, the Inquiry's conclusions have generated a lot of new stories and opinion columns, with some writers supporting the Report's stance while others are fiercely critical. Putting links to all of the relevant news coverage would take up too much space, but here is a flavour of some of the stories that have been published:

• We Blame the Parents - BBC Blog discussing the report
• Look Beyond Number One - Article from report's co-author, calling for schools to take on a different role in teaching children about respect
• Children Paying Price for Adults' Pursuit of Success - Guardian news story
• The Childhood Report Lacks Insight - critical analysis of the Good Childhood Inquiry
• Are our Children Really in Crisis, or the Victims of Parents' Anxiety? - detailed story ahead of the report's publication from the Observer

Migrant Communities in Birmingham

A local flavour to today's post: the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has just published Empowering
Birmingham’s Migrant and Refugee Community Organisations, a 42 page report which explores how best to offer support to migrant communities with a view to influencing local policy and service provision. The barriers to success in this area are explored, and recommendations made for future initiatives.