Independent Review of the Primary Curriculum

No doubt about the big childhood and education story for this post; today sees the publication of Sir Jim Rose's final report on the primary Curriculum, which the DCSF commissioned back in January 2008. The report details a review of the existing Curriculum currently used by primary schools, and contains recommendations for how teaching should be delivered in the future.

Press coverage so far has highlighted two themes to emerge from the review; the first is that the Curriculum itself may be slimmed down to enable teachers to have more freedom in selecting lessons, while there is also to be an increased emphasis on using technology.

The final report is available online now. Follow this link which will take you to a page where you can download the final review, as well as a host of supporting documents including an executive summary.

How do you Use the Web?

We are currently carrying out a survey within the library to find out what internet applications students within the College are using. The purpose of gathering this information is to get a picture of our users online browsing habits, with a view to developing new services which students will find relevant and easy to use.

If you'd like to help us with this, you can pick up a copy of our questionnaire from the subject librarian's office; alternatively you can download a copy from this link. There are only 18 'tick box' questions so it should take no longer than 2 minutes to complete. Answers will be kept anonymous unless you would be interested in helping us further, in which case there is a space at the end of the document for you to enter your email address. When you have completed the survey, it should be returned to the subject librarian's office.

Thank you!

The Children's Plan - How's It Going?

It's a quiet news day so today's post points you towards a site which is following the progress of the Children's Plan.

Launched in December 2007 (see previous post for details), the Children's Plan was designed to shape children's services for the next decade. This mini-site, developed by the people behind Children & Young People Now, brings together news stories and opinion pieces relating to the Plan, and will continue to be updated as relevant information becomes available.

Education in England

A tip today to help those students who make enquiries about historical attitudes to education or childcare. While the library has a number of books that are useful for this topic, you should also have a look at Education in England. This is a website which has been put together by a retired headmaster named Derek Gillard, and provides access to the full text of a growing number of historically important educational reports such as the 1967 Plowden Report, the 1978 Warnock Report, and the 1992 'Three Wise Men' Report. The site also contains some useful articles by Derek himself which help to put some of the reports into context by explaining the educational developments that were occurring at the time that they were compiled.

If you are researching the work of an educational thinker from some time ago, there is always the chance that the full text of their work can be found online as it is no longer in copyright. Students learning about John Dewey may want to have a look at a complete version of Democracy and Education, while those of you finding out about Maria Montessori can read her 1917 book entitled Spontaneous Activity in Education.

Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning (SEAL)

Following a couple of requests for information about the SEAL programme, students with an interest in this topic should take a look at the SEAL section of the National Strategies website, which provides a comprehensive overview of the rationale behind the project and resources for use within schools.

A study of the SEAL programme with the title Primary Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning (SEAL): Evaluation of Small Group Work was published in December last year; however, the overall conclusion was that it has had little or no effect on children's behaviour.

Child Wellbeing in the UK

A new briefing issued by the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) has caused a minor stir by suggesting that in a league table measuring children's wellbeing in European states, the UK comes 24th out of 29 countries. The research, which was carried out by staff at the University of York examined issues such as child health, behaviour, education and environment, although CPAG admits that much of the data used dates from 2006, and so may not reflect the impact of more recent initiatives. You can read the full text of Child Wellbeing and Child Poverty: Where the UK Stands in the European Table online now.

Recession & Families

Given the endless credit crunch stories at the moment, the Family & Parenting Institute has recently published a timely study which looks at how families are likely to tackle the challenges facing them. The short report, with the self-explanatory title of What do we Know about the Impact of Recessions on Family Relationships? examines evidence from previous downturns and assesses the likely effects of the current situation.

English as an Additional Language (EAL)

One topic that students are always enquiring about is the subject of education and services for children for whom English is an Additional Language (commonly abbreviated to EAL). A common complaint that I hear from these students is that "I typed in EAL but nothing came up..." so before getting onto some suggested web resources, here's a quick tip; if you instead use the word 'bilingual' as one of your search terms, you will often find a lot of material that is relevant. Also, the Journal of Early Childhood Literacy which can be accessed through the Sage Journals Online site has published a number of articles on this topic in recent years.

First, the 'official' sources: the DCSF Standards site has a section devoted to information about / links to reports about EAL issues. The Teachernet website has a similar page, while the QCA's 'Useful Weblinks' page is possibly the most comprehensive of all of these three.

Elsewhere, the National Literacy Trust has a mini-site devoted to EAL issues (use the links on the left to navigate) and the Teachers TV website has 26 EAL-related films. You may also want to visit the National Association for Language Development in the Curriculum (NALDIC), which contains details of and links to both their own publications and reports by other organisations. And finally, if figures are your thing, have a look at this list of statistical reports by the DCSF, which provides a breakdown of pupil achievement by various categories, of which EAL is one.

Sir Alan Steer's Behaviour Review

No doubting the big story in education over the last couple of days - the publication of Sir Alan Steer's review of pupil behaviour issues, entitled Learning Behaviour: Lessons Learned. Altogether the report makes 47 recommendations for improving behaviour within schools, although so far the report has met with a mixed response from teachers.

Perhaps it's appropriate that yesterday also saw the publication of new guidance for teachers on dealing with cyberbullying. More information on this topic can also be found from a dedicated section on the Digital Citizenship website.

Improve Your Searching

Do you want to improve your search skills? If so, try taking a look at an excellent short video entitled Web Search Strategies in Plain English which has been put together by a company called Commoncraft. You may find it particularly useful if you are a visual learner, as it explains how to formulate and narrow a search with a series of simple diagrams. Or if you wish to find out more about other web technologies, the company has a series of similar films which you can access by clicking here.

Changes to Sage Journals Online

A couple of students have mentioned in recent days that they no longer seem to have access to any journal titles on Sage, although actually all of our subscriptions are still working. What is causing the confusion is that the site no longer displays a 'this article is available to you' message next to the items which you can look at. However, if you click on the Full Text link next to an article to which we have access, then it will still load as normal.

Life in Children's Homes

A new series of reports from Ofsted examines the views of children and young people living in various residential settings. In total there are four reports, which contain information about children's homes, residential further education, residential special schools and secure care, and links to all of them can be found by clicking here.

Changing the Curriculum?

Following on from my last post (click here for details) and its mention of a House of Commons report which calls for a slimmer National Curriculum, the BBC has published an article by Mike Baker entitled Tide Turns Towards Trusting Teachers, which explores the issue in greater depth. The article also provides useful historical information on the evolution of the Curriculum, which should come in handy if you're researching the topic for an assignment.

Bumper End of Week Edition!

I've been at a conference for a few days, hence the lack of updates in the past week. So here's a round-up of what's been going on:

• Those of you with an interest in international issues should take a look at a new Eurydice report entitled Early Childhood Education and Care in Europe: Tackling Social and Cultural Inequalities, which contains detailed information about individual countries throughout the continent.
• Issues surrounding parenting of very young children are discussed in the Centre of Research for the Wider Benefits of Learning's Nurturing Parenting Capability: the Early Years
• Also on the topic of parenting, the Equality and Human Rights Commission has just published Work and Care: a Study of Modern Parents
• Finally, the House of Commons' Children, Schools and Family Committee has issued National Curriculum: Fourth Report of Session 2008–09, which calls for a slimmed down national curriculum that is designed from the learner's perspective.