Authors:Mark Deacon Abstract: Pedagogy is the defining feature of teacher professionalism. I am delighted to accept the invitation to write the editorial for this, the “Pedagogy Edition” of the Buckingham Journal of Education. As a career teacher turned teacher trainer, I have a deep interest in everything teachers do to bring about effective learning. PubDate: 2021-11-17 Issue No:Vol. 2, No. 2 (2021)
Authors:Mick Waters Abstract: It is only in relatively recent times that we have accepted that teachers and their teaching vary. The ancient public schools set the tone and when state schooling began in 1870 it was generally accepted that any shortcomings in learning were the fault of the pupil. School reports to parents, dunces’ caps, corrections and flog-ging were among the devices that put any blame on the pupil. But that some teach-ers enjoyed more success than others was always obvious, as was the fact that some leaners learned more. The search for effective pedagogy has fascinated for different reasons: scientific, professional, political and pragmatic. This paper explores some of the complexity of, and influences upon, pedagogy in English schools. It examines some examples of pedagogic development, the apparent random development over time and the ways the teaching profession responds. The paper concludes with a call to greater professional influence and proposals for building and capitalising upon expertise. PubDate: 2021-11-17 Issue No:Vol. 2, No. 2 (2021)
Authors:Dr James Mannion Abstract: Learning to Learn is a field of educational theory and practice that aims to help children become more effective learners. The field has grown significantly through-out the last 40 years and a number of approaches have been implemented on a large scale in the UK as well as internationally. Research into metacognition and self-reg-ulation suggests that Learning to Learn programmes should help boost academic attainment. However, to date, large-scale evaluations of Learning to Learn initia-tives have found no clear impact on academic attainment. This paper presents the findings of an eight-year case study of Learning Skills, a new approach to Learning to Learn that was developed at a secondary school in the south of England, and eval-uated over eight years (2009 to 2017). Using an interventional design used widely in medicine and other fields, Learning Skills reconceptualises Learning to Learn as a ‘complex intervention’ comprised of multiple areas of evidence-informed practice. The rationale for complex interventions is that the ‘marginal gains’ to arise from each component stack up and interact to yield a larger effect size overall. This eval-uation found that Learning Skills led to significant gains in subject learning, with accelerated gains among pupils from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. Further qualitative data analyses indicate a positive causal relationship between Learning Skills and academic attainment. As well as evaluating the impact of a promising new approach to Learning to Learn, this study generates new knowledge about the implementation and evaluation of complex interventions in education. PubDate: 2021-11-17 Issue No:Vol. 2, No. 2 (2021)
Authors:Julie Tilbury Abstract: This article considers an appropriate pedagogy for learners with severe physical disabilities, sensory difficulties, complex medical difficulties and a diverse range of cognitive abilities in one particular school. In turn it discusses the curriculum which was designed around that pedagogy. As we consider an era when many of these children would not have survived to attend school, or would have been deemed ineducable, and move to a time in which medical interventions have improved and their right to education is now protected. It discusses how we find ourselves faced with the questions ‘how’ do we teach children such as these' What do we need to take into consideration in order to do so' It is clear that the field of special education has to change in response to a different cohort of students. Finally it suggests that the most appropriate curriculum is one that follows the pedagogy of these particular learners and is personal to them both in terms of the curriculum and assessment due to their diverse difficulties and learning needs. PubDate: 2021-11-17 Issue No:Vol. 2, No. 2 (2021)
Authors:Simon Edwards, Yusef Bakkali, Natalie Walls, Vicky Kimmins, Claire Cobb, Alison Kirk, Beau Salanson Abstract: There have been growing concerns in England about increasing numbers of students, many of whom have Special Education Needs and Disabilities (SEND) or come from disadvantaged backgrounds, who experience education disaffection and failure (Farouk 2017; DfE 2017; Perraudin and McIntyre 2018; Edwards 2018). Moreover, there have been increasing calls for research that works collaboratively with students and other stakeholders (ie parents and school leaders) to address these issues (see Edwards and Brown 2020). This article explores students’ and their parents’ experiences in relation to school exclusion. Drawing on participant action research methods three former excluded students and their parents who successfully re-engaged their education were trained to carry out interviews with five recently excluded secondary school students and their parents. Findings from the interviews stand juxtaposed to political discourses that view exclusion as being influenced by poor parenting or student deviance. Rather, our findings illustrate a spiral of disillusionment, educational disengagement, fractured relationships between students, parents and teachers that emerges as our participants encountered a series of life events that coincided with the educational processes in schools. We consider these findings and, in line with Freire (1972; 2005), we propose a dialogic and relational intervention that enables excluded students to collaborate with their parents and school leaders to make meaningful changes to their own and their schools’ practices in order to help them re-engage with their education. PubDate: 2021-11-17 Issue No:Vol. 2, No. 2 (2021)
Authors:L. Barritt, M. Popovac, M. Woodward, S. Thompson Abstract: As a result of complex co-constructive entanglements of contemporary lived-ex-perience, this paper develops ideas from posthumanist and material perspectives on education, that recognise, unpack and analyse the particular dynamic, co-con-structive nature of the postdigital entanglements of technology with the epistemic and ontological development of students (Bozalek, Braidotti, Shefer and Zemby-las, 2018). Drawing from Haraway’s idea of symbiogenesis, (2016), this paper suggests that a critical facet of contemporary pedagogy requires an understanding of the key skill of poiesis, to render visible the entangled ontology of the contem-porary postdigital adolescent to better inform appropriate pedagogic developments. PubDate: 2021-11-17 Issue No:Vol. 2, No. 2 (2021)
Authors:University of Buckingham Press, Ian Coombs Abstract: While social media remains a facet of life that many children and young people happily engage in, its use comes with some recognised risks and dangers. Parents can feel ill-equipped to support their children with this and there is consequently a reliance on schools to teach children how to use these platforms appropriately. To evaluate the effectiveness of secondary schools in teaching pupils about social media, this study makes use of evidence from Ofsted school inspection reports. Exploiting techniques developed in computer science, the Ofsted web portal was automatically scraped for reports and the content searched for reference to social media. This identified 317 reports which referred to the platforms. The report’s texts were coded through content analysis and subsequently revealed that over 90% of the references to social media contained in inspection reports were positive in reporting that pupils both understood the risks and knew how to describe how to manage their online activities. The results suggest that schools are effective in addressing these safeguarding issues although pupils are not always putting their knowledge into practise. PubDate: 2021-11-17 Issue No:Vol. 2, No. 2 (2021)
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