The Parent Support Adviser (PSA) role, piloted in 2006-2008 in 20 local authorities (LAs) in England, offered preventative and early intervention support to families where there were concerns about children's school attendance or behaviour. Overall, this was a highly successful initiative in terms of supporting parental engagement with their…

Efforts to prevent and curb school bullying have resulted in a proliferation of anti-school-bullying programmes, many based on intuitive appeal rather than systematic evidence. This article presents a comparative analysis of two Norwegian programmes whose developers have demonstrated the effectiveness of their interventions: the Olweus Programme…

The early identification of young children's special educational needs (SEN), as well as the development of specific strategies to support those children identified with special needs, are increasingly recognised as crucial to facilitating good adjustment to school and to ensuring that such children are helped to reach their full potential in…

In recent years there has been an unprecedented increase in support staff in schools in England and Wales. There were widespread expectations that this will be of benefit to teachers and pupils but there has been little systematic research to address the impact of support staff. This study used a naturalistic longitudinal design to investigate the…

Few students (particularly few girls) currently choose to take their Final School Examination (FSE) in advanced mathematics, chemistry and physics, a combination of subjects that is the best preparation for a science-oriented study in higher education. Are these subjects attainable by more students than is currently the case? This study examined…

This article examines teachers' attitudes towards Gypsy and Traveller pupils in one primary and one secondary school in an inner-London borough in England, UK. The research is based on in-depth interviews with 20 teachers, heads, deputies and classroom assistants. The main aims of the study were to examine examples of "good practice" in schools…

There is widespread consensus in the research and policy-related literature over the last decade that young people who have been permanently excluded from school are at a far greater risk of a variety of negative outcomes than young people who have not had this experience. These negative outcomes include prolonged periods out of education and/or…

This article outlines the findings from an Economic and Social Research Council funded research project that investigated the impact of multi-agency working on children and their families. It explored the ways in which young people experience multi-agency working and it investigated whether young people perceive any benefits from a coordinated…

Efforts to meet the needs of children's learning in arithmetic has led to an increased emphasis on the teaching of mental calculation strategies in England. This has included the adoption of didactical tools such as the empty number line (ENL) that was developed as part of the realistic mathematics movement in the Netherlands. It has been claimed…

This article estimates the effects of school expenditure on school performance at Key Stage 4 in England, over the period 2003-07 during which real per pupil expenditure increased rapidly. It adds to previous investigations by using dynamic panel analysis to: exploit time series data on individual schools that only recently has become available;…

This article presents the findings from research conducted at nine schools (seven primary, two secondary) in England, which had previously implemented a peer mediation service for students experiencing interpersonal conflict. This analysis was informed by themes from a previous stage of research conducted at one additional primary school, where…

This article describes and critically analyzes how educational sociologists in the Netherlands have studied the relationship between race/ethnicity and educational inequality between 1980 and 2008. Five major research traditions are identified: (1) political arithmetic; (2) racism and ethnic discrimination; (3) school characteristics; (4) school…

Recent high-profile rape cases in Australia involving Muslim and Indigenous minority groups have heightened contention around issues of culture, gender and justice. The article critically examines the culturalising of rape as an ethnic minority issue in the public and legal discourse associated with these cases. This examination problematises the…

In this case study a novel educational programme for students in preparatory vocational education was studied. The research questions were: (1) Which teaching/learning processes occur in a simulated workplace using the concept of a "knowledge-rich" workplace? (2) What is the role of models and modelling in the teaching/learning processes? The…

Skilled interpersonal relations are crucial for effective teaching and learning but much professional knowledge here is tacit and thus not easily communicated. This article presents the results of a study that examined the tacit knowledge of trainee and experienced teachers in relation to various problematic interpersonal aspects of school life.…