This paper focuses on a strategy--Defensive Management--designed to assist teachers to better manage non-compliance and defiance in the classroom, with the ultimate goal of reducing disciplinary referrals and flow-on suspensions and exclusions from school. Non-compliance and defiance are behaviours that teachers find particularly challenging and,…

In this study seven 10-year-old to 11-year-old students peer-tutored seven six-year-old students in writing over a 10-week period. Tutoring took place over 20-minute sessions four times per week in the six-year-old students' regular classes during their usual writing time. The first author trained the tutors to assist tutees to (1) produce a…

This paper describes a collaborative action research project in one primary school that arose from a mutual interest in applying the concept of "Emotional Intelligence". It involves an exploratory qualitative study of the Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies (PATHS) curriculum. This is an approach aimed at promoting emotional competence in…

This pilot study is an exploratory investigation into the effectiveness of the routine and systematic use of a specific play intervention common in many mainstream early years settings meeting the needs of children with autistic spectrum disorders. The intervention, known locally as Tabletop Identiplay, combines the use of a play script with adult…

This paper investigates the extent to which psychological theory and research has contributed to how bullying is managed within schools. Teachers' awareness of the behaviours that constitute bullying, gender differences leading to identification difficulties, and low levels of reporting are discussed as plausible reasons for teachers' low…

This paper provides a description of how an educational psychologist can consult with groups of teachers mostly in relation to their work with pupils who display emotional behavioural difficulties. The paper includes a review of the work on group consultation in schools, followed by a description of process consultation (Schein, 1988 ) and how the…

This paper describes the outcomes of a small-scale project involving 19 secondary schools. The project investigated how effectively issues of homophobic bullying and sexualities were addressed through secondary schools' formal policies and areas of the curriculum. Outcomes indicate that sexual orientation was mentioned in two-thirds of Equal…

This paper describes an approach to intervention that aims to foster the skill of young children with autistic spectrum disorder to share social attention and action to promote socially meaningful communication. It applies principles derived from research into pre-linguistic development. The efficacy of the approach was evaluated through both a…

Circle of Friends is a recent intervention used to tackle social isolation in childhood. Its aim is to promote social inclusion by establishing a friendship group for an isolated child. Although there is some literature relating to the development and implementation of this approach, there is relatively little evidence regarding its effectiveness.…

The effects of praise on student on-task behaviour, academic self-concept and numeracy enjoyment were investigated. Four year four classes and their teachers participated. Two teachers were instructed to use specific praise and two to use positive praise. Classes were independently observed on four occasions, twice before and twice after the…

This small-scale study explored some aspects of the use of Pastoral Support Programmes, which were introduced by the DfEE in 1999 to promote social inclusion by reducing school exclusions. Issues explored were the level of involvement of educational psychologists (EPs), pupils, parents and other agencies, the conceptualisations of Pastoral Support…

This paper reports how consultative work with teachers can be supported by the use of letters. Letters were written by an educational psychologist (EP) after a consultation meeting with a teacher. Features of therapeutic letter writing and solution-focused brief therapy were used to increase the collaborative intent of the letters. Follow-up…

Based on an engagement perspective of reading development, we investigated the extent to which an instructional framework of combining motivation support and strategy instruction (Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction--CORI) influenced reading outcomes for third-grade children. In CORI, five motivational practices were integrated with six cognitive…

The Indexical Hypothesis suggests a new method for enhancing children's reading comprehension. Young readers may not consistently "index," or map, words to the objects the words represent. Consequently, these readers fail to derive much meaning from the text. The instructional method involves manipulating toy objects referred to in the text (e.g.,…

This study identified cognitive processes that underlie individual differences in working memory (WM) and mathematical problem-solution accuracy in elementary school children at risk and not at risk for serious math difficulties (SMD). A battery of tests was administered that assessed problem solving, achievement, and cognitive processing in…