There has been little research on pupils' experiences of ability grouping. This study aimed to explore the perceptions of primary-aged pupils regarding the purpose and practice of within and between class ability grouping; their experiences of those practices; and how their attitudes to school, self-perceptions and behaviour were affected. The…

International studies have concentrated on the achievements of children during or at the end of their schooling. But such data are difficult to interpret without knowing the progress that they have made since they started school. This article argues that the time has come to study the starting points of children as they begin their education. Such…

This article explores the impact of pre-school experience on young children's cognitive attainments at entry to primary school and analyses data collected as part of a wider longitudinal study, the Effective Provision of Pre-school Education (EPPE) project, which followed a large sample of young children attending 141 pre-school centres drawn from…

Mounting research evidence demonstrates that effective 'early childhood education and care' (ECEC) has short-term and longer-term social and educational benefits for children and families. An allied body of evidence attests to the contribution of social capital (i.e. social networks and relationships based on trust) to such benefits. The research…

This article describes a small-scale study which emanated from the concern of the head teachers and staff of two primary schools serving deprived, multicultural areas of an inner city. The concern of the staff related to the level of their pupils' spoken language skills through the schools and the perceived impact that this has on pupils learning…

This article summarizes and reflects on the findings related to pedagogy of two closely associated Department for Education and Skills (DfES) funded research projects: the "Effective Provision of Pre-school Education" (EPPE) and the "Researching Effective Pedagogy in the Early Years" (REPEY) projects. The EPPE research project was a five-year…

This article draws upon a Department for Education and Skills (DfES) commissioned telephone survey of a nationally representative sample of schools to investigate the challenges faced by those seeking the successful implementation of the Foundation Stage (FS) (for 3--5-year-olds) in reception classes. Its focuses on head teachers' and reception…

A growing body of literature suggests that when schools become professional communities there are expected benefits in terms of teacher learning, school improvement and student achievement. In this article the concept of professional communities is examined for certain subject departments in Dutch secondary schools. The authors report on research…

This article examines two ideologies that have been prominent in recent, if not current, education thinking. The first is that means can be separated from ends (or processes from products); the second is that learning is merely a process of knowledge acquisition. Attention to these ideologies arises from two projects in the overlapping fields of…

Adopting a sociocultural theoretical framework and based on ethnographic data from two primary schools, this article seeks to answer the question: what meanings about inclusion and exclusion are encoded in school and classroom practices? It documents the (inclusionary and) exclusionary pedagogic processes that influence learning and children's…

This article considers some of the methodological challenges involved in investigating, within the traditions of comparative research in education, the complex issue of educational 'policy borrowing'. It discusses notions of 'borrowing' and 'influence' and refers to a model previously proposed by the authors for the analysis of what are seen as…

This article reviews the debate in the USA about quality in educational research which has underpinned particular approaches to educational research being mandated in federal legislation. It argues that the movement towards 'evidence-based policy and practice' oversimplifies complex problems and is being used to warrant governmental incursion into…

The issue of science subject knowledge, and how to address the demands of this for both practising and trainee primary teachers, has constituted a core research enterprise in recent decades. The Professional Standards for Qualified Teacher Status entail considerable conceptual demands for many primary trainees. Generating meaningful causal…

The late 20th Century saw the rapid rise of quality assurance and effectiveness measures in most industries and organisations. These trends were very much reflected in education at all levels. An associated emergent trend in primary and secondary education in Australia was growth in the use of standardised measures of student achievement that…

Leadership, professional and other transferable skills are embedded in the expected attributes of Australian research postgraduates at the successful completion of their degrees. This paper reports on the development of an evaluation process for a postgraduate transferable skills program at The University of Melbourne, Australia. Existing and…