The word "safe" is widely used in everyday education speak in phrases such as "safe learning environment", but how do trainee and experienced teachers interpret, understand and use this word in their everyday teaching? Teachers are acting as observers of pupils' well-being, and one of their roles in the classroom is to…

Over the past decade, there has been greater attention placed on the potential value of peer support models, particularly in school contexts. This paper uses the case study of an Irish school-based peer mentoring programme to identify the added value that peer led models of social support for children and young people offer in a school setting.…

Parents are frequently positioned in policy as blameworthy and lacking responsibility for their children's well-being. However, little research has considered how the socio-emotional needs of children are being addressed whilst attempts are being made to improve parenting. Based on interviews with 15 educational practitioners employed in…

The aim of this paper is to explore how school staff members involved in Student Health and Welfare conferences reflect on individual students with high levels of truancy based on their personal relationships. Using positioning analysis, the transcriptions of 15 interviews with staff were analysed. The school staff's reflections on the…

The hypothesis that an unconscious need for a corrective emotional experience (CEE) drives the choice to care for others was investigated via attachment style and feelings of anger at students and staff. Data were obtained from 750 pre-service and experienced teachers, including 179 principals, who completed one of two versions of the Experiences…

This case study records the voices of a group of young people from an isolated rural community as they reflect on their experiences of secondary school. The study was driven by a desire to develop an understanding of the human connections young people make (or not) at school, to help develop understandings of how schools can be better places for…

This paper will discuss research undertaken within a London borough in 2009 that aimed to examine how Personal, Social, Health and Economic education (PSHE) was perceived and delivered. The ethos of schools was incorporated into the enquiry as a key determinate of both perception and delivery of PSHE. The findings are presented with particular…

With teachers under pressure to meet curriculum targets, responsibility for including students with behavioural emotional and social difficulties (BESD) in mainstream schools falls heavily on non-teaching staff. In this article, semi-structured interviews were conducted with special educational needs coordinators (SENCos) and support staff in a…

This small-scale research project in England investigates the reasons why mental health training should be incorporated into the curriculum for initial teacher education (ITE). Most mental health problems begin in adolescence, but often remain undetected until adulthood. Early intervention is vital to recovery in the case of serious psychotic…

In New Zealand, schools are implementing a variety of strategies in an attempt to address factors that adversely influence students' learning. The purpose of this article is to present the findings of a study that sought to determine the extent to which schools were able not only to identify health issues influencing learning, but also to use a…

This study is concerned with the way in which the introduction in England of "Every Child Matters" (ECM), a mandatory framework for the well-being of all pupils, has created new intraprofessional and interprofessional expectations about the development of professional knowledge for pre-service secondary school teachers. In the light of current…

This paper gives an account of a project undertaken by a multidisciplinary team, which included an educational psychologist, advisory teacher and behaviour consultant, to help revise and improve a school's behaviour policy and practice. At the onset, the team spent a great deal of time consulting with the teachers, parents but, above all, the…

This paper reports the findings from a study of teachers and students' views regarding self-worth in the primary school learning environment. The revised New Zealand curriculum recognises the importance of self-worth in students' motivation and ability to learn. While the need to enhance self-worth in the classroom has been well established in the…

This paper presents the findings from a survey of Primary One and Primary Five teachers' experiences of delivering the new learning area personal development and mutual understanding (PDMU) in its first year of implementation in the Northern Ireland Curriculum, September 2007-June 2008. The study was funded by St Mary's University College,…

In Northern Ireland, attention is currently focused on youth work in the context of wider changes associated with the integration of services for young people. Policy-makers there have identified youth work as having potential to link formal and informal education. However, youth work has often been understood as predominantly out-of-school…