Schools In London Research Articles

Sectors together for professional development: a university team in an action research collaboration with school teachers and senior leaders

Action research promotes teaching and learning as it may allow teachers to explore areas of their practices that require improvement. The purpose of this case study is to highlight the steps involved in carrying out action research and any challenges that teachers may encounter in this learning process. This study was developed as a professional development course from 2015 to 2019 attended by more than 150 teachers from early years, primary and secondary schools in London and Kent in the last 4 years. The teachers were registered as students at the University of Greenwich and supported by a university team of researchers. The study identified five steps of the development of teacher-led action research and highlighted the challenges for each step. The steps included defining the field of action; planning; action; evaluation and reflection/(re)planning. This led to the development of an innovative model for the facilitation of action research and collaboration between the university team and participants. The model is used as a framework to enhance the development of teacher-led research in schools.Keywords: action research, teacher-led research, models, collaboration

«Можно ли это изменить?» Ролевое экспериментирование подростков в процессе дигитально опосредованного социально-эмоционального обучения

Schools are increasingly focusing on ways to increase adolescents’ self-efficacy in areas of their life from relationships to sleep. Commercially available apps such as mood and sleep trackers may be able to sup-port this process. This paper draws on Rubtsova’s explication of “role experimentation” and on Vygotsky’s reading of Freud to delineate dynamics within adolescent personality development. This theoretical back-ground is utilized in a study of seven 12—13 year-olds in a secondary school in London. Participants used an app designed by other students to track their sleep for two weeks. Their data mediated dramatic situations while discussing their experiences with their peers in the study. This process supported self-reflection and helped participants develop concepts for talking about their everyday life in subsequent one-on-one interviews. In negotiating peer and student roles, participants experimented with scientific and everyday concepts, allowing them to see their own data and the experiences it signified from a new angle.

A meta-analysis of the association of aircraft noise at school on children's reading comprehension and psychological health for use in health impact assessment

Whilst the effects of aircraft noise on children's cognition are well-accepted, their application in Health Impact Assessment (HIA) and methodologies to monetise the effects of noise on health have been limited. This paper presents the first meta-analysis of the effect of aircraft noise at school on children's reading comprehension and psychological health assessed with the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. Data from three methodologically similar studies carried out in 106 schools near London Heathrow, Amsterdam Schiphol, and Madrid Barajas airports (the Schools Environment and Health Study, the West London Schools Study, and the RANCH study) were analysed finding that a 1 dB increase in aircraft noise exposure at school was associated with a −0.007 (95%CI −0.012 to −0.001) decrease in reading score and a 4% increase in odds of scoring well below or below average on the reading test. The analyses also found that a 1 dB increase in aircraft noise exposure at school was associated with a 0.017 (95%CI 0.007–0.028) increase in hyperactivity score. No effects were observed for emotional symptoms, conduct problems or Total Difficulties Score. Meta-analyses confirm existing evidence for effects of aircraft noise exposure on children's reading comprehension, providing a pooled estimate and exposure-effect relationship, as well as additional estimates and relationships for effects on scoring ‘well below or below average’ on the reading test offering flexibility for taking reading comprehension into account in HIA and monetisation methodologies in a wide-range of contexts.

Living the Vita Copiosa: Erasmus’s De duplici copia and the Presence of the Protean Jesus at St. Paul’s School

ABSTRACT This article reads the 1512 edition of Erasmus’s De duplici copia in the context of the school to which it was dedicated and the texts with which it was published. I argue that understanding Erasmus’s humanist educational thought and the role of Copia within it requires sustained attention to the figure on whom the conceptual and practical integrity of that education depends: the boy Jesus. The puer Jesus, whose presence filled the room at St. Paul’s School in London, was, for Erasmus, the essence of copiousness. Copia’s exercises for developing an abundant style, therefore, served to prepare the young scholars to express a transfigured, transforming Word in their ethical, epistemological, and political lives.

Inclusive pedagogy through the lens of primary teachers and teaching assistants in England

ABSTRACT Inclusion is an expectation of all mainstream schools across England yet research into strategies concerning how teachers and teaching assistants facilitate effective inclusive practice remains limited. This study explores the enactment of Florian and Black Hawkins (2011. “Exploring Inclusive Pedagogy.” British Educational Research Journal 37 (5): 813–828) approach to inclusive pedagogy through the lens of teachers and teaching assistants working with children across year 4 within one primary school in London to redress this balance and identify any challenges they may encounter with this approach. Thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews revealed several key themes: whole-class approaches; emphasis on learners’ capabilities; flexibility; commitment to ongoing professional development; diversity of needs; TA interventions; and ability-based tasks. While practitioners exemplified inclusive pedagogy on a regular basis it was difficult to implement in all aspects of classroom life, given the complex nature and diverse range of needs they encountered in mainstream classrooms. The importance of acknowledging individual needs was recognised and some key strategies to accommodate these without causing feelings of marginalisation were highlighted. Practitioners voiced positive experiences and placed great value on, working flexibly with one another to create welcoming environments for all children yet the effective deployment of TAs was not consistently realised.

Where two worlds meet: language policing in mainstream and complementary schools in England

ABSTRACT We compare language policing in two educational contexts in England: mainstream schools and complementary schools. We draw on a varied dataset (policy documents, in-class observations, interviews) collected from mainstream schools and Greek complementary schools in London. We find similarities in how the two types of schools control, regulate, monitor and suppress the language of school students. Both settings hierarchise standardised and non-standardised varieties in institutional policies that delegitimise the non-standardised varieties. Teachers become vehicles for language ideologies in enacting monovarietal policies drawing on discourses around academic success and the primacy of written language over spoken language, including regional varieties such as Cypriot Greek. Our findings suggest that multilingual and multidialectal students in England who attend both mainstream and complementary schools are exposed to similar kinds of prescriptive discourses across the whole spectrum of their educational experiences, which can have a range of negative effects on their learning and the construction of their self-image. We argue that more links need to be forged between the two educational settings and that these should include the development of integrated pedagogies and policies that legitimise students’ whole linguistic repertoires, encompassing both their standardised and their non-standardised varieties as well as their other linguistic resources.

Young Turkish Cypriots’ perceptions of non-standard varieties and their speakers: learning ‘Posh’ Turkish in complementary schools

ABSTRACT The current study aims to provide an understanding of how the relationships between standard and non-standard varieties of the Turkish language are perceived by young people of Turkish Cypriot descent within the context of Turkish complementary schools in London. These schools are set up by diasporic communities to fight/reverse language shift and loss. They are also political spaces where cultural and linguistic practices are legitimised and delegitimized to help create an imagined community. Hence they provide rich contexts to investigate young people’s perceptions of standard and non-standard varieties of languages. This study specifically draws on interview data of eight UK-born Turkish Cypriot young people, collected through a 13-month ethnographic study in a London-based Turkish complementary school. The results of the thematic analysis of the participants’ discourses showed that the participants thought that the role of the Turkish school was to teach the ‘proper’ variety, i.e. standard Turkish. Through the lens of Bourdieu’s capitals, the results indicated that the participants believed that acquiring this variety would make them become more ‘educated.’ However, some participants problematised the seemingly straightforward association between standard varieties and positive perceptions of their speakers, which raises important questions about rethinking the position of non-standard varieties in education.

Resilience in the face of emergency remote teaching: EAL pupils’ experiences during the COVID‐19 pandemic

Resilience in the face of emergency remote teaching: EAL pupils’ experiences during the COVID‐19 pandemic

Vulnerable and Forgotten: The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Autism Special Schools in England

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused, and continues to cause, unprecedented disruption in England. The impact of the pandemic on the English education system has been significant, especially for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). While it was encouraging that the educational rights of children and young people with SEND were highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic, Government decision-making appeared to be centered around the needs of pupils in mainstream schools. In this article, co-authored by an academic researcher and senior leaders from the Pan London Autism Schools Network (PLASN; a collective of special schools in London and the South East of England, catering for pupils on the autistic spectrum), we reflect on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on special schools in England. We document and discuss a range of challenges experienced by PLASN schools, including the educational inequalities that were exposed and perpetuated by the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the manner in which the needs and realities of special schools were overlooked by the Government. We also detail the creative and innovative solutions implemented by PLASN schools to overcome barriers that they encountered. These solutions centered on facilitating holistic approaches to support, ensuring clear and regular communication with families, providing effective support for home learning, and promoting collaborative ways of working; all of which align with good practice principles in autism education more generally, and are essential elements of practice to maintain post-pandemic. We additionally reflect on how the COVID-19 pandemic could be a catalyst for much-needed change to the SEND system: leading to better educational provision, and therefore better outcomes, for pupils with SEND.

Is the employment of pastoral support staff (PSS) working with students with social, emotional and mental health (SEMH) needs changing the role and responsibilities of teachers in London and South East England?

ABSTRACT This paper reports on key findings from a mixed method study analysing how teachers in secondary schools (students aged 11–19) in London and South East England view and experience pastoral care provided to students with social, emotional and mental health (SEMH) needs. In England there is statistical evidence which shows schools are increasingly spending funding on support staff rather than teaching staff. The role of Pastoral Support Staff (PSS) who work with students with SEMH in some secondary schools is one such group of support staff. To date there has been limited research into how teachers perceive these changes and the effects on their role and responsibilities. The views of fifty-one respondents were gathered using an online semi-structured survey, followed by semi-structured interviews with six qualified teachers. Using a figured worlds conceptual framework, teachers’ perceptions of the use of pastoral support staff and the delivery of pastoral care in their schools, and therefore their worlds, were analysed. The findings were analysed using Hoy’s and Tschannen-Moran’s work on trust in schools exploring the trust dynamic between PSS and teachers. Results show that the teachers who participated in this research felt there was a lack of information sharing between different PSS and teachers and have seen the separation of pastoral care from the role of teacher leading to confusion around their responsibilities.

Doing justice to their history: London’s BAME students and their teachers reflecting on decolonising the history curriculum

This paper examines qualitative data emerging from interviews in five London schools with different groups of BAME ([British] Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) students aged between 14 and 18 (a total of 33), and seven of their teachers. The students are questioned about their reactions to the taught curriculum especially in the light of their sometimes complex but common postcolonial identities. The methodology followed here, that of Bourdieusian relational phenomenology (Atkinson, 2020), mirrors both the literature review and the conclusions, in that the history of the movement of peoples as a consequence of colonisation and empire not only explains the way Britain is but also defines an imperative for societal and curriculum change. The contextual literature relates to some of the history of migration and settlement including in London, and to some aspects of historiography, especially the work of Peter Fryer (1984/2018), Catherine Hall (2002), Rosina Visram (1994, 2002) and David Olusoga (2014, 2015) to demonstrate that Black history is British history and that there is a mutual responsibility to rediscover what has been hidden and forgotten. But that history, with its power relations, is also intertwined and interrelated with relationships between citizens in society today. The core and periphery paradigm (Mycock, 2017) is clearly reflected in the concept of double-consciousness (Du Bois, 1903; Gilroy, 1993) as both a personal and curriculum dimension. The findings demonstrate the importance of a history education that connects migration, empire and postcoloniality, for all citizens, including those wielding official power. Four themes emerge for analysis: double-consciousness; curriculum and pedagogy; understanding power relations; and citizenship, social justice and curriculum change.

Living the Vita Copiosa: Erasmus’s De duplici copia and the Presence of the Protean Jesus at St. Paul’s School

ABSTRACT This article reads the 1512 edition of Erasmus’s De duplici copia in the context of the school to which it was dedicated and the texts with which it was published. I argue that understanding Erasmus’s humanist educational thought and the role of Copia within it requires sustained attention to the figure on whom the conceptual and practical integrity of that education depends: the boy Jesus. The puer Jesus, whose presence filled the room at St. Paul’s School in London, was, for Erasmus, the essence of copiousness. Copia’s exercises for developing an abundant style, therefore, served to prepare the young scholars to express a transfigured, transforming Word in their ethical, epistemological, and political lives.

Prevalence of conduct problems and social risk factors in ethnically diverse inner-city schools

BackgroundIn the UK, around 5% of 11–16-year olds experience conduct problems of clinical importance. However, there are limited data on prevalence of conduct problems by ethnic group, and how putative social risk factors may explain any variations in prevalence. This study has two main aims: (1) to estimate the prevalence and nature of conduct problems overall, and by ethnic group and gender, among adolescents in diverse inner-city London schools; (2) to assess the extent to which putative risk factors - racial discrimination, socioeconomic status, parental control, and troublesome friends - explain any observed differences in prevalence of conduct problems between ethnic groups.MethodsThis study uses baseline data from REACH, an accelerated cohort study of adolescent mental health in inner-city London. Self-report questionnaire data were collected on conduct problems and a range of distinct putative social risk factors (including racial discrimination, free school meals, troublesome friends, and parental care and control). A total of 4353 pupils, 51% girls, aged 11–14 participated. We estimated prevalence of conduct problems and used multilevel logistic regression to examine differences by ethnicity and gender and associations with putative risk factors.ResultsPrevalence of conduct problems in inner-city schools was around three times higher than reported in national studies (i.e., 16% [95%CI: 15·2–17·5] vs. 5% [95%CI 4·6–5·9]). Compared with overall prevalence, conduct problems were lower among Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi (RR: 0.53 [95% CI:0.31–0.87]) and white British (RR: 0.65 [0.51–0.82]) groups, and higher among black Caribbean (RR: 1.39 [95%CI:1.19–1.62]) and mixed white and black (RR: 1.29 [95% CI: 1.02–1.60]) groups. Risk of conduct problems was higher among those who were exposed to racial discrimination compared with those who were not (RR: 1.95 [95% CI: 1.59–2.31]).ConclusionsConduct problems are markedly more common in inner-city schools, and variations in the prevalence of conduct problems are, to some extent, rooted in modifiable social contexts and experiences, such as experiences of racial discrimination.

Full of hope

A nursery school in central London has created a Garden of Hope, bringing solace and joy to children who have lost loved ones during lockdown. Nicole Weinstein reports

Editorial introductions.

Editorial introductions.

Linguistic (il)legitimacy in Migration Encounters

Linguistic differences between groups of co-ethnic and/or co-national migrants in diasporic contexts can become grounds for constructing and displaying identities that distinguish (groups of) migrants on the basis of differences in the sociohistorical circumstances of migration (provenance, time of migration) and/or social factors such as class, socioeconomic status, or level of education. In this article, I explore how language became a source of ideological conflict between Greek Cypriot and Greek migrants in the context of a complementary school in north London. Analysing a set of semi-structured interviews with teachers, which were undertaken in 2018 as part of an ethnographically oriented project on language ideologies in Greek complementary schools, I show that Greek pupils and parents, who had migrated to the UK after 2010 pushed by the government-debt crisis in Greece, positioned themselves as linguistic authorities and developed discourses that delegitimised the multilingual and multidialectal practices of Greek Cypriot migrants. Their interventions centred around the use of Cypriot Greek and English features, drawn from the linguistic resources that did not conform with the expectations that “new” Greek migrants held about complementary schools and which were based on strictly monolingual and monodialectal language ideologies. To these, teachers responded with counter-discourses that re-valued contested practices as products of different linguistic repertoires that were shaped by different life courses and trajectories of linguistic resources acquisition.

Nowhere to Play: Available Open and Green Space in Greater London Schools

Experiencing outdoor space, especially natural space, during childhood and adolescence has beneficial physical and mental health effects, including improved cognitive and motor skills and a lower risk of obesity. Since school-age children typically spend 35–40 hours per week at schools, we quantified their access to open (non-built-up) space and green space at schools in Greater London. We linked land use information from the UK Ordnance Survey with school characteristics from the Department for Education (DfE) for schools in Greater London. We estimated open space by isolating land and water features within school boundaries and, as a subset of open space, green space defined as open space covered by vegetation. We examined the relationship of both school open and green space with distance to Central London, whether the school was fee-paying, and the percentage of pupils eligible for free school meals (as a school-level indicator of socioeconomic status). Almost 400,000 pupils (30% of all pupils in London) attended schools with less than ten square metre per pupil of open space—the minimum recommended area by DfE—and 800,000 pupils attended schools with less than ten square metre per pupil of green space. Of the latter, 70% did not have any public parks in the immediate vicinity of their schools. School green space increased with distance from Central London. There was a weak association between the school-level socioeconomic indicator and the amount of open and green space. Fee-paying schools provided less open space compared to non-fee-paying schools in central parts of London, but the provision became comparable in suburban London. Many London schools do not provide enough open and green space. There is a need to ensure regular contact with green space through safeguarding school grounds from sales, financially supporting disadvantaged schools to increase their outdoor space and providing access to off-site facilities such as sharing outdoor space with other schools.

Distributing participation in design: Addressing challenges of a global pandemic.

Participatory Design (PD) – whose inclusive benefits are broadly recognised in design – can be very challenging, especially when involving children. The recent COVID-19 pandemic has given rise to further barriers to PD with such groups. One key barrier is the advent of social distancing and government-imposed social restrictions due to the additional risks posed for e.g. children and families vulnerable to COVID-19. This disrupts traditional in-person PD (which involves close socio-emotional and often physical collaboration between participants and researchers). However, alongside such barriers, we have identified opportunities for new and augmented approaches to PD across distributed geographies, backgrounds, ages and abilities. We examine Distributed Participatory Design (DPD) as a solution for overcoming these new barriers, during and after COVID-19. We offer new ways to think about DPD, and unpick some of its ambiguities. We do this through an examination of the results from an online Interaction Design and Children (IDC) 2020 workshop. The workshop included 24 researchers with experience in PD, in a range of forms, in the context of children. Initially designed to take place in-person and to include a design session with children in a school in London, the workshop was adjusted to an online format in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the adverse circumstances, we discovered that the unexpected change of the workshop style from in-person to online was an opportunity and an impetus for us to address the new PD challenges of the global pandemic. In this article we contribute seven themes which were revealed during our IDC workshop, providing guidance on important areas for consideration when planning and conducting PD in the context of a global pandemic. With a focus on the term ‘distributed’, we offer insights on how DPD can be applied and explored in these circumstances with child participants. We conclude with a number of lessons learned, highlighting the opportunities and challenges DPD offers to enable continued co-design during a global pandemic. In particular, DPD provides greater access for some populations to be involved in PD, but technical and social challenges must be addressed.

Completeness and representativeness of body mass index in children's electronic general practice records: Linked cross-sectional study in an ethnically-diverse urban population in the United Kingdom.

To assess completeness and accuracy of children's body mass index (BMI) recorded in general practice electronic health records (GP-EHRs). We linked National Child Measurement Programme (NCMP) records from 29 839 5-year-olds and 26 660 11-year-olds attending state schools in inner London to GP-EHRs (95% linked; 49.1% girls). We estimated adjusted odds (aOR) of at least one GP-BMI record by sex, ethnic background, area-level deprivation, weight-status and long-term conditions. We examined within-child BMI differences and compared obesity prevalence from these sources. 10.5% (2964/28330) and 26.0% (6598/25365) of 5- and 11-year-olds respectively had at least one GP-BMI record. Underweight (aOR;95% CI:1.71;1.34,2.19), obesity (1.45;1.27,1.65), South Asian background (1.55;1.38,1.74), presence of a long-term condition (8.15;7.31,9.10), and residence in deprived areas (Wald statistic 38.73; P-value<0.0001) were independently associated with at least one GP-BMI record. NCMP-BMI and GP-BMI differed by +0.45(95% Limits of Agreement -1.60,+2.51) and + 0.16(-2.86,+3.18) in 5- and 11-year-olds, respectively. The prevalence of obesity based on GP-BMI was 18.2%(16.1,20.5) and 35.9%(33.9,38.0) in 5- and 11-year-olds respectively, compared to 12.9%(12.5,13.3) and 26.9%(26.4,27.4) based on NCMP-BMI. Child BMI is not comprehensively recorded in urban general practice. Linkage to school measurement records is feasible and enables assessment of health outcomes of obesity.

Examining how changes in provincial policy on vape marketing impacted the distribution of vaping advertisements near secondary schools in London, Ontario

ObjectivesOn January 1, 2020, the Government of Ontario passed a regulation banning vaping advertisements by retailers, apart from specialty shops. A motivation for this ban was to limit youth exposure to vaping advertisements. The primary goal of this research was to evaluate the impact of this ban on the number and density of vaping advertisements surrounding secondary schools. Additionally, we examined whether the number of vaping advertisements varied by school socio-demographic characteristics.MethodsThis study used a pre-post design. Audits were conducted December 2019 (pre-ban) and again January to February 2020 (post-ban), to identify vaping advertisements within 800 m surrounding secondary schools (n = 18) in London, Ontario.ResultsPrior to the ban, there were 266 vaping advertisements within 800 m of secondary schools. After the ban, this was reduced to 58, a 78.2% reduction. The mean number of vaping advertisements surrounding schools significantly decreased from 18.1 before the ban to 3.6 after the ban (p < 0.001). A significant positive correlation was found, prior to the ban, between the number of vaping advertisements surrounding schools and school-level residential instability (r = 0.42, p = 0.02). After the ban, no significant correlations were found between the number of vaping advertisements and school socio-demographic characteristics.ConclusionThe provincial ban of vaping advertisements in select retail settings significantly reduced the number of vaping advertisements in the areas surrounding secondary schools in London, Ontario. The ban also reduced socio-demographic inequities in youths’ potential exposure to marketing of vaping products. Continued monitoring of the geographic accessibility and promotion of vaping products is warranted.