The aim of the study is to examine the perceptions of a sample of graduate teachers (B. Ed. Hons. ) in primary schools of beginning teaching. It consists of a questionnaire survey of 57 teachers in he first year of teaching (1986-1987) and case studies, based on interviews, documents and questionnaires, of 10 teachers during their first four years of teaching (1986-1990). The study begins with a brief outline of its purpose and methods (Introduction) and an account of influences an teachers and teacher training from 1970-1990 to place it in context (Chapter 1. ). Part 1. (Ch. 2-6) gives details of the survey. Data analysis Shows that the training course was seen as helpful by more teachers than any in-service support, although this was still a minority. Teachers were at different developmental stages and the majority received little inservice support and found evaluation of teaching difficult. Certain 'beliefs', for example a belief in group teaching, were widely held. In Part 2. (Ch. 7-10) methods of data collection and analysis for 10 case studies are given. A synthesis of data in the form of a life history was sent to each subject for verification at the end of four years. Theoretical frameworks adopted from Fuller (1969). Lacey (1977) and Berlak and Berlak (1981) were used in analysis of life histories to form case studies, allowing themes to emerge. Comparison of the case studies in an analytic survey suggests that new teachers enter teaching with an 'ideal' but find adjustment necessary to the reality of being a class teacher. In the first year of teaching student teaching practice is seen as unrealistic, giving insufficient experience in teaching basic skills, class organisation and long-term planning. Years 2-4 mark a period of professional growth, when teachers appear to learn more effectively from their teaching experience, placing theory in a practical context. Although it appears that the theoretical base of the ideal of teaching may have been imperfectly conceptualised as a student, the ideal is retained. Once teachers begin to 'know the Job' they look for further intellectual stimulus and career challenge and this nay occur in the second or third year of teaching. In Chapter 11. the influence of personal theory disposition an the development of theory-practice relationships is considered and related to theories associated with teacher learning. Conclusions from the study and implications for initial training, teacher development and further research are discussed. The importance of extended school experience with opportunity for reflection and analysis of teaching is argued. Training for mentors is urged as a means of pronoting collaborative enquiry between mentor, student/new teacher, and college tutor, establishing continuity between training and induction and stimulating whole school development. The need for attention to student teachers' individual learning needs, and to their acquisition of the broad range of competencies required for classroom teaching and for reflective analysis and further professional development, is also stressed. A brief conclusion points to the compromise entailed in drawing generalisations whilst attempting to preserve the individual teacher's 'voice'.

This thesis investigates the development of phonological awareness, rapid serial naming, speed of learning verbal/visual symbol associations, letter knowledge and verbal short-term memory in children aged 4.0 to 5.5 years and the relationship of these skills to reading ability at age 5.5 years. Data from a longitudinal study of 68 children are analysed and discussed. A review of the literature suggests uncertainties concerning the structure and development of phonological awareness. The current study measures phonological awareness at the linguistic levels of rhyme, syllable, onset-rime and phoneme and investigates whether the various skills comprise a unitary construct. Developmental pathways through the linguistic levels are also investigated. Most previous research investigating the relationship of phonological awareness, verbal short-term memory, letter knowledge and rapid naming with reading ability focuses on the skills of children who have already started learning to read. In such cases, the predictive direction of any relationships cannot be established. The current study therefore also investigates longitudinally predictive relationships between the skills of non-readers and subsequent reading ability. At initial testing, all children were non-readers. Progress in skills was assessed at three time points as children progressed through their first year at school. Reading ability was measured at the end of the study. The results suggest that phonological awareness is a unitary, developmental construct within which most children follow similar developmental patterns, although some children exhibit considerable developmental lag. The phonological awareness and letter knowledge of non-readers were found to be the major significant predictors of subsequent reading ability. In rapid serial naming, the component elements of interstimulus interval (ISI) time and articulation time were measured independently. The results suggest that the ISI component is significantly associated with concurrent reading ability in children aged 5.0 to 5.5 years. The educational implications of the research findings and suggestions for future research are discussed.

As schools in England introduced the phonics checklist during 2012, the question of the best approach to teach children to read is again a matter for educational debate. Jolliffe (2004) claimed that the most effective way to teach children to read has been contested in schools for many years. Two different views of how to teach reading through either Whole Language theory or phonics have become contested strategies in this debate. Goodman (1998) described these competing pedagogies as ‘The reading wars’.

This investigation emerges from the awareness of the marginalisation environmental education faces and the need for the development of an effective policy for the implementation of environmental education in Cyprus. The purpose of the research study is to present. as an end product, information that would be useful in the formation of a National Programme for the implementation of environmental education in Primary Education in Cyprus. The thesis describes the current situation of environmental education and examines current practices. Out of a limited variety of environmental education programmes that currently run in Cyprus Primary Education, the Eco-School project is taken as an example. This research study, firstly, aims to measure the success of the Eco-School project, by testing children's environmental cognition, awareness and action and comparing them to the environmental cognition and action of children in other schools outside the programme. It also attempts to reveal the factors that contribute to successful implementation of the project as well as practices that could be improved or avoided. The teachers' opinions are analysed both at organisational and personal levels. Since they are closely involved in any school innovative project, they should be given the opportunity to express their opinion and experience about the organisation of the policy, their expectations and the problems they foresee. Briefly, the general research aims are to: 1. describe the current situation of environmental education in Cyprus; 2. obtain interested parties' opinions about the development of a National Programme for the implementation of environmental education in Cyprus Primary Education; 3. verify and evaluate the impact of the Eco-School project 4. distinguish the factors that contribute to the successful implementation of an environmental education programme. Finally the information obtained is the basis of a proposal model, which might facilitate environmental education implementation.

The modern and post-modern world has tried to explain the factors that lead to effective schooling. The school effectiveness (SE) movement investigates the characteristics of effective schools and how these characteristics may lead to improved pupil achievement. This study investigates the factors that contribute to effective schooling in Cypriot primary schools according to teachers, parents and pupils perspectives. In addition this research investigated people’s attitudes towards the understanding of school effectiveness and school improvement. In the first part of the study 165 teachers, 166 parents and 188 pupils took part. The data was collected using questionnaires. In the second part of the study 5 teachers, 5 parents and 7 pupils were interviewed and an in depth investigation was made about the questionnaire findings and the factors that contribute to effective schooling. The study’s findings explore implications for school improvement and development as well as for policy issues.

The aim of this work was to look at the contribution primary education makes to the affective development of students. Using the term 'affective education' to refer to all the planned learning experiences provided for this purpose, a study was conducted across two countries (England and Greece) and four schools (two in each country). This work was needed because affective education is an important yet under-researched feature of primary school life. The study comprised four stages. First, a brief review of the main psychological theories of affect was attempted, in order to contextualise the work as well as show that affective development is intimately connected with personal, social, and moral development, the promotion of which has been on the primary school's agenda for quite some time. This was followed by the examination of a number of publications that consider the impact of emotions on teaching and learning, and argue that it is important for schools to identify and meet the affective needs of their students, and to equip them with the knowledge, understanding, and skills they need in order to effectively manage their emotional experiences. The next stage involved a discussion of the evolution and practice of the most obvious manifestations of affective education in the two focus countries, namely pastoral care and PSE in England, and environmental, health, cultural and inter-cultural education in Greece. Finally, an empirical investigation was mounted, focusing on the affective provision of four primary schools, in order to establish how affective education is conceptualised, delivered, and monitored in the primary phase today. As it was not possible to fit in this thesis a comprehensive account of the area, it was only one aspect, teachers' attitudes towards and practice of the activity, that was explored. The main finding was that the affective provision in the four schools that took part in the study is generally good, and quite a large proportion of it is explicit, planned, and intentional rather than implicit and incidental, and proactive/developmental rather than reactive. Also, despite the differences between the English and Greek education systems and the avenues through which affective education has been developed in each country, striking similarities were found in the affective work these schools do.

This thesis investigates the implementation of the science curriculum in Malaysian primary schools. The study is concerned primarily with teachers' pedagogical content knowledge as a crucial determinant of teaching performance in implementing the new curriculum. The research involved the administration of a questionnaire to seven states in Malaysia to seek information regarding the implementation of the primary science curriculum. The main body of research data consists of case studies of 14 teachers. Teachers' pedagogical content knowledge and its influence of the implementation of the primary science curriculum were analysed on the basis of interviews and classroom observations. The lack of science pedagogical content knowledge is indeed a problem for teachers in implementing the curriculum. That knowledge is limited and constrained by other contributing factors - science instructional needs, especially the constructivist view of science teaching; knowledge of the ways in which children learn science; and the lack of resources and support. Teachers' belief in the subject and its teaching also affect the implementation. In the light of these constraints, it would be more appropriate to identify the necessary science pedagogical content knowledge, within the primary science curriculum, that teachers need to acquire in order to implement the curriculum as the developers intended. The key question, in the Malaysian primary school context, is how science pedagogical content knowledge is to be generated and disseminated. In-service teacher education is essential if there is to be an impact in the shorter term. Another question is the kind of initial training that will be fruitful and effective and worth investing in. Conceptual understanding and science pedagogical knowledge and skills are two promising areas of teachers' understanding of the curriculum that could be developed when planning in-service provision for Malaysian primary science education. An explicit examination to teachers' beliefs about science and the teaching and learning of science is also required in pre-service and in-service courses.

This study offers an original analysis of contradictions inherent in playwork practice. It is ethnographic and political, using Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT), and taking an interpretivist and (post-) Marxist epistemological stance. Playwork’s fundamental contradiction is that between understanding children’s play as autotelic and self-organising on the one hand, and on the other seeking and accounting for public funding that requires services to address policy agendas. In CHAT terms, this is the dialectic between playwork’s use value and exchange value. Fieldwork data comprise participant observation in an urban open access Play Centre and semi-structured interviews both with the Play Centre playworkers and playworkers practising before the introduction of the 1989 Children Act. Such services were historically funded in deprived areas to keep children off the streets and on the straight and narrow. The Children’s Fund, operational at the time of the fieldwork, was a contemporary equivalent within the totalising, future-focused ‘risk and prevention’ policy paradigm. Playwork spaces were co-produced through a dialectical triad (Lefebvre, 1991) of adult planning (assuming outcomes), spatial practices (interventions) and lived moments of playfulness that both resisted adult intentions and gave rise to a hope that temporarily made life better. Open access playwork spaces were emotionally highly charged, both because of the nature of play itself – its exuberances and tragedies – and the children. This highlighted tensions between ideals of play as inherently good and the reality of adaptation to interpersonal, structural and symbolic violence characterising the children’s lives. Play frames frequently fell apart as raw emotions seeped through, and settings operated on the edge of violence. Playwork subjectivities are performative and emotive. In particular three forms of dialectically interrelated hope were discernible: a far hope of policy projects, a revolutionary hope of emancipatory ideals, and a near, everyday hope in moments of playfulness. An ethics of playwork dispositions is proposed that moves beyond rational, universal rules or outcomes towards relational ethics, acknowledging the particularity of situations, emotions and the alterity of others (children and adults).

I began this research by identifying that poetry was sometimes a challenging subject for primary school teachers to teach. With the implementation of the National Literacy Strategy (NLS) (DfEE, 1998) came extensive coverage of poetry, and I argued the necessity for independent research to investigate how teachers, without specialist training in English, interpreted the NLS for poetry sessions, and how pupils responded. My research aim was to provide an independent and historical insight into the literary experiences of two case study groups, each consisting of a teacher and six pupils in Year Six, and the impact of the recently implemented NLS. To realise this aim I used qualitative methods of data collection: observation to examine the role of poetry in the classroom; and interview, to gain a phenomenological perspective of the relationship between poetry and the research participants. Having carried out the research process it emerged that there were three interrelated areas, which had had significant impact on the literary environment that children engaged in over the Y6 school year. These were: the NLS; the Standard Assessment Tasks (SATs); and National Curriculum (NC) English Level Descriptions attributed to students. Though poetry in the NLS was present across each term, the perceived pressure of attaining certain Level Descriptions in SATs meant that poetry was omitted so that more time could be spent on refining other literary skills. When poetry was taught key issues arose in relation to the way in which each teacher interpreted the NLS. These were: lack of subject knowledge; little discussion of the meaning of the text; and, minimal reference to children's experiences of poetry outside of the classroom. It was also noted that children engaged in ludic word play under certain conditions, and that this was generated in response to interaction with the poem, and each other. I conclude by considering the implications of a socio-constructivist approach to poetry, which I suggest works with children's predisposition for playing with language and learning and engaging with others. This study also highlights that language play in the classroom is relatively unresearched, while establishing a link between ludic play, reader-response theory and the teaching and learning theory of socio-constructivism.

This study investigates national primary schools in South Korea, specifically, focusing on identifying and describing the characteristics of the micro pedagogical content of the classroom, and various socio-cultural and historical influences on classroom pedagogy. A mixed method exploratory approach was used. Eight focus group interviews were conducted with teachers and students to explore the field. Using a grounded theory methodology, the analysed results were then used to inform the quantitative survey design. As a result, 294 teacher questionnaires and 302 student questionnaire were collected from nine schools in Seoul. To check for consistency from earlier data collections, eight lesson observations and follow-up interviews from four schools were conducted. In addition, documentation and photographs were collected as supplementary materials. This study has illustrated the effects of the past on the present. Specifically, demonstrated that the learning environment at the micro classroom level was informed by the historical and socio-cultural influences of the community and beyond. Especially post-war reconstruction, Confucianism, chemyeon and the structure of the honorific language have been shown to be informative and predictive of student and teacher behaviour.