The thesis research explored children’s physical activity levels that occurred within the primary school setting. It examined the contribution that Physical Education lessons make to children’s overall measured physical activity levels within the school day. It investigated children’s perceived level of physical activity and compared this with children’s physical activity measured by accelerometers. For the purpose of the thesis research, physical activity was regarded as, “any bodily movement resulting in energy expenditure” (Sirad and Pate, 2001, p.440). The majority of previous physical activity research has focused on secondary aged children and adults, with little on physical activity levels achieved by primary aged children within school time, or on the comparison between infants (6 – 7 year olds) and juniors (9 – 10 year olds). Data were collected within a case study setting in one school, over one school year. 20 children, 5 infant boys (mean age at start of data collection, 6 years 4 months), 5 infant girls (mean age at start of data collection, 6 years 6 months), 5 junior boys (mean age at start of data collection, 9 years 4 months) and 5 junior girls (mean age at start of data collection, 9 years 4 months) wore Actigraph accelerometers to record physical activity intensity levels throughout the school day from 9am until 3.10pm. A repeated measures 3 factor ANOVA was used to analyse the effects of factors including the following: type of day (days including a Physical Education lesson (PE days) and those that did not (Non PE days); year group (infants/juniors); parts of the day (curriculum time/morning break/lunchtime/afternoon break) and gender (male/female). P values of <0.05 were taken as the value for statistical significance ± one standard deviation. Statistical analysis was completed using SPSS 17.0. An interactive tool, (Qwizdom) was incorporated with a questionnaire that was adapted from Kowalski et al. (2004) in terms of language and vocabulary to suit the age of the children which assessed the children's perceived levels of physical activity. The perceived activity was compared with the accelerometer physical activity data. The findings revealed that children were more physically active on school days that included Physical Education lessons. Boys were more physically active at a moderate to vigorous level than girls. Junior boys were able to accumulate 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity within the school day on a day that included Physical Education lessons and in doing so reached the Department of Health's (DH, 2005) and the World Health Organisation's (WHO, 2010) recommendations for children’s physical activity within the school day, even though these are for the full day not just the school day. Children’s perceived physical activity levels matched their accelerometer recordings, in particular for junior boys during break time and for girls during Physical Education lessons. The results present the potential for broader claims to be made, relating to: the contribution primary schools make to children’s physical activity levels, the contribution Physical Education lessons make to children’s overall physical activity levels and the potential provision of opportunities for children to be physically active outside of Physical Education lessons during the school day.

This thesis is formed from two papers: a systematic literature review and an empirical research study. The first, a systemic literature review, explores and critically discusses the current research into acculturation, specifically research into acculturation approaches adopted by children of minority groups and their families and perceptions of the majority host group. It further considers research focusing on minority group members of Muslim faith. It critically explores the effect of acculturation approaches on prosocial adaptation in children and on academic achievement or school success. The second, an empirical research study, explores the acculturation approaches adopted by children of Muslim faith from four different Arab ethnicities (Somali, Saudi, Yemeni and Libyan), as well as their perceptions of the approach to acculturation adopted by their families and White British peers. Prosocial adaptation and academic progress was also explored in order to identify any correlations between the approach to acculturation and adaptation. This small exploratory study did not find any relationship between the approach to acculturation (of self and outgroup) and prosocial adaptation and academic achievement. However, findings tentatively suggest that children of Libyan and Yemeni ethnicities adopt less co-evolved approaches to acculturation and also perceive their families and White British peers to ascribe to less co-evolved approaches to acculturation. It also found positive correlations between resilience and academic progress and between age and level of isolation and loneliness. Limitations of this exploratory study are discussed and recommendations made for further research. Implications for the practice of educational psychology are presented.

This thesis project was designed to review the impact of Precision Teaching on elements of motivation and self-efficacy of male pupils in Year 5 and Year 6. Precision Teaching (PT) is a formative assessment based intervention, incorporating the principles of the learning hierarchy (Haring, Lovitt, Eaton, & Hansen, 1978), to deliver individually tailored teaching supported by continuous assessment and feedback. A mixed methods design incorporated single case experimental designs and qualitative interviews with the purpose of exploring the impact of PT on attribution style, locus of control and self-efficacy of pupils. Data was gathered using an adaption of the Multi-dimensional Measure of Children’s Perceptions of Control (Connell, 1985), Myself as a Learner (Burden, 1999) and structured interviews with participants. Staff at three schools implemented Precision Teaching with participants following training in this intervention. Results indicate no significant direction of change for internal, powerful others or unknown control over learning for pupils completing PT sessions, with all pupils displaying high internal causal attributions for their learning outcomes. Wider variation in unknown and powerful others control responses during intervention phases indicates that some change may have occurred in pupil perceptions of these elements. Of the four cases described, evidence of increased self-efficacy was found in one case. Analysis of interview data suggested that mechanisms of challenge, feedback of learning changes, and increased competence were potential mechanisms of motivation change initiated by PT. The paper concludes that further research is required to explore these mechanisms with a wider range of participants, and the impact of PT through closer analysis of participant attributions and loci of control over learning outcomes.

This thesis reflects the voices of 9 to 10 year-old primary school children in Iran and England. The findings were collected from 81 Iranian pupils within five single-sex primary classrooms and 41 English pupils in two primary classrooms. The study is mainly focused on Iranian pupils and their views. However, since all the terms used in this study originated within the Western education system, it was prudent to undertake the study in England too. It aimed to deepen understanding of the concepts as well as to have a better reflection on my findings in Iran. In order to listen to the voices of pupils, two methods of data collection were applied: participant observation and individual semi-structured interviews. As a participant observer, I facilitated six hours of workshops with each classroom adopting the community of enquiry as my pedagogical method. The selected stories of ‘One Thousand and One Nights’ were used as a ‘springboard or trigger’ to facilitate the classroom inquiry. The findings suggest that the stories of ‘One Thousand and One Nights’ may enable children’s voice in four ways. First, stories engaged children in discussion on topical issues that matter to them. Second, they open up space for imaginative journeys and help children to ‘go visiting’ different views of story characters. Third, these stories contain astonishment which may foster children’s imagination. Finally, they nurture moral reasoning by picturing moral dilemmas. The findings also revealed that building of a reciprocal relationship between teacher/pupils and pupils/pupils is required when giving voice. In addition to this, it was recommended to transform a classroom into a shared space where all the children can be seen and heard.

The thesis is an appraisal of various design aspects of new and extended primary schools in Essex built between 1973 and 1993. The investigation method included a review of primary school design literature and County Council archives, interviews with Officers concerned with the design and operation of primary schools, visits to schools, analysis of user comment by questionnaire, and investigative essays. The appraisal contains three parts:- part one a review of primary education since 1973; part two strategic aspects of primary school design, including, planning, constructional systems, aesthetics, environmental design, engineering services, interior and exterior design; part three detailed requirements of today's primary school room by room; plus conclusions promulgating lessons for the future. Main conclusions of the study are :- - Economic and political pressures have reduced quality and space standards, encouraged traditional teaching methods, and reduced community use. - The County Architect and Education department's influence diminished as power was delegated to individual schools. - Limited generic plans, including the paired classbase, have developed which are a useful precedent for future design teams. - System building produced stereotype deep plan buildings, with austere architecture which failed to respect their setting or delight users. Current traditional pitched roof designs are more successful, but relatively uninspired. - Despite environmental design and engineering attempting to balance conflicting factors and reduce energy consumption by using alternative fuels and solar passive methods, users prefer locally controlled traditional heating and ventilation systems. - Interiors are high quality with a domestic ambience, whereas exteriors are poor quality with windswept wastelands without enclosure or facilities for outside teaching. - Users believe 1980s schools are too small, sufficient classbase space is a priority, and demand better quality exteriors. This thesis should provide a clear view of the clients' requirements, past precedent, and critical relationships and will help future multi-disciplinary design teams, working under difficult conditions, produce better primary schools for Essex.

When teachers plan to teach mathematics, they draw on many examples to either demonstrate a concept or provide opportunities for learners to practise skills and procedures. The examples used by primary trainee teachers, it is suggested, are often chosen without suitable consideration of learners' strengths, weaknesses or misconceptions. Whilst there has been research on the choice of examples by teachers in secondary mathematics, detailed empirical research of primary mathematics or for trainee teachers is relatively scarce. In this study, two cohorts of final year trainee primary teachers were invited to submit lesson plans for analysis and a sample group was interviewed to try to identify the theoretical frameworks trainees use for planning mathematics and their approaches to choosing examples for learning. The data collected was then analysed using a multiple case study approach against a conceptual framework based on the Knowledge Quartet research of Rowland et al. (2009) and the development of the notion of example spaces by Watson and Mason (2005). The analysis sought to identify commonalities in the way the group of trainees approached planning mathematics and draw insights on their rationales for choosing mathematical examples. Each trainee's planning was scrutinized against the theoretical background in the literature and conclusions were drawn regarding the methods of planning adopted, the examples chosen and the possible links between these actions and the trainees' levels of mathematical subject knowledge. Evidence from the study appears to show that trainees do not make use of theoretical frameworks when planning mathematics lessons, examples are chosen from existing sources such as textbooks and websites, and any modifications are made with differentiation as a key factor rather than mathematics pedagogy, with trainees' subject knowledge playing a minimal role in the planning process.

This thesis attempts to develop a new model for a renewed concept of readability. The thesis begins by discussing the rationale for carrying out this research. Next, the extensive literature around the topic of readability is reviewed. The literature suggests that most research into readability has stemmed from a positivist paradigm, and has used quantitative methods to assess text comprehensibility. This approach has been widely criticised and, recently, more qualitative methods stemming from an interpretive paradigm have been employed. It seems that both quantitative and qualitative methods have strengths and limitations. Therefore, the research I have carried out has explored the concept of readability by combining these two research approaches. The data collection methods include readability formulae; text feature analyses; miscue analyses; retellings and interviews. This research has been conducted in the United Kingdom and involved 16 male and 16 female pupils with an age range from 6 to 11 years old. All the participants were fluent readers. Data were analysed using; (1) six online readability formulae - ATOS (1997); Dale-Chall (1948); Flesch-Kincaid (1948); FOG (1952); SMOG (1969); and Spache (1953); (2) Reading Miscue Inventory (Goodman, Watson & Burke, 2005); (3) Judging Richness of Retellings (Irwin & Mitchell, 1983); (4) text feature analysis forms; and (5) a cross-interview analysis approach. Two computer software programmes i.e Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS 17) and Qualitative Data Analysis (Nvivo 7) were used to organise and analyse the quantitative and qualitative data. The findings suggest that the concept of readability is influenced by both reader and text factors. The reader factors involve a complex relationship of nine embedded elements within the reader, namely interest, prior knowledge, attitude, reading ability, motivation, purpose of reading, engagement, age and gender. The text factors include eight elements, these being the physical features of the text, genre, content, author, linguistic difficulties, legibility, illustrations and organization of the text. This research comes to the conclusion that the concept of readability is a complex matching process involving the dynamic interaction between both reader and text factors and bound by certain contexts.

In recent years, phonics instruction in early literacy education has gained in popularity due to its critical role in facilitating phonological awareness and processing skills, said to enable the self-teaching mechanism inherent in an alphabetic language. These claims are based on research on L1 learners of English, however: little has been reported on the utility of phonics instruction for foreign language learners. This study therefore investigated young Taiwanese learners of English who had undergone phonics instruction as part of their EFL programme of study. Textbook analysis, teacher interviews, a student questionnaire, and a battery of diagnostic tests and tasks were used to uncover the role and efficacy of phonics in Taiwanese EFL learners’ literacy development as well as the underlying factors that contribute to shape its role and affect its efficacy. The data was analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively and findings related to the presentation and practice of phonics teaching in class, teachers’ and learners’ perceptions and beliefs related to phonics and English literacy, and learners’ strategy use in oral reading, spelling and word learning were analyzed and discussed. The results revealed that due to the influences of socio-contextual constraints, learners’ insufficient phonological skills, the absence of a well-developed spoken system in the learners, and a distinctive L1 writing system, phonics plays a distinctively different role for young Taiwanese learners of English from the one it plays for English L1 learners.

This thesis investigates the potential of the arts, and drama in particular, to contribute to the personal, social and emotional well-being of primary school children. It is based on a six-month fieldwork in two educational institutions in Cyprus; a Primary School and a Youth Theatre. I conducted a series of drama workshops with 46 children aged 6-13, in order to examine whether and how their engagement with drama led to benefits associated with the following aspects of their well-being: Happiness and pleasure; sociability, social skills and skills of working with others; self-esteem, self-confidence and sense of achievement; beauty; and children’s voice. I have decided to focus on these, among many others, because when recent official reports in the UK and Cyprus suggested that the well-being of children is under threat, they translated the phenomenon into terms that fall into these categories. Additionally, while looking at the data generated during my fieldwork, I realised that they pointed strongly to these directions. The recent interest with well-being has led governments in the UK and Cyprus to invest in the designing and implementing of special educational programmes that aim to help children develop their social, emotional and behavioural skills. These programmes are Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning (SEAL) in the UK, and Social and Emotional Education (SEE) in Cyprus. Yet a number of critical reports have pointed out that the very programmes designed to address the well-being of children, are actually posing the risk of undermining it. These criticisms focus on their ‘target-driven’, ‘management-by-objectives’ approach, that has been evaluated as having had little substantial impact on student welfare. In my thesis, I will argue for an alternative understanding of children’s well-being; one that can be achieved in a more natural, organic way, through their participation in drama and the arts, and through their taking pleasure in aesthetic experiences. I will mount my argument using practical evidence from my research, which made use of the methodologies of ethnography, case study and reflective practice, and which implemented the methods of participant observation, semi-structured interviews and questionnaires, practitioner’s journal, and drama conventions as research tools. However, it is important to note that the approach of addressing well-being through drama and the arts is not without its problematic aspects. It invites a different set of challenges and implications to those of SEAL and SEE, some of which conflict with general pedagogical approaches. For example, my findings suggest that youngsters flourish on a personal, social and emotional level when they are allowed to engage with horror fiction and boisterous play. These are areas that teachers and parents might understandably perceive as crossing the boundaries of what is permissible and what is not within a classroom context. Whereas I am not denying that these approaches involve certain risks, in my thesis I propose a classroom pedagogy that can help deal with these challenges. As it will become evident throughout my thesis, issues relating to the correlation of drama to the personal, social and emotional growth of children are not technically straightforward. It is a multi-layered and more complex relationship than what the immediate responses to it might be. What I hope to have achieved is to have unpicked some of the complex issues and limitations arising from this relationship, and to have offered certain pedagogical suggestions that can make flourishing through participation in drama and the arts possible for students.

Over the last two decades, many ELT professionals and researchers have called for contextually appropriate forms of ELT pedagogy to be developed, arguing that the dominant discourse on ELT methodology, as promoted by local Ministry of Education (MoE) policy makers around the world, has been largely generated in ideal (North) contexts and so does not reflect the challenging realities of the majority of language teaching and learning contexts in which they are being imposed. Despite these calls, there has been very little research that shows how contextually appropriate ELT pedagogies can be developed. To fill this gap, there is a need for research that develops from the bottom-up by relying on input from teachers and learners who constitute the major stakeholders in the teaching and learning process. This study, therefore, set out to investigate students' and teachers' perspectives regarding what counted as good and appropriate English language teaching in two English medium primary school contexts in Cameroon. To achieve this, data was collected through classroom observation, friendship group interviews with children and stimulated recall with teachers from six English medium primary schools from Yaounde and Buea. A further two-day workshop group discussion based on videoed lessons from the six classrooms was organised with 30 teachers in both research sites. The findings of this study revealed that teachers and students possess shared, but also - in some respects - divergent notions of good/appropriate ELT pedagogy which are largely different from MoE enforced methodological procedure, and it is these notions - rather than what the Ministry says - that have the biggest impact on their experiences and practices. The study also revealed that, in exploring insights into their, as well as students’ perspectives on good teaching, teachers in the workshops were able to develop new ideas about appropriate teaching which took on board ideas from children’s perspectives as well as successful practices from the videoed lessons of their colleagues. These findings highlight the potential contribution of a bottom-up research approach to teacher development which takes account of context in the process of generating and disseminating good practice.