This thesis discusses how assessment data are used to support the learning of pupils aged four to seven years in four Kent primary schools. The sample was 451 pupils in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2; the researcher collected and analysed quantitative data from pupil attainment on school entry – either as Baseline Assessment or the Foundation Stage Profile – and from results in reading, writing and mathematics at the end of KS1, both as SATs and Teacher Assessment. These data were triangulated with qualitative data collected from a semi-structured questionnaire, classroom observations and interviews with the Reception class practitioners. The author – a head teacher with many years’ experience of primary schools and the Early Years – outlines recent and current government policy and links these to assessment theory and existing practice in the four schools studied. She identifies some possible influences on attainment and looks at how value-added data are currently used as measures of pupil performance. The three research questions look at whether benchmark data can be used to predict future achievement, the educational implications of using value-added data as measures of pupil performance, and whether benchmark data can be used to support learning in the primary classroom. The findings led the researcher to conclude that accurate prediction from prior attainment is not possible at the present time and that contextual value-added data are only useful when other variables are taken into account. However, the findings showed that benchmark data – when used formatively – can be useful in supporting pupils’ learning. This study will help head teacher colleagues to look at data in a fresh way, and to identify and target the needs of individual pupils to optimise their performance from the beginning of the Foundation Stage to the end of Key Stage One.

The focus of this thesis is an exploration of how musical talent is developed. It also considers the usefulness of the terms gift and talent. The research examines contemporary issues relating to the recognition and musical development of gifted and talented young musicians in Scotland. While the terms gift and talent are applied regularly to describe the abilities of learners, they are societal constructs (Borland 2005) used to categorise children’s learning behaviours. These constructs can therefore influence an individual’s self-concept and approach to tasks (Dweck 2000) leaving the individual to believe that he/she possesses ability or not. Although this thesis does not attempt to re-conceptualise the construct of musical gift or talent, it aims to provide a greater understanding of how musical talent is developed in young people. It does this through literature analysis and empirical data collection. The thesis begins by analysing research literature to explore constructs of gift and talent, before relating this analysis to music-specific literature and to the empirical data collected during the course of the doctoral research. The empirical data was collected from four sources: professional musicians, current music students, teaching staff (music instructors/teachers and project co-ordinators/course leaders) and from pupils at a National Centre of Excellence (NCE). Through analysing literature on high ability from both general high ability studies and music-specific studies, it became apparent that there has been a development in thinking over the course of the 20th century, with a move away from ability being associated with IQ scores towards a more broadly-based consideration of the needs of the individual learner. However, the research literature indicates that teachers and society seem to focus more on the negative aspects of labelling children as gifted and talented and on the implications for the learner as well as those around them. In terms of the original data gathered from professional musicians, teachers, programme leaders/coordinators, students and school pupils, a more contemporary concept of musicianship has emerged. While the terms ‘gifted’ and ‘talented’ were used by the participant groups, the terms were not solely associated with music. Technical ability and proficiency were identified as desirable for music talent development by some participants. Equally important were more general skills such as interest, communication, people- and self-management and team work. Therefore the gifted, talented or highly able musician, to these participants, not only possess a high level of musical skill but a ratio of musical, general and transferable skills. The findings from this thesis suggest that the development of musical ability is not purely reliant on musical technique, but consists of a variety of different ‘general’ transferable skills. In addition to this, the doctoral research argues for the importance of the role of self-efficacy and resilience in attaining learning goals and achieving learning aims for pupils and students. The participants in this research were able to identify particular events which they consider either enhanced or delimited their experiences, noting how they managed each situation in order to manage their development. From this it would appear that if a learner can achieve a high level of self-efficacy they might be more likely to successfully develop their ability, regardless of the subject area in which the ability is shown.

This thesis reflects my personal and professional journey from teacher to educational psychologist through significant periods in the education of children with Social Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties (SEBDs) in the UK. It also draws of on lessons learnt from my experience working in North America in the early years of my career. The main aims of my research were to: (1) Appraise the contribution an educational psychologist could make in assessing the learning potential of children and young people with SEBDs, and (2) Consider the „added value‟ that an educational psychologist might bring to enable these children as better learners and teachers as better teachers of children with SEBDs. 45 Children and young people with Social Emotional Behavioural Difficulties and their parents and teachers participated in the research. A mixed methods approach was employed to undertake three related case studies and a reflexive and narrative analysis was employed. Main outcomes of the research were (i) SEBDs were almost always accompanied by often unrecognised learning difficulties; (ii) A cognitive assessment by an educational psychologist had an added value in understanding the needs of the child; (iii) When parents and teachers of children who participated in an especially designed intervention, it changed their views of their children‟s behaviours. They reported significant improvement in their children‟s social skills and behaviour. I conclude the thesis by considering the implications of findings for the benefit of children with SEBDs. It is crucial that teachers identify and assess learning difficulties in all children and young people and clearly differentiate these from matters of and interventions for behaviour difficulties. Teachers and parents can be empowered to deal with their children‟s behavioural difficulties by involving the Educational Psychologist as a pedagogue, sitting as he or she does at the crossroads of education and psychology.

This study has two main themes. The first is concerned with re-examining the relationship between 'ordinary' and 'special' education in the light of developments in thinking and practice over the past decade. A case study approach was used to explore the limits and limitations of the thesis that 'special educational needs' can be most effectively addressed as part of a process of general curriculum critique and development designed to benefit all children. Pursuing questions and concerns arising from my own experience as a support teacher, the aim of the research was to establish if there is still a place for a concept of 'special' education consistent with this interpretation of the task and, if so, on what basis a distinction might now legitimately be made. Individual children's responses to a particular instance of general curriculum development (in the teaching and learning of writing) were observed, and samples of their writing collected, over a period of several months. The analysis of this material highlighted the need for, and the means to articulate, a discourse and interpretive procedure for responding to concerns about individual children's learning which reflect and enact the critique of 'learning difficulties' understood as an individual problem. Having reformulated the original thesis to include an individual dimension, the study concludes that what is needed to resolve the questions raised initially is not, after all, a new distinction between 'ordinary' and 'special' education, but a distinction of a quite different order: one which draws attention to different kinds of professional thinking, and highlights the critical and innovative nature of the thinking required. The second, subsidiary theme is a methodological one. It explores what the study itself may have to contribute to the establishment of a mode of research derived from teaching. Claiming to use no 'methods' other than the interpretive resources and experience of a teacher, the study uses its own processes to explore and establish its methodological status, and in particular to consider the significance of prior experience in the development of new knowledge about education.

The relationship between phonemic awareness and literacy ability is well established in the developmental and adult reading literatures. Recent research indicates that awareness of the rhythmic patterns present in spoken language (i.e. prosody) may also be an important predictor of reading ability. Researchers have demonstrated that sensitivity to speech prosody can facilitate speech segmentation and the development of phoneme awareness. Awareness of the rhythmic patterns in spoken words and phrases is also known to play a direct role in phonological decoding, reading comprehension and learning to use punctuation. These findings have the potential to enhance our understanding of typical reading development and inform theories of how poor phonological and auditory skills contribute to dyslexia. This research also helps extend our knowledge of skilled and impaired reading to a wider range of reading materials (e.g. multisyllabic words) and thus raises issues relevant to cognitive models of visual word recognition. A small number of studies have demonstrated that sensitivity to the prosodic patterns in spoken language is reduced in children with dyslexia. However, there is currently no published research investigating the prosodic processing skills of adults with dyslexia. The precise nature of the prosodic processing deficit associated with dyslexia is also unclear. These gaps in the literature are problematic because phonological processing is multifaceted and the relationship between specific phonological skills and reading ability may change over time. This thesis presents four cross sectional studies in which adults with dyslexia were compared with control participants matched for age and IQ on various tasks designed to measure prosodic processing. The experiments also contrast the conscious awareness of prosodic structure with the underlying representation of syllabic stress assignment in the mental lexicon and the ability to acquire spelling-sound correspondences for decoding stress assignment in multisyllabic words. Participants with dyslexia showed reduced awareness of lexical and metrical prosody and these skills were found to be significantly associated with, and predictive of, phoneme awareness and phonological decoding ability (Experiments 1a and 2). In contrast, adults with dyslexia showed normal patterns of stress based priming at magnitudes similar to controls (Experiments 1b and 2). Similar, although somewhat weaker results were also obtained when lexical stress was primed with abstract stress templates rather than real-word stimuli (Experiment 3). Participants with dyslexia also showed normal effects of spelling-stress congruency on lexical decision times for disyllabic words (Experiment 4). The overall pattern of results strongly suggests that the prosodic processing problems associated with dyslexia in adulthood are limited to tasks requiring participants to access and consciously reflect upon their knowledge of prosodic structure, or to process information related to prosodic structure in an abstract way. In contrast, the ability of adults with dyslexia to represent lexical stress assignment in the mental lexicon, assemble novel prosodic representations, and learn correspondences between lexical stress assignment and aspects of orthographic structure appears to be intact. Encouragingly, this pattern of results is consistent with recent findings reported in the domain of phonemic processing.

This study examines the ways in which ensemble theatre making can contribute to citizenship education. A range of political theories construct the framework for democratic politics and active citizenship which, in turn, become the pedagogical basis for the ensemble model of theatre learning. Outstanding political theories, such as Castoriadis’ theory of the imaginary institution of society and Habermas’ model for communicative action, structure a theoretical basis which constitutes an ideal definition for democratic politics and active citizenship. This framework becomes the pedagogic ground of ensemble theatre that constitutes a collective process of theatre making and, therefore, aims to function as a democratic learning experience in the art of theatre. In this context, a research praxis that combines methodological elements from action research and case study is conducted in two high-schools of Athens and examines students’ perceptions of politics, while at the same time explores their responses to an artistic, learning experience that interacts with their own initiatives, group decisions, and socio-artistic actions. Following this methodological route that integrates both an interventionist and an interpretive interest, the fieldwork is developed as a dialogic action between the ideal conception of ensemble theatre making and the real conditions that are encountered in the educational contexts. In this context, the analysis and the interpretation of the data provides information about the ways in young people perceive arts and politics, the ways in which they experience and develop collectiveness and active participation as well as the ways in which these perceptions determine their citizenship skills. Finally, the impact of ensemble theatre process is examined in relation to the above mentioned perceptions and conditions of political socialisation.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that Home Education in England and Wales is growing in popularity. Despite this apparent growth, there is currently little research into home education in the UK from a sociological perspective. Based on data collected in an in-depth qualitative study of home educating groups and families during 2007, this thesis examines the motivations, practices and experiences of home educating parents. Despite the 'alternative' image of home education, constructions of parenthood within home education are highly gendered, with mothers and fathers tending to take on traditional gender roles. Mothers therefore perform the majority of the intense physical and emotional labour of home education. Home education expands the motherhood role beyond that predominantly found in contemporary society (providing fulfilment for many mothers), while simultaneously reinforcing normative images of motherhood. Where fathers are involved in the day-to-day process of home education this tends to be in a secondary role with mothers maintaining a significant role in the home education process. Home education is therefore a meeting point for mothers' constructions of childhood, motherhood and education. These constructions can be split into three 'types': 'Natural', 'Social' and 'Last Resort'. The interrelation of motherhood, childhood and education within home education and their co-location within the family means that notions of pedagogy and education become an extension of the socialisation process focussed on the individual child rather than education being seen as a separate process. Home education is therefore a project of motherhood which focusses on family and self and relies on the maintenance of a balance between personal labour and fulfilment.

The present thesis explores main issues regarding school bullying, based firstly on an extensive literature and research review, and secondly on a research study which took place within a period of two academic years, in Nicosia, Cyprus. The study aimed to explore and compare bullying experiences among pupils with learning difficulties (LDs) and typically developing (TD) pupils as match controls, and identify whether learning disabled pupils are bullied on a higher frequency or severity compared to their non-disabled peers. Types of bullying (verbal, physical, and particularly relational) and several factors underpinning these, were investigated. The study also aimed to explore school staff’s views and experiences regarding bullying, and to examine gender and age issues regarding the experiences of the sample in bullying. In addition, it aimed to examine bullying mental health effects on the victims, with a particular focus on its relational type. Lastly, a survey with 620 pupils from the sample schools, aged 9 to 12 years, was conducted to investigate the nature of bullying across the whole population of pupils in these schools at these ages. The sample included six primary inclusive schools located in Nicosia, a number of pupils who participated in the bullying survey (n=620), 12 pupils with LDs and 12 TD pupils aged 9 to 12 years as the main focus groups, and six head teachers and 37 teachers from the sample schools. The data collection tools included the Life in School Questionnaire (LIS) to examine generally the bullying experiences of the samples, the Reynolds Bully Victimization Scales to examine involvement in physical and verbal bullying, and specifically involvement in relational aggressive incidents and mental health effects on the victims. Also, semistructured interviews were conducted to explore in depth the samples’ experiences regarding bullying in their schools. The results showed that similar numbers of pupils with and without LDs reported victimization and generally no statistically significant differences were found when comparing the two focus groups. The interviews, on the other hand, identified interesting factors underpinning the LD pupils’ victimization were identified, and important data regarding bullying in Cypriot primary schools were collected.

A methodology and a framework for evaluating computer-based learning was produced by the TLTP Teaching with Independent Learning Technologies (TILT) Project's dedicated Evaluation Group, known as TILT-E, of which the author was a member. TILT-E's evaluation work was a result of over twenty evaluation case studies conducted by the group from 1993 to 1998, the majority of which were performed during 1994 and 1995. The TILT-E studies can be viewed as examples of good practice in the evaluation of a range of computer-based teaching situations. While TILT-E's method and measures provide a useful framework for evaluating computer-based learning they did not fully exploit the strengths and history of the theoretical approaches underpinning the TILT-E work. In fact, research traditions are seldom mentioned in the TILT-E literature yet are central not only to understanding the value of the TILT-E work, but also to assisting future research in the search for a model of the computer-based teaching and learning situation. By examining the evolution of the TILT-E methodologies through three of the first TILT-E studies, referred to in this thesis as the Pilot Studies, and then assessing several later case studies much is learnt about the need for a pluralist approach to evaluation in the computer-based teaching and learning context. While TILT-E advocates the use of different methods, the group failed to justify this approach and to recommend when and why such a mix would be appropriate. This thesis aims to rectify this imbalance through the detailed examination of eight evaluation episodes covering three different computer-based teaching and learning situations, all of which had been carried out by the author. Firstly, the Fast Frac case study is considered, which involved evaluating the replacement of a lecture with the Fast Frac software. The Fast Frac study consisted of three evaluation episodes over a period of four years. The study found that the package could replace the lecture, and noted not only that a comparative design does not necessarily constrain the researcher to empirical methods alone, but also that such an approach need not disadvantage the students in either the control or the experimental groups.

This thesis attempts to describe, explain, analyse and assess the contribution of five teaching religious orders to the development of Catholic education in Glasgow from 1847, when, with the arrival of the Franciscan Sisters, Catholic religious life returned to Glasgow for the first time since the Reformation until 1918 and the passing of the landmark Education (Scotland) Act. It concentrates on the influence and achievements of the religious orders in their role as teachers and managers of a number of primary, secondary and night schools in Glasgow as well as the role of the Sisters of Notre Dame in their particular role as educators of Catholic teachers in Glasgow. In 1918 Catholics in Scotland reversed the decision they took in 1872 to remain outside the national system of education. From 1918 Religious education according to use and wont was to be allowed within well-defined limits, but would not be fostered by the civil authority, and provision was made for a revision of the teacher-training system. The thesis argues that the work of five religious orders, the Franciscans, the Sisters of Mercy, the Marists, the Jesuits and The Sisters of Notre Dame in Catholic education in Glasgow, made it feasible for Catholic schools to remain outside the state system after the 1872 Education (Scotland) Act and until the passing of the 1918 Education (Scotland) Act. Throughout the 46 years 1872-1918 the root problem for Catholic education was finding money to subsidise Catholic schools. The key to the grants was efficiency. The source of efficiency in schools was the Training College. As a result, the story of Catholic education up to 1918 is largely one of how the increasing financial burden, without any relief from the rates to which they contributed, was borne by every section of the Catholic community in the endeavour to provide their children with an education comparable to that given in the more favoured and progressive rated schools. The thesis argues that it was largely the contribution of the religious orders to Catholic education in Glasgow during the second half of the nineteenth century and until 1918 that enabled Catholics to achieve what they did in the 1918 Education (Scotland) Act. 1 The success of the 1918 Act from the perspective of the Catholic community in Glasgow therefore can be attributed largely to the work of the religious orders in Glasgow.