The European Union increased from 15 to 25 Member States in 2004. The UK government permitted unrestricted access to these new EU citizens, resulting in largescale immigration from Eastern and Central Europe. The unplanned arrival of large numbers of pupils from these new Member States challenged schools. Neither the magnitude nor the impact on schools of these migration flows was understood. It was against this background of a dearth of knowledge and increasing professional uncertainty in a complex and sensitive area of education that the research programme was developed. Its purpose was to provide a better understanding of migration flows and their impact on primary education. This migration inflow confusion dictated that a broad, exploratory approach, employing a multi-method process, be adopted. Methods ranged from the analysis of 27 million pupil registrations to gathering information from individual teachers and parents through interviews and questionnaires. A principal theme provided cohesion and coherence to the five distinct stages of study. Questions relevant to each stage encompassed international, national, LA, school, parent and pupil-level perspectives. The research findings show that the UK government intended to encourage large-scale EU immigration, resulting in Britain’s largest and fastest peacetime inward migration. The migration measuring systems employed were shown to be unfit for purpose. Confusion over ethnic categorisation undermining the accuracy of school census enumerations was discovered. The studies indicated that the WEEU pupil population increased at a faster rate than any other major category and that schools were illequipped to cope with the scale and professional demands of these arrivals. Furthermore, WEEU pupils reduced the average performance of case study schools. The thesis suggests the need for improvements to the national and school census systems. A review of educational procedures for managing unplanned EU migrant flows is also indicated, as is better training for teachers in EAL.

While school accountability continues to gain national prominence in the highly centralised Education System of the Seychelles, concerns have been raised as to how accountable school leaders and teachers are in the primary schools. Through a mixed methods approach using questionnaires, interviews, observations as well as documentary analysis in two case studies, the study uses a conceptual base to examine school leaders and teachers‟ accountability from the perspectives of five stakeholder groups: headteachers, subject coordinators, teachers, schools‟ PTA chairpersons and students. In the primary schools, job descriptions have a significant influence on the understanding of accountability, where it is mostly taken to mean responsibility. Accountability in the primary schools is problematic in many aspects, particularly in the use of reporting as an accountability mechanism, recording preceding account giving, consequences, responding to demands of accountability from stakeholders because of their various interests and the lack of reciprocal accountability from parents and students in decision making. The study also indicated some positive trends emerging in schools, including professional accountability where mechanisms in place enhance highly collaborative relationships among teachers and school leaders.

published_or_final_version / Public Administration / Master / Master of Social Sciences

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The purpose of this study is to describe the relationship of developing print awareness in eight kindergarten and first grade children to their development in beginning reading of texts. The following questions are analyzed: (1) What is the relationship of awareness of environmental print to beginning text reading? (2) What is the relationship of book handling knowledge to beginning reading? (3) What is the relationship of metalinguistic awareness to beginning reading? (4) Do these relationships change over time? This descriptive, longitudinal study over one year presents several types of data collected and analyzed with the following instruments: audio taped recordings using the script "Signs of the Environment"; Sand, A Diagnostic Survey: Concepts About Print; informal teacher interviews; parent surveys; tape recordings of the children's reading analyzed with miscue techniques; and classroom observation. The data indicate that the children in this study are aware of environmental print in context. When the print becomes decontextualized, differences are seen between middle- and working-class children. While environmental print awareness was used to select high and low groups, the groups did not remain constant when observed in relationship to reading connected discourse. Children whose parents reported early book experiences demonstrate the greatest knowledge about using books and about the reading of connected discourse. Metalinguistic awareness does not appear to be closely related to success in beginning reading. In their transitions into literacy, children first use personal experience and context to gain meaning from print in the environment and in books. Knowing that print makes sense, children use contextual supports to read print in the environment and apply semantically-oriented transitional reading responses to the reading of connected discourse. As they read from books, their focus narrows from using pictures, knowledge of plot, and past reading experience to focus on print. As children discover that their transitional reading responses do not work on connected discourse, they begin to integrate reading strategies to text. Whole language classrooms, like the one in this study, are important to beginning readers, particularly to those who need additional support for making the transitions into literacy, because it highlights all beginning reading of functional print.

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