Category: Research

Three key areas of research evidence that could help us address the public health crisis in children’s speech and language skills

Posted on by School of Education University of Bristol

Why academic evidence is urgently needed if we are serious about supporting children’s language development

By Dr Ioanna Bakopoulou, University of Bristol, Professor Liz Washbrook, University of Bristol

In the UK, it is currently estimated that 1.9 million children are behind with their talking and understanding of words (Speech and Language UK, 2023). This is the highest number ever recorded and marks an unprecedented increase – particularly prevalent in areas of social deprivation. In fact, the increase in speech, language and communication needs is so great that now meets the criteria to be considered a public health problem (Law et al., 2017). (more…)

Reading for pleasure in German at A-level: an interview with Professor Katrin Kohl

Posted on by School of Education University of Bristol

By Cathy Shail, PhD, School of Education

As part of the literature review research for my doctoral study, a phenomenology into reading for pleasure at A-level in German, I conducted an expert interview with Katrin Kohl, Professor for German literature at the University of Oxford.

Her book Modern Languages – why it matters was of great interest and there were some ideas she raised that I felt were relevant to my study. I was also eager to glean the perspective of a modern linguist on the topic of reading for pleasure and second or third language acquisition.

The questions I designed were aimed at exploring her views on the reading for pleasure process, its impact and role in language acquisition as well as meaning-making. The A-level literary curriculum and examples of accessible reading in German for young linguists were other aspects upon which I was equally keen to seek her opinion. (more…)

There’s a crisis in special educational needs provision: here’s the situation across the UK and Ireland

Posted on by School of Education University of Bristol

Cathryn Knight, University of Bristol; Joanne Banks, Trinity College Dublin, and Noel Purdy, Queen’s University Belfast

In the UK and Ireland, children who have significant special educational needs and disabilities can receive their education outside mainstream school. This often takes place in “special schools” or “special classes”.

In the UK, as well as the Republic of Ireland, legislation sets out that children have the right to attend mainstream education. This right cannot be refused based on the complexity of the child’s needs. However, many children are educated in specialist schools, and the devolved governments of the UK, and Ireland, have taken differing approaches to this provision.

But there is a problem. Across the UK and Ireland, there are far fewer places available in specialist schools and classes for the number of children identified with needs significant enough to warrant a place. (more…)

South West Anti-Racist Education Forum

Posted on by School of Education University of Bristol

On 28th June, UWE hosted the third annual South West Anti-racist Education Forum (SWAREF), an event organised in partnership between UWE and the University of Bristol.  The 2024 SWAREF aimed to build on the previous two events in 2023 and 2022 and provide informative and participatory sessions on issues which local practitioners have identified as priorities: student voice, racial literacy, safeguarding, refugee education and sharing current anti-racist projects and research. The takeaway from the day, described by an attendee, is that education practitioners should be ‘explicitly and actively anti-racist’. (more…)

Nearly half of children born in Wales in 2002-03 classed as having special educational needs – this may have negatively affected their attainment

Posted on by School of Education University of Bristol

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Cathryn Knight, University of Bristol and Emily Lowthian, Swansea University

Nearly half of people born in Wales in 2002-03 were classed as having special educational needs (Sen), our new research has indicated, raising questions about the system used to diagnose a generation of Welsh children.

Our report for the Nuffield Foundation found that 48% of this group, who are now aged 20 to 22, were identified as having Sen at some point before they turned 17. In some cases, this may have negatively affected their educational outcomes.

Pandemic disruptions meant complete data was only available for this year group. However, we also identified several factors that made some children born in Wales between 2002 and 2008 more likely to receive a Sen diagnosis – including being a boy, being born in summer, and being on free school meals.

Our findings suggest children from these groups may have been over-identified (and those not in these groups potentially under-identified). A new system for identifying educational needs was introduced in Wales in 2020, and the number of children being diagnosed has since fallen significantly – it was 20% lower in the year after the new system began. (more…)

King’s speech 2024: experts explain new government’s plans for workers’ rights, rail nationalisation, education, and more

Posted on by School of Education University of Bristol

The king’s speech has been delivered, marking the state opening of parliament (technically, this was the first king’s speech with a Labour government in 74 years). The speech was written by Keir Starmer’s government, not the king, and lays out the government’s agenda for the coming year. Here, a team of The Conversation’s academic experts break down the key policies most likely to have a direct impact on people’s lives.

Read the rest of our expert reactions to the government’s plans for political reform here. (more…)

If the government is serious about tackling child poverty, it should extend free school meals

Posted on by School of Education University of Bristol

Will Baker, University of Bristol

The government has created a new ministerial taskforce for its child poverty strategy, led by Work and Pensions secretary Liz Kendall and Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson. It is urgently needed: 4.3 million children in the UK are living in poverty.

The government has already committed to making sure free breakfast clubs are available in all primary schools in England.

We know that having a good breakfast at school can help improve child behaviour and readiness to learn, and helps children achieve more at school. The introduction of breakfast clubs for all primary school children is welcome – but this cannot be the limit of the government’s ambitions if it is serious about tackling child poverty and dealing with its consequences. Extending free school meals in England would be a powerful step here. (more…)

Exploring issues in secondary subject English: Reconnecting curriculum, policy and practice

Posted on by School of Education University of Bristol

By Dr Lorna Smith, School of Education, University of Bristol

The Victorian writer, philosopher and critic, John Ruskin, once invited his readers to ‘Commiserate [with] the hapless Board School child, shut out from dreamland and poetry, and prematurely hardened by the pressure of codes and formularies. He spends his years as a tale that is not told’ (Lawson & Silver, 1973, p. 330). But what tale could be told of today’s hapless secondary state-school student of English in England, who might be similarly shut out from dreamland and poetry and prematurely hardened and diminished by the pressure of narrow assessment objectives?

(more…)

The noises of knowledge production

Posted on by School of Education University of Bristol

Blog by Dr Rachel Helme and Michael Rumbelow, TLC Research Centre, School of Education

How to record and represent the non-verbal sounds of the School of Education? This was the challenge we set ourselves in an experimental research project recently funded by the TLC Research Centre.

Several constraints were explicit in the brief, for example to avoid identifiable human speech, to spend a certain number of hours on production, ethically to make people aware of when and where and why we were recording, to use only the relatively modest equipment budgeted for, and to produce a short podcast-length soundfile of up to 20 minutes. (more…)

How educational systems respond to diversity, inclusion and social justice

Posted on by School of Education University of Bristol

By Navin Kikabhai, School of Education, University of Bristol

Background

Navin Kikabhai (University of Bristol) is collecting information for a research article to understand the challenges of public/academic engagement, and examine understanding and perspectives about the topic of conversation. Watch the video presentation ‘How educational systems respond to diversity, inclusion and social justice’, and answer a short questionnaire. (more…)