In March 2013, the UK government announced that it was to award the Primary Physical Education and Sport Premium funding to all English state-funded primary schools to improve provision of Physical Education and sport following the London 2012 Olympic Games. This study reports on seven schools in close geographical proximity to each other within…

Over the last decade, a plethora of research has been undertaken into learning outside the classroom and its resultant benefits on pupils [Dillon, J., M. Rickinson, K. Teamey, M. Morris, M. Y. Choi, D. Sanders, and P. Benefield. 2006. "The Value of Outdoor Learning: Evidence from Research in the UK and Elsewhere." "School Science…

Internationally, school readiness is increasingly the rationale for early childhood education and care (ECEC). This is the case in England, yet the statutory English Early Years Foundation Stage framework for children 0-5 years also requires practitioners to listen to children's voices: discourse indicates dissonance between school readiness and…

This paper provides an exploratory discussion surrounding the views and experiences of women and men who work/train in the early years (0-8 years) by bringing together select findings from two independent doctoral research projects. In an effort to weave together the voices of females and males working/training in the early years sector, this…

The aim of this study was to investigate how finnish students explain factors that contribute to their achievement in classroom learning activities and whether these factors are related to support of self-regulated learning (SRL) in classroom. Over seven weeks, 24 primary school students were videotaped during their typical classroom activities in…

Learning to read is a complex process with many people being influential in supporting the success of students. As young adolescents often tend to show a lower motivation to read and also as at this critical time in their schooling, more curriculum areas require students to be competent readers, this article focuses on how parents can play a…

The aim of this article is to highlight some conceptions of ethical competence identified in interviews with teachers in religious education in Sweden, and within analyses of policy documents in a Swedish and an Icelandic educational context. As a starting point we take seven interviewed teachers' comments about what they view as important ethical…

The purpose of this study was to describe to what extent four preschool teachers in Turkey have developmentally appropriate beliefs and practices related to two dimensions of classroom management. The participants of the study were four female teachers working in Ankara. The data of this study were collected through a demographic information…

The benefit the outdoor environment has for young children's development is widely documented. However, there is less literature outlining practitioners' experiences of assessing learning in the outdoors and factors which impact the level and quality of assessments undertaken. This study, based on a pragmatic mixed methods approach, undertaken in…

This study describes the beliefs, self-reported practices and actual practices related to child-centred education of five female preschool teachers in Ankara, Turkey, and assesses the consistency between the participants' beliefs and practices. Data were collected through interviews, classroom observations and document review. The results…

This research explores the impact of the Reading Education Assistance Dogs (READ) scheme on reading engagement and motivation among Early Years Foundation-Stage children using a case study approach at a primary school in the English Midlands. There is a notable lack of UK-based research into the READ scheme, which offers a potential alternative…

Forest School has become increasingly popular in the UK, although little is known about what actually happens in sessions and how these sessions are planned. Using observations of two sessions and semi-structured interviews with two adult leaders this article sets out to explore how the sessions are planned, alongside a young child (aged 2-4…

Cooperative learning (CL) has a strong research base, but it is underutilised. This can be explained by teachers' reluctance to experiment with pedagogies in an environment increasingly focused on high-stakes testing. Early career teachers (ECTs) need support to be innovative practitioners, particularly with such a complex one as CL. The teacher's…

In 2008, the Welsh Assembly Government began the implementation of a new holistic play-based learning continuum for children aged three to seven called the Foundation Phase. Areas of learning replaced subjects and consequently pupils in Wales under the age of seven no longer study Physical Education in its traditional form. With growing…

Gendered expectations are deeply embedded within the fabric of a society and the classroom is no exception; binaries habitually pervade attitudes, practices and pedagogies. This small-scale qualitative-interpretive study, undertaken in one rural primary school in North Wales, explores how the learning of gender is constructed, enacted and…