School absenteeism is a major societal problem, with a range of potential adverse long-term consequences. This scoping review aimed to provide a comprehensive overview of the research on school absenteeism in autistic children and adolescents, expose important gaps in the literature, and explore possibilities for future systematic reviews. Five…

Improvisation is an area of interest to both music education researchers and music educators alike. The purpose of this literature review was to examine extant studies related to improvisation at the elementary level. Selected research included the nature of improvisation, the amount of instructional time and activity type used, the development of…

Background: Public health professionals advocate school-based and community physical activity (PA) interventions as an effective method to increase PA levels and improve physical fitness. Purpose: This evaluation independently assessed a school-community linked PA intervention by exploring the provision, process, and impact of the program and its…

In this article, Helen Spring explains how a 'wow' activity is a great place to start learning outside the classroom. It will enthuse both children and staff. Teachers new to outdoor learning can start with something simple like having students use double-sided sticky tape to collect as many colours as they can from the school grounds. Then look…

Gender bias exists in our language environment. We investigated personal name usage in two large corpora of language written for and by U.K. children aged 5-13. Study 1 found an overrepresentation of male names in children's books, largely attributable to male authors. In stories written by over 100,000 children, Study 2 found an overall male bias…

Burlington Junior School in the East Riding of Yorkshire decided to highlight some excellent role models to its pupils during British Science Week 2021, who were not the stereotypical male, white, old or dead scientist. The intention was to make learning more relevant, more accessible and therefore more engaging and informative. It was hoped that…

Modern lifestyle that is based on ideologies such as consumerism, individualism and materialism has led to overconsumption, mass extinction and climate change in the world and threatens the wellbeing of every member on this planet. An increasing number of studies indicate that mindfulness practice may address the socio-ecological challenges of…

During the COVID-19 'lockdown', members of the Association for Science Education (ASE) primary science community worked together to develop a series of remote learning resources for the 2020 summer term. This article describes how the aim of making science, with embedded science enquiry activities, accessible to parents and children in their home…

Engaging with digital media is part of everyday living for the majority of children, yet opportunities to learn about, through and with media are denied many pupils in compulsory schooling. Whilst Media Studies in the UK is internationally reputed to be well established, changes made to the primary and secondary national curriculum in 2014…

This research project aims to illustrate the journey of school partnerships between primary schools in Cumbria, UK and Moshi, Tanzania. Using a qualitative approach, the study shares the processes involved from making first contact with an oversees link school to expanding a successful model of partnership working to a cluster of schools in both…

Forest schools are distinctive outdoor spaces that are often regarded as an alternative to mainstream education. Their increasing popularity in the United Kingdom is often attributed to a perceived decrease in children's outdoor play, due to a concomitant increase in children's use of digital technologies in the home; further compounded by the…

This paper provides theorisation about a novel concept for education: an integrative philosophy of knowledge (IPK). This is proposed for school curricula to relate multiple subjects to big questions of personal and existential importance. Critical contemporary issues such as climate change education require multiple subject contributions but there…

Recent developments in technology have accelerated the influence of artificial intelligence (AI) on our lives. The ability of generative-AI tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude to both 'write' (generate new texts) and 'read' (e.g. summarise texts) in a human-like manner means they are set to play an increasingly important role in the literacy…

Children with neurodevelopmental diagnoses often experience discrimination from their peers at school. This may result from a lack of understanding, and intolerance of differences in their thinking, communication and social interactions. Learning About Neurodiversity at School (LEANS) is a teaching programme designed to educate primary school…

Climate change is not a future problem, it is a significant variation of weather conditions becoming warmer, wetter or drier. It is the longer-term trend that differentiates climate change from natural weather variability. The aim of this research was to determine primary school students' knowledge and attitudes related to climate change among…