This article estimates the effects of school expenditure on school performance at Key Stage 4 in England, over the period 2003-07 during which real per pupil expenditure increased rapidly. It adds to previous investigations by using dynamic panel analysis to: exploit time series data on individual schools that only recently has become available;…

According to governments around the world, developing and sustaining technological skills and competencies are seen to be a key part of a student's ability to engage with twenty-first century schooling. Yet to what extent do students believe in the association between technological competence and their success at school? This short research paper…

Relatively small numbers of people with intellectual disabilities (ID) are engaging in paid employment and those who are tend to be working only part-time. This preliminary study addressed the question of what factors motivate people with ID to work. The issue was investigated in a sample of 10 young work-age adults attending supported learning…

We investigated the role of attention in pairing superimposed visual features. When moving dots alternate in color and in motion direction, reports of the perceived color and motion reveal an asynchrony: the most accurate reports occur when the motion change precedes the associated color change by approximately 100ms [Moutoussis, K., & Zeki,…

Progression from a foundation degree to an honours degree has become an increasingly popular pathway through higher education. The route creates dual institution scenarios in which students can progress from a further education institution to a higher education institution. This paper reports on research into the academic and social integration of…

Arts Council England (ACE) commissioned NFER to undertake the national evaluation of the In Harmony social and music education programme 2012-2015. In Harmony is funded by the Department for Education (DfE) and ACE, and is currently being piloted in six areas. The evaluation is investigating the range and extent of impacts on children, families,…

Investigations of the post-16 outcomes for young people with a specific language impairment (SLI) are limited in scope. The current study extends our understanding of the young people's outcomes by examining the academic, employment and social outcomes of a cohort of pupils who attended a residential special school in the south east of England for…

The aims of the present study are to investigate whether and how teachers change in their observed classroom quality (emotional and instructional support, classroom organization, and students' engagement; measured with the Classroom Assessment Scoring System observation measure for secondary school [CLASS-S]; Pianta, La Paro, & Hamre, 2006)…

This paper explores the use of videoconferencing as used in English schools, drawing on data collected over seven years from a number of funded and unfunded projects. A common theme emerging from across these investigations is that the educational use of videoconferencing technology in schools is not a unitary phenomenon. Rather, different…

We discuss an investigation into the understandings of trainee teachers about government policy, using, as an example, the UK government's "Every Child Matters" (ECM). We discuss the research methods used to gather and analyse data from 197 initial teacher education trainees in three institutions in England drawn from six subject areas.…

Understanding how responses become prepotent is essential for understanding when inhibitory control is needed in everyday behaviour. We investigated prepotency in the grass-snow task--in which a child points to a green card when the experimenter says "snow" and a white card when the experimenter says "grass". Experiment 1 (n =…

This paper draws on findings from a four-year longitudinal research project, commissioned by the Department for Education and Skills (DfES), which investigated Variations in Teachers' Work, Lives and Effectiveness (VITAE). Drawing on data gathered from 300 teachers working in 100 primary and secondary schools in England, the research identified…

In this article, the authors describe a research project designed to explore the effects of science testing in Year 6 (age 11) in England and implications of the abolition of testing in Wales since 2004. The research was commissioned by the Welcome Trust in association with the ASE to inform representation to the House of Commons Select Committee…

This article reports research from a project set up to implement 'bridging work' in science in England. Group interviews of 59 pupils in Year 6 (at the end of primary school) and 48 pupils in Year 7 (at beginning of secondary school) were carried out after pupils had completed bridging work. Twenty-six of this sample were the same pupils.…

This study examines science teachers' thinking on the nature and purpose of practical work in the context of the National Curriculum for Science in England. There is a particular focus on investigations (enquiry in the science classroom), which have been a statutory component of the curriculum since 1989. Data were collected through individual…