Outdoor and natural environments have been steadily recognised as conducive to learning and social development. Most practice and research in this field has mostly focused on green spaces, such as forests and parks, and practices such as forest school. This particular paper looks at outdoor learning in a coastal environment, which has not received…

This research aims to investigate how learning invitations are used in a Reggio-Emilia inspired preschool in the US. The case study model as a qualitative research method is applied in this research. In addition to observations in the research setting, interviews with teachers were made so that the data could be varied and enriched. As a result,…

This study aims to examine in-depth such factors as stress and classroom climate that determine the quality of preschool education. The research sample consisted of 300 teachers and 300 classes in 27 kindergartens identified using the purposive sampling method in Izmir, Turkey's third-largest city. The study was carried out using the exploratory…

This paper reports on a study that examined how more inclusive classroom communities might be achieved. Its particular concerns were to explore the contribution children's perspective might make to this work and to generate findings that would be meaningful for practitioners. The study was underpinned conceptually by the Framework of…

The article presents the results of a large-scale Polish project aimed at examining the quality of early childhood education and care using the SACERS research tool. Although the SACERS scale consists of 47 items, this article focuses mainly on the data concerning the assessment of space and furnishings of 140 school common rooms in terms of the…

This study investigates pupils' experiences with learning outside the classroom and discusses how these experiences might contribute to 'deep learning' according to a pragmatist theoretical framework and a situated perspective on knowledge. The data comprise materials from three months of fieldwork with participatory observations and qualitative…

Student voice has held a prominent place in the tradition of progressive and democratic schools and classrooms around the world. Once engaged it offers a chance to develop and use crucial skills for democratic living and to shape meaningful contexts for learning as students bring their own personal questions, cultural experiences, resources, and…

The aim of the study is to present the quality of care provided to children in Polish school common rooms. Diagnostic research was conducted using the tool 'School-Age Care Environment Rating Scale' (SACERS), and 56 school common rooms intended for children aged from 5 to 9 years were studied, both in rural and urban settings. The obtained results…

This study examined Turkish early childhood teachers' playfulness and their support of playfulness in classrooms. An explanatory mixed method design was utilised with a convenience sample of 485 teachers in the quantitative portion and 20 teachers in the qualitative portion. The quantitative data was collected through the Adult Playfulness Trait…

Wellbeing and effective engagement in reading are critical to successful learning and achievement throughout school and beyond. Reading to Dogs in schools is an increasingly popular way of supporting both wellbeing and reading engagement yet limited educational research has been conducted. This small-scale study took place in a Scottish Primary 1…

The purpose of this study was to describe and explain Japanese elementary teacher development experiences in teaching physical education (PE). Participants were eight elementary classroom teachers (six males and two females) (within their first five years of teaching) teaching PE for the first time in Japanese elementary schools. Data sources…

The Ministry of National Education (MoNE) in Turkey operates two kinds of public school for pre-school education: kindergartens, and pre-primary classrooms. The former are specifically for young children aged 36-60 months old, whilst the latter fall under the administration of primary schools and are for children aged up to 60 months old. An…

The issue of class size is a complex and contested topic that has divided opinion for many years. Whilst many teachers believe that smaller class sizes assist in enhancing outcomes, a number of policy influencers, policy makers and researchers argue that it has little influence on success in learning and that decreasing class sizes is not…

In the context of an on-going project emphasising the centrality of speaking and listening in the primary curriculum, the present article turns to vocabulary development: to the wide differences characterising primary age children in this regard, to their consequent unequal access to the wider curriculum, and to means by which such deficiencies…

Physically active lessons present a key paradigm shift in educational practice. However, little is known about the barriers to implementing physically active lessons. To address this, 31 practising primary teachers (23 = female) from 9 primary schools across West Yorkshire, England, were engaged in focus group interviews. Drawing on the…