This profile explains the assessment system in England, concentrating on those aspects that are related to government policy. It begins by putting the system in context; it then describes the national educational structure, curriculum and assessment arrangements. The government agencies responsible for carrying out education policies are…

This article looks at the possibilities of content-based instruction in mainstream English secondary schools. It considers the continuum from a language to content focus in classrooms where teachers collaborate. English as an additional language (EAL) and subject curriculum teachers work together to support young people while they simultaneously…

Almost a decade ago, the new subject of citizenship was created in the English National Curriculum and several universities were funded to train teachers in this new subject. This presented a rare challenge, namely how to train people to teach a subject that did not exist in schools, and in which they were unlikely to have a specialist degree. In…

The new schooling-leaving age policy in New South Wales, a state in Australia, requires all students to stay at school until they are 17 years old. The policy was introduced in January 2010, with little warning and, it appears, little consideration of its impact in complex contexts. In south-western Sydney, the most diverse region in the city, the…

The poor success rate of policy for curriculum change has been widely noted in the educational change literature. Part of the problem lies in the complexity of schools, as policy-makers have proven unable to micro-manage the multifarious range of factors that impact upon the implementation of policy. This article draws upon empirical data from a…

This paper presents the response of the technology teacher education programmes at the University of Limerick to the assessment challenge created by the shift in philosophy of the Irish national curriculum from a craft-based focus to design-driven education. This study observes two first year modules of the undergraduate programmes that focused on…

In this article, the author reports on a new symposium series which aims to provide a forum for dialogue across different interest groups of the languages field as a basis for considering a viable, encompassing language education policy; and, to position the languages community to address the important development of a national curriculum. Four…

This research explores the interrelationship between the production of national identity and multiculturalism in Irish schools and society. Working from the perspective that ideas about "race" and nation are inextricably linked, I examine how contemporary nationalistic identity projects and processes map onto the current policy drive…

The International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS) is the largest international study of civic and citizenship education ever conducted. Over 140,000 Grade 8 students, 62,000 teachers, and 5,300 school principals from 38 countries participated in this study. Among these were five from Asia, 26 from Europe, six from Latin America, and…

Considerable change has taken place in Icelandic early childhood education during the past few decades. Preschool, from being geared primarily towards children with evident social needs, has become all but universal. The aim of this study was to shed light on Icelandic parents' views on their children's preschool education and to examine how their…

This is the second publication in the Teaching and Learning Research Initiative (TLRI) Project Plus series. Project Plus aims to inform questions of policy and practice by synthesising findings of educational interest from projects funded by the TLRI. This Project Plus focuses on literacy in the early childhood education (ECE) and school…

Current English curriculum documents, namely the "Practice Guidance for the Early Years Foundation Stage" and "Key Stage 1 of the National Curriculum," contain mixed messages about the role and value of drawing in early education. The documents state that children should be encouraged to explore their ideas, feelings and…

The five papers in this collection consider a range of important issues in relation to the English national curriculum assessment system (NCA). In responding to these articles, Jannette Elwood considers some of the issues the authors have raised generally in relation to a revised English NCA, but also more specifically she considers them from a…

Official reports on primary education are a bit like London buses. You wait ages and then three come along at once. There has been no major report on primary education since the 1967 Plowden Report "Children and their Primary Schools". Now, final reports are awaited from the Cambridge Primary Review and the government-appointed…

This article examines the impact of the concept of social capital on the citizenship education initiative in England through its influence on the normative content of the policy, as embodied in the report of the Advisory Group on Citizenship (AGC)--which was one of the immediate causes of the inclusion of citizenship in the National Curriculum in…