Amelia Roberts. 

We are in an ‘exclusions’ crisis.With a rise in exclusions for three years running, we now have 40 children per day being permanently excluded across the UK.

There is a clear link between exclusions and subsequent mental health difficulties. Add the ‘high number of prisoners currently serving time in jail – 42 percent – hav(ing) formerly been permanently excluded ’we urgently need to understand the reasons behind excluding. The thinktank Poverty and Social Inclusion articulates the links between exclusions and subsequent mental health difficulties. Too often we are assuming that the reason for exclusions lies in prior pupil behaviours or pre-existing illnesses. Should we be instead considering that the cause and effect are the other way round? Could it be that exclusion has an impact on mental health, rather than that the mental illness came first? Perhaps it is the early experiences of excluding in school that reinforces social exclusion in later life?

Such questions will feed into discussions at a conference at UCL on March 15 which will examine how the Lesson Study approach can support vulnerable children. (more…)

Sarah Seleznyov, with members of the Collaborative Lesson Research Group*.
“If there is no impact on teaching and learning, then that (intervention) is not lesson study”.  (Akihiko Takahashi at a workshop in London, 7 December 2017)
Having looked forward to the Education Endowment Foundation’s evaluation of lesson study for some time, we are disappointed by the outcome. This disappointment is not about the low effect size, but because this narrowly-focused review of just one fairly basic model could discourage schools from using a very valuable approach to teacher development.
We would challenge the EEF study’s methodology and argue that the conclusions (e.g. no evidence of improved maths and reading at KS2) are misleading. Our own conclusion is that the version of lesson study used in the project was a ‘first step’ version, which most teachers and schools new to the practice need to go through, but certainly not (more…)