Thinking Sports Day

  

On 10 July representatives from the Education department joined forces with other Social Science departments in a fun sports-themed day to help Y8 school children understand how social science degrees help shape their world and to inspire them to consider studying social sciences at degree level. Using the University's sports facilities and with help from students, student sporting societies and representatives from Sheffield United Community Foundation and the University Student Societies, participants were able to enjoy various sports and sports related activities such as bouldering, football, hiphop, capoeira and ultimate frisbee, interspersed with academic based sessions. Tim Herrick and Lisa Procter led an Education Treasure Hunt as part of the day's activities. School children from Firth Park Community Arts College and Parkwood Academy attended.

Dr David Hyatt talks about Teaching teachers

The final meeting of the cohort on the new MEd Educational Studies: Learning, Teaching and Research has just taken place at Temasek Polytechnic in Singapore. Following the success of this new course, two more have been planned.

Dr David Hyatt, director of the MEd Educational Studies: Learning, Teaching and Research was recently featured in The Strait Times, a Singaporean newspaper, talking about the distance learning masters and the benefits to teachers of postgraduate study.

The Master of Education and Postgraduate Diploma in Educational Studies of the SMF Institute of Higher Learning (SMF Institute) and the University of Sheffield are scheduled to take off in the first week of December.

For further details about the Singapore Programme, please visit our Singapore Programmes website:

Professor Cathy Nutbrown receives ESRC award

At an Awards Ceremony in London on 14th May, Professor Cathy Nutbrown was presented with the ESRC Award for research which had Outstanding Impact in Society (research that has made a contribution benefitting society more widely or a specific group of the public).

  

  

Initially the project involved 20 early years practitioners in knowledge exchange processes which adapted a family literacy framework – Opportunities, Recognition, Interaction and Models (ORIM). Through partnership with the National Children’s Bureau the project reached local authorities and a number of networks concerned with early years education. Practitioner workshops enabled the families they were working with to raise children’s literacy achievements. The original 20 practitioners shared their work resulting in around 300 practitioners getting involved, between them reaching some 6,000 families. Professor Nutbrown’s impact has reached local policy and national practice in parents’ roles in literacy.
 

On receiving the award, Cathy commented "I'm delighted to win the prize, it is a wonderful recognition of the collaboration we have built up with practitioners and with young children and their families, and I want to thank the ESRC for making this award. This builds on work begun here in the School of Education by Professor Peter Hannon, and I want to acknowledge the important part he played in establishing Family Literacy Research in the School of Education, and in the City of Sheffield. The project has had a real impact on young children's early literacy development and, in particular, on the ways in which practitioners feel inspired and skilled to support parents who want to do more to help their young children. Our impact was a result of terrific collaboration with the National Children's Bureau, with early years practitioners and with families, and across several local authorities. I want to thank Julia Bishop (RA) for her work on the project and Karen Kitchen for project support. The prize will be used to enhance networks of collaboration through the recently launched "ORIM Network', which will bring together those who are working to continue aspects of family literacy work with families."

Professor Alan Walker, Professor of Social Policy and Social Gerontology and Professor Matthew Flinders from the Department of Politics here at the University of Sheffield were also honoured at the Awards Ceremony.

Further information about the research project can be found on the Centre for the Study of Families and Learning Communities webpages and information about the impact prize is available on the ESRC website.

Professor Elizabeth Wood defends free-flow play in Early Years Education

In a recent BBC news item, Professor Elizabeth Wood has challenged Children's Minister Liz Truss description of free-flow play this week as "running round with no sense of purpose" in "chaotic" nursery settings.

Read the full item on BBC News Education and Family website.

School of Education authors in top 5

Essential Reading Plus, the Early Years Newsletter features a top five for April 2013 made up of Early Years authors from the School of Education.

The list includes WORKING WITH BABIES AND CHILDREN: FROM BIRTH TO THREE by Jools Page, Cathy Nutbrown, Ann Clare. INCLUSION IN THE EARLY YEARS, by Cathy Nutbrown, Peter Clough. UNDERSTANDING SCHEMAS WITH YOUNG CHILDREN: FROM BIRTH TO THREE by Frances Atherton, Cathy Nutbrown. CREATING A LEARNING ENVIRONMENT FOR BABIES AND TODDLERS by Ann Clare. PLAY, LEARNING AND THE EARLY CHILDHOOD CURRICULUM, by Elizabeth Wood

For further details, please visit the Essential Reading Plus website.

International Women's Day

To mark International Women's Day we want to highlight the contribution to leadership that our five women professors in the School of Education are making: Cathy Nutbrown is Head of School, Pat Sikes is leading on our Research Excellence Framework submission, Elizabeth Wood is our Director for Research, Kathryn Ecclestone is Director of our EdD in Higher Education, Jackie Marsh is Faculty Director of Learning and Teaching.

We are proud too, of the contribution many other women in the School make to leading and supporting research and teaching in the School, these include Dr Heather Sugden, our Departmental Manager, Dr Julia Davies, Dr Kate Pahl and Dr Chris Winter who direct two of our Research Centres.

Photograph, left to right: Professor Cathy Nutbrown, Professor Pat Sikes, Professor Jackie Marsh, Professor Elizabeth Wood and Professor Kathryn Ecclestone

ESRC PhD Collaborative Studentship

Professor Jackie Marsh has successfully secured funding from the White Rose Doctoral Training Centre for a new ESRC PhD Collaborative Studentship. Students interested in 'Young children’s engagement with television and related media in the digital age' are invited to apply for the scholarship.

Further information about the scholarship is available on this download.

Childcare pioneer receives honorary degree

Dame Gillian Pugh, a pioneer in childcare services and former Chief Executive of England's oldest children's charity, has received an honorary degree from the University of Sheffield.

For the last two decades Dame Gillian Pugh has been an important contributor to Government thinking on the education, social care and health services support for disadvantaged children and has a 30 year association with the University of Sheffield's School of Education.

Whilst working for the charity The Coram Family, which supports the most vulnerable children, young people and families in the UK, Dame Gillian increased the number of children and young people benefitting from their services from 300 to 6,000 a year.

  

School of Education Postgraduate Research Prize winner

At our recent graduation event we celebrated the achievement of Mark Pulsford, who was awarded the School of Education Postgraduate Research Prize. Mark’s dissertation is of the highest academic standard for this level of study and clearly demonstrated his academic strengths. Both markers awarded him the highest grade of 100. The external examiner said that Mark's dissertation was the best MA dissertation she had ever read and commented on the importance of the adopted approach and novelty of the findings for the field of identity construction in teacher education.

On receiving the award, Mark said "I feel honoured to have been awarded this prize. I know that there is a lot of interesting, important and high quality research being conducted by students on the master's programmes here and I'd put that down to the nature of the support we receive from the tutors and supervisors. Additionally, the mixture of students from different countries and academic and professional backgrounds, led to many critical conversations which fed in to our research projects. The master's course allowed me to pursue and develop my own educational research interests in an environment that was both critical and supportive."

Photograph left to right: Mark Pulsford, Roberta Bonnici, Dame Gillian Pugh, Professor Cathy Nutbrown and Virginia Humpage

Congratulations to our MA in Early Childhood Education award winners

Roberta Bonnici, who received the St Catherine's High School Postgraduate Student Prize in Malta and Virginia Humpage, who was awarded the Rutland prize for Early Childhood Education were presented with their prizes at the graduation event. Roberta and Virginia studied for the MA in ECE course parallel to each other - Roberta attended the Study weekends in Malta while Virginia travelled from Hong Kong to study on the UK programme.

Roberta's study focused on how young children learn to read at home and at school. The judges applauded her attention to detail and the ability with which Roberta handled her research and commended the high standard of her dissertation.

Virginia's dissertation was built on the transitional needs of children in international schools, who are growing up in a culture that is neither native to them or their parents and who are also schooled in a language not their first. This is an area lacking in research and one that Virginia addressed well. In particular, Virginia worked hard to overcome potential language barriers to represent the voices of the children in her research and their families. The judges felt that her findings are useful to all those working in international school settings and for this reason worthy of wider dissemination.

MA Student Christmas Party

Our MA Christmas party had special guests this year, Santa and his elf dropped by with gifts for the students.

Making it REAL, National Children's Bureau receives the Early Years Award

The Children & Young People Now awards 2012 have awarded Making it REAL as the winner in their category for the initiative that has done the most to improve the life chances of babies and young children, especially among disadvantaged or hard-to-reach communities.

Virtual Literacies: Interactive Spaces for Children and Young People

Edited by Guy Merchant, Julia Gillen, Jackie Marsh, Julia Davies

A new publication looks at the growth of interest in virtual worlds and other online spaces for children and young people and considers the important issues raised for literacy educators and researchers.

For further details about Virtual Literacies are available on the Routledge website.

Making meaning differently: Towards an understanding of representation in local decision-making

Dr Kate Pahl from the School of Education and Dr Steve Connelly from the Department of Town & Regional Planning, have successfully secured funding by the AHRC Connected Communities programme to conduct a policy review for Whitehall on alternative modes of decision making. Their aim is to bring together people with different perspectives and experiences to help shape the research and to ensure that the key findings are conveyed to policymakers.

For more information please contact: Dr Kate Pahl, k.pahl@sheffield.ac.uk or Dr Steve Connelly, s.connelly@sheffield.ac.uk. Download further details Making meaning differently.

Play in Parson Cross; Past and Present

Monteney Primary School playground will be the site for an event that celebrates play in Parson Cross, past and present. The evening offers a chance for people to find out about two research projects that took place in the area, which explored both play today and adults’ memories of play in the 1950s and 1960s. The evening will certainly reflect the high-tech present. Visitors will be able to see films made by children in one of the projects, films they made about their playground activities. The films will be projected onto the school building through the use of a large projector. Children will lead groups around the playground, accessing QR codes through smartphones, which will take visitors to a website where they can find out what activities take place and where. Children will interview volunteers about their own memories of play, using ipads to record the exchanges. In the midst of this, visitors will also find out about play in the past. Grandparents of children in the school who took part in oral history interviews about their memories of play when they were children will speak to the audience and talk about the days when they were able to play skipping games in the middle of the roads on the estate, without fear of being knocked down because there was so little traffic.

Professor Jackie Marsh from the University of Sheffield’s School of Education said, “We are excited to present our research findings in such an interactive way and we hope people who come along on the evening will find the event enjoyable and interesting. There will be food, drink, lots to do and see. Everyone is welcome, not just people who live in Parson Cross or who have children who attend Monteney Primary School. The evening offers a chance to find out how play has changed in Parson Cross over the past sixty years and what has stayed the same.”

Wednesday, 7th November from 6.30pm – 8pm, Monteney Primary School, Monteney Crescent, Sheffield, S5 9DN

The event is part of the ESRC Social Sciences Festival.

Childhoods and Play

We have launched a new Childhoods and Play website, a vital resource for those interested in the intriguing history of children's games, songs and nursery rhymes. The project aims to develop an interactive archive, relating to the play traditions of children. To find out more about the project please follow this link: http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/news/nr/childhood-play-website-1.217746

Family Literacy Project exceeds expectations

Our work in raising early achievement in literacy has been commended by the ESRC in a recent press release. To find out more, please follow this link: http://t.co/AhpF7G5e

Dr Ann Clare's book shortlisted for Nursery World Awards 2012

'Creating a Learning Environment for Babies and Toddlers' by Dr Ann Clare has been shortlisted in this year's Nursery World awards. The nomination is in recognition of the quality of Ann’s work and the research she carried out in the School of Education.

Centre for the Study of Higher Education Seminar

Skilled migration, women and the role of education and training in regional Australia

Professor Sue Webb, Monash University, will present her paper looking at how the Global migration of people from poorer to richer countries has been a defining feature of globalization. These flows show no sign of halting, in spite of the global financial crisis and pressures in some countries to construct barriers to restrict inward migration. Instead, the trend in migration policies in Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand has been to adopt a dual approach to migration by encouraging on the one hand, the inward migration of highly skilled people, whilst on the other hand, tightening the rules for entry for those with lower skills. Using a mainly qualitative narrative approach, Sue Webb's paper investigates the migratory trajectories of women migrants, particularly secondary applicants, into life in regional Australia. It considers how post-migration education and training might contribute towards more socially inclusive outcomes for migrant women and their families.

The seminar will conclude with a glass of wine (Australian, of course).

Wednesday 12th September, 12.30 – 2.00 pm, Room 7.02, Education Building, 388 Glossop Road.

If you wish to attend please contact Lindsey Farnsworth on l.j.farnsworth@shef.ac.uk.

Dr Terry Lamb re-elected for a third term as President of FIPLV

We're proud to announce that Dr Terry Lamb was successfully re-elected for the role with the International Federation of Language Teacher Associations, in Helsinki recently. They are an NGO of UNESCO and the Council of Europe.

Graduation Social Event

On Thursday 19th July, we hosted a post graduation social event. This followed the Graduation Ceremony in the Octagon Centre and it was great to congratulate the success of our recent graduates and celebrate with them.

ESRC Social Sciences Festival

Three members of staff have have been successful in their bids for the ESRC Social Sciences Festival in November.

Professor Jackie Marsh for her project 'Play in Parson Cross: Past and Present', Dr Kate Pahl  for 'Collaborative ethnography in community contexts: Turning the tables of research dissemination' and Dr Camilla Priede for 'Here be dragons? Mapping a university landscape.

Further details of the events will be available in due course.

Nutbrown Review published

Professor Cathy Nutbrown has now published her final independent report - Foundations for Quality - on early education and childcare qualifications.

Professor Cathy Nutbrown was commissioned by Government to lead an independent review to consider how best to strengthen qualifications and career pathways in the foundation years.

Professor Nutbrown has set out 19 recommendations in her review to improve the quality of the early years sector and ensure all young children receive a high standard of care and education. The review looked at qualifications and training – both for young people who are new to the early education and childcare sector, and for those already employed there. It also considered how to promote progression through an early years career and into leadership roles.

A large-scale public consultation was conducted to gather evidence. The report of this call for evidence was released alongside an interim report in March 2012.

Government will now consider Professor Nutbrown’s report Foundations for Quality in detail, working with the sector and others, before responding later in the year.

For further information relating to the report please visit the website www.education.gov.uk/nutbrownreview.