Project News
ORIM framework project receives ESRC award
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. This has made a difference to; parents, by increasing their confidence and knowledge about how to help their children; practitioners, in aiding new skills in working with parents on literacy; and the children themselves.
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.
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.
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.
Booked Up
Between December 2011 and March 2012 the Collaboration Sheffield initiative was commissioned to undertake an evaluation of the Booked Up programme on behalf of Booktrust. Booktrust is an independent charity, established in 1992, with the aim of building a literate and creative society by encouraging engagement with books. The charity runs a number of national book-gifting programmes, one of which is Booked Up. Booked Up, launched in 2007, provides a free book for Year 7 students soon after their transition from primary to secondary school, at a crucial time when formative attitudes towards reading develop. In 2011/2012 Booked Up reached 4,700 secondary schools.
The aims of the evaluation were to:
- Examine how Booked Up engaged with Year 7 children and how this could be improved to help maximise the impact of the programme;
- Consider how this varied for less confident readers, those who struggle, children who can read but are reluctant to engage with books and children who are confident readers; and
- Explore what improvements could be made to Booked Up and/or the communication about the programme to increase engagement with the process and resources by both children and school staff
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.
On Thursday 15th March 2012, 150 delegates attended the end of project conference 'A framework for work with parents on early literacy development'. The keynote address was given by Professor Cathy Nutbrown, workshops were led by the 20 practitioners who have participated in the project.
The 20 practitioners have, in the past year, been working with the ORIM Framework and have shared their work with 200 practitioners and some 700 families.
For further details see the REALonline website at:
http://www.real-online.group.shef.ac.uk/
The picture shows the practitioners with Professor Cathy Nutbrown, Emeritas Professor Peter Hannon, Dr Julia Bishop
(all of the University of Sheffield) and Helen Wheeler (National Children's Bureau).
Nutbrown Review
Professor Cathy Nutbrown is to conduct an independent review for Government on early education and childcare qualifications. She will be considering how best to strengthen qualifications and career pathways in the foundation years. There will be a public consultation. Information on this, the remit and scope of the review, along with other ways in which people can get involved will be made available through the website, www.education.gov.uk/nutbrownreview
A Study of the Relationship between Media, Commercial Markets and Children’s Play in the UK between 1950 and 2011
Professor Jackie Marsh and Dr Julia Bishop's project aims to examine changes in the way in which media and commercial interests have influenced children’s play over the last 60 years in the UK.
During the 1950s-1970s, Iona and Peter Opie collected children’s street and playground games and rhymes, this project involves interviewing some of the Opies’ child contributors, now adults aged 40–65, about their memories of play and its relationship to media and commercial markets.
Social PARKS: Urban green-space as a focus for connecting communities and research
Dr Kate Pahl has collaborated on this project, conducting ethnographic research in Clifton Park, Rotherham and Victoria Park, Rawmarsh, to look at the ways in which parks support interaction and also how parks affect and change behaviour.
Writing in the Home and in the Street
Dr Kate Pahl collaborates on an investigation into everyday writing practices in three areas of Rotherham, East Herringthorpe, Rawmarsh and Ferham.