Recently there has been growth in researching teacher agency. Some research has considered the relationship between teacher agency and professional learning. Similarly, there has been growing interest in professional learning communities as resources for professional learning. considering what factors might affect the utilisation (or otherwise) of affordances for teacher agency.The paper concludes with several recommendations for developing effective professional learning communities as an affordance for teacher agency.

No abstract

Reactive attachment disorder (RAD) is one of the least researched and most poorly understood psychiatric disorders. Very little is known about the prevalence and stability of RAD symptoms over time. Until recently it has been difficult to investigate RAD due to limited tools for informing a diagnosis. Utilising a newly developed observational tool along with the Disturbances of Attachment Interview. this short-term prospective longitudinal study explored RAD symptoms in maltreated young children in Scotland (n=100, age range =12-62 months) over 12 months. Children were recruited as part of The Best Services Trial (BeST), in which all infants who came in to the care of the local authority in Glasgow due to child protection concerns were invited to participate. Prevalence of RAD was found to be 5.0% (n=5, 95% CI [0.7-9.3]) when children were first placed in to foster care. Following at least 1 year of improved care conditions, prevalence in the 76 children remaining in the study was 2.1% (n=2, 95% CI [below 0-4.7]). RAD was associated with some mental health and cognitive difficulties. While levels of carer-reported RAD symptoms decreased significantly over time, observed symptoms did not. Findings suggest that RAD resolved in a small majority of cases but further exploration in larger samples would be invaluable.

Although partnership working has been a feature of educational practice for some time, some recent reforms and developments have refocused educators' attention on this phenomenon. Whilst there are many versions and interpretations of partnerships in education, the most common understanding of partnerships between school and university is as the arrangement to facilitate, support and assess student teachers in practical teaching experience. The aim of this paper is to critically examine the concept of partnership between school and university. We offer a critique of partnership as it is presented in literature at a macro and meso level, and we report on a collaborative enquiry between school and university staff in a (micro-level) secondary school setting. The project was structured around a series of workshops in the school setting to support and facilitate Learning Rounds. Using data from this project including field notes and semi-structured interviews, we will give voice to the often unheard testimony of the teacher in their lived experiences of partnership, and make a contribution to the ongoing debate around partnerships by highlighting some of the difficulties and tensions arising from partnership in practice.

This paper reports on research into the practice of learning rounds in Scotland. Learning rounds are a form of collaborative professional development for teachers based on the instructional rounds practice developed in the USA. In recent years learning rounds have gained high profile official support within education in Scotland. The research finds that what teachers in Scotland do when they say they are doing learning rounds varies widely from school to school and deviates significantly from the practice of instructional rounds. The implications of this for who is learning what in the practice of learning rounds is considered. The wider implications of the Scottish experience for the development of in structional rounds practice in other countries is also considered as are the implications for promoting collaborative professional development practice more generally.

Learning Rounds is a form of professional development that has gained widespread currency in Scotland. It has received official endorsement from Scottish Government funded agencies and has spread as a practice through at least 24 out of 32 local authorities, in part through popular adoption by teachers. However the literature on Instructional Rounds that informs Learning Rounds is not as well known in Scotland as the practice of Learning Rounds itself. An earlier small scale study of Learning Rounds in Scotland suggests that practice varies significantly from school to school and from the original practices of Instructional Rounds. This literature review provides a critical survey of the existing literature on Instructional Rounds and Learning Rounds. This is intended to enable educators to be more informed about whether to adopt the practice and how to develop and evaluate the practice if they do.

No abstract