This book explores the foundations of modern primary education and the role that society and culture has had in shaping it. Dismantling assumptions about what education has been or ‘should’ be, Tony Birch outlines what the core principles are that underpin high quality education to provide a holistic approach. Supporting leaders, practitioners and those studying primary education, this book: - Explains key issues in primary education and what drives them - Highlights the importance of pedagogy and leadership to enrich education - Builds on the existing frameworks in schools to encourage an holistic approach - Emphasises the importance of seeing the range of a child’s potential outside of academic expectations Understanding Primary Education as a Whole is an essential resource for leaders and those studying primary education who want to understand the changing nature of their schools, classrooms and children. “All of those leading primary education at whatever level can learn from Tony Birch’s analysis of history and competing influences on primary education. This book is systematic, comprehensive and thoughtful.” Dr. Alison Borthwick, UK and International Freelance Education and Mathematics Consultant “As well as being wise, this book is also engaging, accessible and essentially practical. Read it!” Professor Emeritus David Hopkins, www.profdavidhopkins.com “Tony reminds us of the complexity and challenge of primary education, the battles that have been fought around it and the changes in systems and practice that have occurred as a consequence.” Michael Tonge MA, Chief Executive Prestolee Multi Academy Trust, UK Tony Birch is Director of Birch Education and a Senior Associate of the Association of Education Advisers. He established Bolton Council's award-winning Curriculum ICT team, was Head of School Improvement and also Assistant Director responsible for Education and Learning.

Leadership and Professional Development in Science Education provides invaluable insight into the role of science teachers as learners and thinkers of change processes. The fourteen chapters, by an eminent international team of science educators, explain and explore the relationship between professional development, teacher leadership and teacher learning. Research-based practical and theoretical exemplars reflect state of the art science teacher leadership in a broad range of international contexts. The book is divided into three parts, reflecting a multi-layered approach to teacher learning: * Personal initiatives in teacher learning, focusing on individual teachers; * Collegial initiatives in teacher learning, focusing on groups of teachers; * Systemic initiatives for teacher learning, focusing on system-wide issues. Student teachers and practising teachers will find the text highly valuable as they consider and review the challenges of teaching practice and ways of working with colleagues, while school leaders and policymakers will benefit from the book's insight into system-wide issues of professional development.

This volume examines different conceptualizations of ‘human rights’, ‘citizenship’ and ‘interculturalism’, as well as their inter-relationships in different national contexts. This intersection, in its various combinations, is explored theoretically, pedagogically and practically, with the studies investigating whether certain human rights demands reveal patterns that are incompatible with citizenship and multiculturalist claims. Contributions also explore the theoretical and practical bases on which human rights, citizenship and intercultural education should be grounded, as well as how human rights, citizenship and intercultural education can join forces to make policy, practice and research stronger and more robust. The issues explored in this volume continue to feature on policy agendas at local, national and international levels at a time when considerable changes are taking place within and across societies. Particularly in Europe, the current refugee and migration crisis complicates this situation further, creating new, complex challenges for countries and regions, including how to respond productively and justly to the migration of peoples; how to complement existing legal frameworks and modes of governance to face threats to social justice, security and social cohesion of political and civil societies; and how to develop new rights that increase participation in social and political life, especially in groups that are vulnerable and marginalized. As shown here, however, these challenges provide unique opportunities to re-imagine the transformative potential of the intersection among intercultural, human rights and citizenship education in different situations and contexts.

Within education there have been some notable attempts to frame social justice in ways that can help to explain and understand the practices of those working in schools, especially school leaders. The research contained in this book seeks to enhance our understanding of school leaders’ actions as they work to promote socially just practices and/or outcomes in a range of different national contexts. The unique nature of this research is that studies took place in numerous schools across the globe in a variety of contexts yet utilized the same research protocols. This has allowed the researchers to draw conclusions at an international level about social justice decision making, the supports and barriers brought on school leaders by national policy and mandates, and the essential nature of context in the work of social justice leadership. The audience will include scholars on a global scale, given that cases in the book include authors and principals from around the world. The book can also serve as a text for leadership preparation courses as well as courses in social justice, research design, and qualitative research methodologies. Courses in human relations and communication can use the content as examples of the negotiations and challenges of teamwork in international settings. A primary audience for the book is system/school level leaders in contexts and communities throughout the world for understanding comparative leadership and social justice decision making. Current principals will find the cases useful as reflexive tools for their own work. Educational leaders, educational reformers, and policy makers will benefit from this book as they seek to understand the impact of their work and its influence on promoting equity in schools across the globe.

This book highlights the connection between culture and emotion management in teaching and educational leadership and allows researchers from different parts of the world to demonstrate how national and local culture influence the way educational leaders and teachers express their feelings, display their emotion, or suppress emotion publically.

This text calls for a broader approach to comparative educational administration: one which uses culture as the principle means of analysis. The articles collected by Allan Walker and Clive Dimmock detail the educational practices and outcomes of other systems while taking into account the mediating influence of culture. In this way, these essays stress the specific aspects of the cultures studied, and map out common ground for the study of administrators' values, beliefs, and actions.

Children in today's world are inundated with information about who to be, what to do and how to live. But what if there was a way to teach children how to manage priorities, focus on goals and be a positive influence on the world around them? The Leader in Meis that programme. It's based on a hugely successful initiative carried out at the A.B. Combs Elementary School in North Carolina. To hear the parents of A. B Combs talk about the school is to be amazed. In 1999, the school debuted a programme that taught The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Peopleto a pilot group of students. The parents reported an incredible change in their children, who blossomed under the programme. By the end of the following year the average end-of-grade scores had leapt from 84 to 94. This book will launch the message onto a much larger platform. Stephen R. Covey takes the 7 Habits, that have already changed the lives of millions of people, and shows how children can use them as they develop. Those habits -- be proactive, begin with the end in mind, put first things first, think win-win, seek to understand and then to be understood, synergize, and sharpen the saw -- are critical skills to learn at a young age and bring incredible results, proving that it's never too early to teach someone how to live well.