Epi Phys Ed

Working with the Institute of Voluntary Action Research (IVAR) –  As we are nearing our first year of the Foundation, I wanted to reflect on how it's going. Early in the year I worked with IVAR as part of a focus group discussing the merits and pitfalls of small social enterprises and Community Interest Companies.  Please see the below blog entitled ‘Like a Charity but Different’, the blog explores the challenges that many CIC leaders face, including: Lack of distinct spaces to connect; Competing priorities, responsibilities and succession planning; Funder perceptions.  'Like a charity but different’: CIC leaders share their experiences As part of our Leading in Uncertainty work, we held a series of peer sessions for Community Interest Company (CIC) leaders in the Community First Yorkshire network. CICs are a special type of limited company that exists to benefit the community rather than private shareholders [1]  and are part of the voluntary sector. ...

As this week is Anti-bullying week, I feel it necessary to highlight the impact that bullying can have on both the agonist and the antagonist.  Rigby, K  et al’s.  (2004) below summary highlights this well:   A brief historical background –  Over the last two decades, bullying in schools has become an issue of widespread concern (Smith, Morita, Junger-Tas, Olweus, Catalano and Slee, 1999). This is not to say that in earlier times bullying in schools was ignored. There was much animated public discussion of bullying in English private schools in the mid-nineteenth century following the publication of the famous novel  Tom Brown's school days  (Hughes, 1857). This book evoked strong expressions of abhorrence towards, and condemnation of, the practice of bullying, and various suggestions were made on how it could be countered (see Rigby, 1997). However, the systematic examination of the nature and prevalence of school bullying only began with the work of ...

Comparison with other countries on the narrow set of subjects that PISA (and the UK education system) focuses on (Mathematics, Science and Literacy) (OECD.org 2020), is not the correct way to gain a full picture of how successful countries are. This area of analysis and comparison only looks at pupils’ attainment, and in a small range of subjects which highlights ‘success’ from a neoliberal perspective. Alternatively, it could be more appropriate to measure student ‘success’ holistically based on criteria such as happiness, well-being, and mental health, perhaps under the umbrella of social development. For example, analysis using World Bank figures show that the five countries with the largest economies (Howmuch.net, 2018) do not score highly on the World Happiness Report (Helliwell et al, 2020), nor do they score highly in the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Well-being of Children Report Card 13 (2016). In both tables (focusing on Social Development based criteria) the leadin...

Ernst and Burcak (2019) stress   “the importance of using the natural world and natural materials for open-ended exploration, discovery, and creativity”   (2019, p. 2).   It is important to produce a setting that allows pupils to develop their problem-solving skills, initiative and self-efficacy (Wright and Masten, 2005). This environment must be carefully constructed as  “children need an environment in which they can flourish and grow and develop positive self-esteem”  (Williams-Siegfredsen, 2017, p. 18). The current marketized economy driven education system is just not fitting for the long term, as it does not take into account cognitive emotional development.  There have been many advocates for Outdoor Learning, and three pioneers of the development of a child lead learning system were Montessori, Froebel and Sørensen. Montessori focused on  “allow[ing] the children to see their own mistakes and learn by voluntary repetition”  (Lillard, 2018,...