Peter Blatchford

• University College London

Breaktimes are ubiquitous in English schools. Research suggests they have social value for children, but school staff often have a range of concerns about breaktimes and tend to undervalue them. However, there is little understanding about these times, not least because data are not collected about their organisation and characteristics. This paper...

The decline in breaktimes and lunchtimes in primary and secondary schools in England: Results from three national surveys spanning 25 years. Abstract Breaktimes are a ubiquitous in English schools. Research suggests they have social value for children but school staff often have a range of concerns about breaktimes and tend to undervalue them. Howe...

In recent years approaches to children’s school progress are one step removed from the proximal processes which directly affect learning. Yet educational initiatives are unlikely to work well if there is not a prior understanding of the everyday contextual and relational dimensions of classrooms. On the basis of a review of our long-standing resear...

A significant increase in the paraprofessional workforce has occurred internationally, aimed at facilitating inclusive education. Within Ireland, this is evidenced in the SNA scheme for pupils with significant care needs. This paper focuses on the constructs of SNA support and pupil independence, as based on large-scale research across 20 Irish mai...

The issue of class size is a complex and contested topic that has divided opinion for many years. Whilst many teachers believe that smaller class sizes assist in enhancing outcomes, a number of policy influencers, policy makers and researchers argue that it has little influence on success in learning and that decreasing class sizes is not cost-effe...

The debate over whether class size matters for teaching and learning is one of the most enduring, and aggressive, in education research. Teachers often insist that small classes benefit their work. But many experts argue that evidence from research shows class size has little impact on pupil outcomes, so does not matter, and this dominant view has...

Abstract: 'Breaktime' or 'recess' is normally a break within the school day where children get to play and socialize with peers. Although there is little international understanding of the nature and position of recess in schools across the globe, the limited research available suggests that they are being eroded. However, there is good evidence th...

Most primary and secondary schools have a recreational break and these lunch and break times are a significant part of the school day. Two previous surveys conducted by Professor Peter Blatchford and Dr Ed Baines found that school break-times had reduced since 1990. Since then, there are signs of further changes to the nature and length of break ti...

Most primary and secondary schools have a recreational break and these lunch and break times are a significant part of the school day. Two previous surveys conducted by Professor Peter Blatchford and Dr Ed Baines found that school break-times had reduced since 1990. Since then, there are signs of further changes to the nature and length of break ti...

Most primary and secondary schools have a recreational break and these lunch and break times are a significant part of the school day. Two previous surveys conducted by Professor Peter Blatchford and Dr Ed Baines found that school break-times had reduced since 1990. Since then, there are signs of further changes to the nature and length of break ti...

Debate about class sizes in schools is long standing and contentious. In this review we show much research is limited and outdated, with an exclusive concern with pupil academic outcomes. This Special Section seeks to extend the literature on class size in two ways. First, it addresses what goes on in classrooms which might account for any effects...

The intense argument over class size has been about associations with pupil academic outcomes. Often overlooked is the way class size affects teachers’ classroom management of learning in groups. As part of a large scale multi-method project that tracked pupils’ educational progress from 5 to 11 years, data were collected on teachers’ experiences t...

The inclusion of pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) in mainstream schools can result in difficult decisions regarding classroom organisation and management. The premise of this article is that these are likely to be affected by the classroom context, specifically the number of pupils in the class, the size and composition...

This paper reports on results from a descriptive study of the nature and quality of the day-to-day educational experiences of 49 13–14 year olds with special education needs and/or disabilities (SEND). All pupils had either an Education Health and Care Plan (EHCP) or a Statement, and attended in mainstream secondary school in England. Pupils involv...

Little is known about the educational experiences of pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) over time, and how inclusive these experiences are relative to those without SEND. The SEN in Secondary Education (SENSE) study was conducted following extensive reform to the SEND system in England, and at a time when schools were imp...

The ORACLE study, first published in 1980, provided much needed systematic descriptive information on the interactions and behaviour of pupils in the upper primary school in the UK, to set against the political rhetoric of the day. Since this pioneering study, there have been several other systematic observation studies of pupils at the same stage,...

This EEF Guidance Report is designed to provide practical, evidence-based guidance to help primary and secondary schools make the best use of teaching assistants* (TAs). It contains seven recommendations, based on the latest research examining the use of TAs in classrooms. The guidance draws predominately on studies that feed into the Teaching and...

Promoting Effective Group Work in the Primary Classroom, 2nd ed. is designed to enhance teachers’ and teaching assistants’ confidence in engaging their children in effective group work, allowing for more active participation, more on-task focus and higher levels of achievement. This accessible second edition is packed full of valuable strategies f...

Much debate, research and commentary about class sizes in schools is limited because of an exclusive concern with class size and pupil academic attainment, and a neglect of classroom processes, which might help explain class size effects (or lack of them). Very little is known about the central question: how can teachers make the most of class size...

What is the nature of children's social life in school?. How do their relationships and interactions with peers, teachers and other school staff influence their development and experience of school? This book, written by leading researchers in educational and developmental psychology, provides answers to these questions by offering an integrated pe...

Findings from two studies are discussed in relation to the experiences and challenges faced by teachers trying to implement effective group work in schools and classrooms and to reflect on the lessons learnt about how to involve pupils with special educational needs (SEN). The first study reports on UK primary school teachers' experiences of implem...

Teaching assistants currently play a key pedagogical role in supporting learners with special educational needs. Their practice is primarily oral, involving verbal differentiation of teacher talk or printed materials. In order to help students think for themselves, this paper argues that their practice should be informed by heuristic scaffolding. A...

This chapter presents the key results from the main evaluation of the implementation of SPRinG at KS2 (pupils aged 7–11 years). It describes the background and methods used to establish whether SPRinG affected pupil progress in science, on the basis of both macro and micro assessments; whether it affected pupil-pupil interactions and teacher-pupil...

Chapter 4 is the first of the empirical chapters that evaluates the effectiveness of the SPRinG programme in enhancing group work in authentic classrooms. This chapter focuses on the implementation of the programme in the early years of primary schools. The study reported is set against a background that finds few group working and/or co-operative...

Chapter 8 provides a summary of main findings and concludes with a discussion of some key themes of concern throughout the book. The chapter identifies what the SPRinG project has contributed to knowledge on collaborative and co-operative group work; examines the credibility and ‘warrant’ of the methods used; explores what we have learned about the...

The aim of Chap. 2 is to review studies of the classroom as a general and social pedagogic context for learning in primary schools. This review begins with a few premises, namely that: during the majority of time that children spend in their classrooms, they are found in some form of peer-based group; cognitive and other learning practices are inti...

Findings from the Deployment and Impact of Support Staff (DISS) project showed that support from teaching assistants (TAs) had a strong negative impact on the academic progress of pupils, and this applied particularly to pupils with a statement of special educational needs (SEN). Although the DISS project found that such pupils experienced less con...

The aim of Chap. 1 is to introduce the concept ‘social pedagogy of learning’ and describe how it was developed over a number of years by Blatchford and Kutnick. Social pedagogy of learning recognizes that most acts of learning take place in a social context (between the learner and others), and learning that takes place in school-based classrooms p...

The opening chapters presented arguments regarding the relationship of social interaction and children’s cognitive development and undertook an assessment of the theories that explain why social interactional processes should be integrated into primary school pedagogic practices. At the same time, both experimental and naturalistic studies of socia...

This book offers a challenge to traditional approaches to classroom teaching and pedagogy. The SPRinG (Social Pedagogic Research into Groupwork) project, part of a larger research programme on teaching and learning funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), was developed to enhance the learning potential of pupils working in classro...

These three studies address the deployment and impact of support staff – teaching assistants – in primary, secondary and special schools in England and Wales. The research challenges assumptions on the positive impact of support staff on pupil progress, including those with special educational needs. It also, on the basis of collaboration with scho...

Findings from the Deployment and Impact of Support Staff project showed that day-to-day support for pupils with special education needs (SEN) in mainstream UK schools is often provided by teaching assistants (TAs), instead of teachers. This arrangement is the main explanation for other results from the project, which found TA support had a more pro...

A programme of research shows important changes over time in school breaktimes and lunchtimes, offers insights into the views of school staff and children, and shows the social value of children’s experiences during these times. IOE Research Briefings are short descriptions of significant research findings, based on the wide range of projects carri...

Following research on the negative impact of support from teaching assistants (TAs) on pupils' academic progress, there was a clear need for schools to fundamentally reassess the way they use TAs. This article reports on findings from a collaborative project aimed at developing and evaluating alternative strategies to using TAs. Practitioner-led de...

The International Guide to Student Achievement brings together and critically examines the major influences shaping student achievement today.

This chapter examines the role of school playground games in children's development. Games and play take place in a range of settings, both in and outside of the home, in gardens, parks, on the streets, designated playgrounds, or other locations. They also take place and are often studied on the school playground and this will be the main context i...

Support for children with special educational needs in inclusive classrooms is increasingly provided by teaching assistants (TAs). They often have a direct pedagogical role, taking responsibility for instruction in mathematics. The quality of TAs’ oral skills is crucial for learning but has rarely been researched. Using conversation analysis, this...

In recent years there has been an unprecedented increase in support staff in schools in England and Wales. There were widespread expectations that this will be of benefit to teachers and pupils but there has been little systematic research to address the impact of support staff. This study used a naturalistic longitudinal design to investigate the...

This paper reports associations between children's (N=331) handwriting skills on entry to school, at 5 years, and writing at the end of infant school, at 7 years. The 7-year test had four components —- transcription/punctuation, quality of writing, range of vocabulary and sentences to describe pictures. Pre-school handwriting was significantly corr...

This paper reports results from a large-scale longitudinal study of educational progress, based at the Thomas Coram Research Unit. Sample sizes were N=133 and N=175 at 11 years. Measures were obtained on academic self assessment and attainment in reading and maths. Children at 7 years tended to overestimate their attainment and there was little agr...

S ummary This paper describes an attempt to document the curriculum experiences of a large sample (N = 458) of infant school children, in the areas of written language (both reading and writing) and of mathematics. The data were collected as part of a longitudinal study of children's progress in 33 Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) infant sch...

Teaching assistants (TAs) comprise a quarter of the school workforce in England and Wales. There has been controversy over TAs' deployment and appropriate role regarding supporting learning and these debates have been transformed by findings from the largest study of school support staff (the DISS project), which show that TA support has a negative...

In many studies of class size effects, teacher characteristics are missing, even though many argue it is not class size that is important but teacher quality. In the present study teachers' effectiveness on the learning progress was assessed while teaching a unit with predefined learning objectives. To measure adaptive teaching competency a multi-m...

It is widely recognized that we need to know more about effects of class size on classroom interactions and pupil behavior. This paper extends research by comparing effects on pupil classroom engagement and teacher-pupil interaction, and examining if effects vary by pupil attainment level and between primary and secondary schools. Systematic observ...

In many countries over the world, there has been a hotly contested and widely reported debate over the educational consequences of class-size differences. In this article, we address: (1) whether class size differences affect children's educational attainment and learning, (2) whether class size affects classroom processes like teaching and pupil b...

In many countries, teaching assistants are working in schools in increasing numbers. While they formerly supported teachers by completing low-level administrative tasks, they are increasingly playing a pedagogical role and working directly with pupils, particularly those with special educational needs. However, little is known about the quality of...

Teaching assistants (TAs) are part of a growing international trend toward paraprofessionals working in public services. There has been controversy over TAs’ deployment and appropriate role when supporting the learning of pupils with special educational needs (SEN) in mainstream schools. Such debates have been transformed by findings from a large s...

Introduction The continued growth in teaching assistants 2 (TAs) over the last decade has proceeded on the basis that positive learning outcomes flow from the "additional" support that they provide to pupils. Findings from research into the role and impact of TAs challenge this assumption and demonstrate a clear need for re-evaluating the deploymen...

Despite an unprecedented increase in classroom‐based support staff, there are confusing messages about their appropriate deployment and a lack of systematic evidence on their impact. This article addresses the deployment and impact on pupil engagement and individual attention of support staff, commonly known as teaching assistants (TAs), in terms o...

Gender segregated peer networks during middle childhood have been highlighted as important for explaining later sex differences in behaviour, yet few studies have examined the structural composition of these networks and their implications. This short-term longitudinal study of 119 children (7-8 years) examined the size and internal structure of bo...

The Deployment and Impact of Support Staff (DISS) project was designed to obtain reliable data on the deployment and characteristics of support staff and the impact of support staff on pupil outcomes and teacher workloads over a five-year period (2003-08). The study covered primary, secondary and special schools in England and Wales and involved la...

This study was designed to obtain up to date and reliable data on the deployment and characteristics of support staff and the impact of support staff on pupil outcomes and teacher workloads. The study covered schools in England and Wales. It involved large scale surveys (Strand 1), followed by a multi-method and multi informant approach (Strand 2)....

Findings are reported from a year‐long evaluation of the effectiveness of the SPRinG programme relative to a control group. SPRinG aimed to address the wide gap between the potential of group interaction to promote learning and its limited use in schools. The project involved working with teachers to develop strategies for enhancing pupil group wor...

In many countries over the world there has been a hotly contested and widely reported debate over the educational consequences of class size differences. Opinions vary from those academics and policy makers who argue that class size reduction is not cost effective to those who argue that it should be a cornerstone of educational policy. Despite the...

This study was designed to obtain up to date and reliable data on the deployment and characteristics of support staff and the impact of support staff on pupil outcomes and teacher workloads. The study covered schools in England and Wales. It involved large scale surveys (Strand 1), followed by a multi method and multi informant approach (Strand 2)....

Packed with valuable strategies for teachers and fun activities for children, this book is a must for any school wishing to make group work a more effective and successful way of learning. Teachers who have become more confident with the approaches developed for this book find that their classes are better behaved, children spend more time on task...

This longitudinal research tests the effectiveness of the SPRinG programme, which was developed through a collaboration between researchers and teachers and designed to provide teachers with strategies for enhancing pupil group work in ‘authentic’ classroom settings. An evaluation study involved comparing pupils in SPRinG classrooms and trained in...

Studies of grouping practices in everyday classrooms in England show that the potential of group work as a pedagogic approach, that can enhance learning and active engagement among pupils, is not being realised. Three main principles for the effective use of group work in schools are highlighted. These are that teacher practices should focus on enh...

Incl. bibl., abstract There is still little consensus on whether and how teaching is affected by small and large classes, especially in the case of students in the later primary years. This study investigated effects of class size on teaching of pupils aged 7 - 11 years. We used a multimethod approach, integrating qualitative information from teach...

It is widely assumed that increasing the number of teaching assistants (TAs) in the classroom will be beneficial to children, and this is one important aim of the recently implemented Workforce Agreement. But there are still significant gaps in knowledge about many aspects of their deployment and impact. The Class Size and Pupil–Adult Ratios (CSPAR...

The main impetus for the SPRinG (social pedagogic research into grouping) project was to address the wide gap between the potential of group work and its limited use in schools. It is an ambitious project that developed key principles and strategies to improve the effectiveness of group work in everyday primary classes and across a whole school yea...

Online document

Pupil groupings within classrooms are a constant social pedagogic factor which effect participation and learning. The grouping of pupils provides a dynamic relationship between learning tasks and the classroom context within which learning takes place. This paper explores types of pupil groupings found in secondary school classrooms related to them...

The authors examined class size effects on teacher-pupil interactions, pupil engagement, and pupil-pupil interaction. They extended previous research by recognizing the hierarchical nature of observation data and the possible influence of other variables. The study used a time sampling method involving 257 children (aged 10-11 years) in 16 small (2...

This paper describes a multi-method approach to data collection used in a large-scale seven-year longitudinal study of the effect of class size differences on classroom processes. There were five main types of process and the paper concentrates on the results from one of these: teaching interactions with pupils. It was felt that integration of resu...

As part of a multi-method, long-term study, 340 Teaching Assistants across Years 4 to 6 completed questionnaires that, among other things, asked for their perceptions of their role, training and job satisfaction. TAs reported that they mainly worked in the classroom, supporting pupils, rather than carrying out non-teaching tasks. They worked partic...

As part of a project designed to provide information on the nature and uses of within-class pupil groupings for teaching and learning in secondary schools in England, this paper focuses on qualitative interviews with 20 teachers from three core curriculum areas in six schools. Interviews concerned the range and explanations for teachers' choices of...

Executive Summary This extended review of the literature on pupil grouping includes an analysis and synthesis of current and yet to be published research to identify types of grouping suited to particular pupils, the range of organisational policies regarding pupil grouping within schools that are related to different levels of performance and sub...

This longitudinal study sought to improve understanding of the factors at home and school that influence children's attainment and progress in writing between the ages of 4 and 7 years. (i) To investigate the relationship between home variables and writing development in preschool children; (ii) to determine associations between child characteristi...

In this study we described development of boys’ and girls’ games on the school playground at recess as they progressed across the first year of primary school in London (UK) and Minneapolis (USA) in order to document age-related trends in games during this period and to examine the predictive role of games in children's adjustment to school and mor...

The research detailed in this paper provides a systematic description and analysis of classroom grouping practices in primary and secondary schools in England. Practices are compared to main findings in developmental and educational literature with regard to effective contexts for learning and recent ideas about pedagogy.The research is based on an...

In any classroom, pupils will be drawn together for many purposes and we can refer to such within classroom contexts as ‘groupings’. The teacher often creates these, and the way that they are set up, and how they are used for particular learning purposes. If the relationships between grouping size, interaction type and learning tasks in groups are...

Research and debate on class size differences have focused on relations with achievement and there is little relevant research on what mediating classroom processes might be involved. This paper investigates connections between class size and three aspects of teacher and child behaviour in class: teacher–child interactions, pupil attentiveness and...

This short-term longitudinal study examined activities at recess and peer relations. We were interested in changes over the school year, and the sex and ethnic mix of groups. Data came from systematic observations of 129 pupils (61 boys and 68 girls) aged 7–8 years. Results showed that peer interaction dominated recess. Ball games increased over th...

Despite evidence from the USA that children in small classes of less than 20 do better academically there is still a vociferous debate about the effects of class size differences in schools, and considerable gaps in our understanding of the effects of class size differences. This article summarises results from the most complete UK analysis to date...

This paper concentrates on children's play during school breaktimes. Though neglected by researchers, it is one of the few occasions when children can play and interact in a relatively safe environment, free of adult control. The paper reports on a recent programme of research at the University of London Institute of Education. There are signs that...