For anyone who wants to discuss more on my blogs and help me right out please comment and message me on this link which we could then hopefully form a SIG group.
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/claire-johnas/5b/807/9b2
Look foward to chatting further :)
Hi Claire,
ReplyDeleteI think your area of interest is really very important. Understanding the consequences of ‘academic year of entry’ for public schooling and its effects on winter and summer babies is a crucial aspect of children’s’ development.
My thoughts are:
a. Look at published research on the effects, including importantly ‘comparative studies’ which will capture your interest in how this is approached in different countries;
b. Get connected with the main authors and researchers looking into this issue – the library can help;
c. Survey parents responses – you might for example look at Net mums and other parent websites to see what parents are reporting;
Here is a question I would like to pose to you:
‘Whose interests are being served by have intakes of children into our public school system based on birthdates falling into a specific academic year?’
Think in terms of the range of interest that might be served, and explore how those interests compete or agree. For example, some of those interests might be:
Convenience of school admissions, teachers and administration; needs of the economy; notions of standardisations for industrial production.
You might set this against the notion of matching childrens’ interests and levels of capability within certain interests. So, why do we stream within a year setting up winners and losers rather than simply bringing together levels of capability across years?
Hope that helps.