Implementing a play-based and developmentally appropriate curriculum in NI primary schools:what lessons have we learned?

In the United Kingdom tensions have existed for many years between the pedagogical traditions of pre-school, which tend to adopt developmentally oriented practices, and the more formal or subject-oriented curriculum framework of primary school. These tensions have been particularly acute in the context of Northern Ireland, which has the earliest school starting age throughout Europe. In response to international research evidence and practice, a play-based and developmentally appropriate curriculum, known as the Enriched Curriculum (EC), was introduced as a pilot in Year 1 and 2 classes in over 100 primary schools in Northern Ireland between 2000 and 2002 and continued until the Foundation Stage became statutory for all primary schools in 2007. This paper outlines four key lessons that have been learned from the first four years of the evaluation of this experience. These include the value and the meaning of a play-based curriculum; the importance of teachers’ confidence and knowledge; teaching reading in a play-based curriculum; and easing transitions in a play-based curriculum.

Does first aid have a place in the medical curriculum? A survey of medical students

Introduction: When a medical emergency occurs in the prehospital environment, there is an expectation from the general public for medical students to offer assistance with a similar level of competence as qualified doctors. However, the question is raised; do medical students have sufficient training in first aid skills to fulfil the role expected of them?

Prior to the publication of the latest version of Tomorrow’s Doctors by the UK General Medical Council, a student selected component (SSC) in first aid was delivered at the medical school in Queen’s University Belfast (QUB), Northern Ireland. The overwhelming popularity of this SSC prompted a desire to investigate and understand students’ experiences of first aid.

Aim: To identify first and second year medical students’ knowledge of, and attitudes towards, first aid and their expectations of the medical curriculum.

Methods: A questionnaire was delivered using TurningPoint Audience Response System® during the second semester of the 2008 - 2009 academic year to all first and second year medical students at QUB.

Results: Less than half of the students felt that they had a good level of first aid knowledge, a third would feel confident helping in an emergency and only 10% would be confident leading an emergency situation. The vast majority of students believed first aid is beneficial, that the general public expect medical students to have the knowledge to handle an emergency situation, and that a full first aid course should be included in the core medical curriculum at an early stage. They did not believe it should be a pre-requisite for medical school.

Conclusion: Only a small proportion believed their first aid knowledge adequate. An overwhelming proportion believed that first aid training is beneficial and that the public expect competency in managing emergencies. This study clearly demonstrates students’ need and desire for first aid training in the core medical curriculum at an early stage and to the highest training level possible.

A new landscape of arts-based buildings and comparative cultural policies on the island of Ireland: the curse of Jocasta's necklace

Much current cultural policy research focuses on activity traditionally viewed as arts practice: visual arts, music, literature and dance. Architecture’s role in the discussion of cultural policy is, however, less certain and thus less frequently interrogated. The study presented here both addresses this dearth of in-depth research while also contributing to the interdisciplinary discussion of cultural policy in wider terms. In seeking to better understand how architectural culture is regulated and administered in a specific case study, it unpacks how the complicated relationships of nominal and explicit policies on both sides of the Irish/Northern Irish border contributed to the significant expansion of arts-based buildings 1995-2008. It contrasts political and cultural motivations behind these projects during a period of significant economic growth, investment and inward immigration. Data has been gathered from both official published policies as well as interviews with elite actors in the decision-making field and architects who produced the buildings of interest in both countries. With the sizeable number of arts-based buildings now completed in both Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, one must wonder if this necklace of buildings is, like Jocasta’s, a thing of both beauty and redolent with a potential future curse. It is the goal of this project to contribute to the larger applied and critical discussion of these issues and to engage with future policy design, administration and, certainly, evaluation.

Telling stories of 21st Century welfare: the UK Coalition Government and the neo-liberal discourse of worklessness and dependency’ Critical Social Policy

Policy documents are a useful source for understanding the privileging of particular ideological and policy preferences (Scrase and Ockwell, 2010) and how the language and imagery may help to construct society’s assumptions, values and beliefs. This article examines how the UK Coalition government’s 2010 Green Paper, 21st Century Welfare, and the White Paper, Universal Credit: Welfare that Works, assist in constructing a discourse about social security that favours a renewal and deepening of neo-liberalization in the context of threats to its hegemony. The documents marginalize the structural aspects of persistent unemployment and poverty by transforming these into individual pathologies of benefit dependency and worklessness. The consequence is that familiar neo-liberal policy measures favouring the intensification of punitive conditionality and economic rationality can be portrayed as new and innovative solutions to address Britain’s supposedly broken society and restore economic competitiveness.