Jotter: Journal of Trainee Teacher Educational Research Volume 07
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Selected papers from Jotter Volume 07 (2016). Original papers are located on the University of Cambridge Apollo Repository and linked from each item page.
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Item Contemplative practices in the Reception classroom: the perceptions of seven pupils on a series of PSHE inputs.(Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, 2016-01-05) Foster, SarahImproved psychological wellbeing has been reported for adults and older children (aged eight to eighteen years) undertaking various programmes of ‘mindfulness’ and ‘contemplative practice’ (e.g. Irving, Dobkin & Park, 2009). This research explores younger children’s views on a series of short breathing exercises that were adapted from Snel, (2014) on Mindfulness- based Cognitive Therapy. Mixed methods - drawings and semi-structured post-input interviews - were used in order to assess the impact of the breathing exercises on a group of (7) children aged between four and five years. Placing perception centre-stage highlighted a range of positive results on these individuals’ affective states. Recurrent themes included: relaxation, happiness, focus and (increased) memory and self-awareness. These findings tentatively support the integration of contemplative practices into early years Personal Social Health and Economic Education (PSHE) programmes, in order to pre-emptively address childhood anxieties that might otherwise negatively impact learning (Grills-Taquechel, Fletcher, Vaughn & Stuebing, 2012).Item Mixing it up': an investigation into the impact of a CLIL approach on the attitudes and attainment of a low-attaining Year 9 Spanish class(Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, 2016-01-05) Shairp, HannahThe effects of Content and Language Integrated Learning on lower-attaining students have remained relatively unexplored in the literature, with many studies on CLIL admitting to basing results on students who have been selected in some way. The aim of this paper, therefore, is to look at the effects of a CLIL approach on the attitudes and written attainment of a class of demotivated low-attaining year 9 students of Spanish. A Scheme of work was created, comprising 6 lessons which incorporated aspects of the students’ Geography curriculum; concretely the topic of Latin America. The results showed an almost unanimous improvement in written achievement from before the CLIL intervention to after. In terms of attitudes, there was evidence that some students enjoyed the CLIL lessons, however for the majority, the difficulty of this approach hindered their interest and thus their motivation for Spanish remained unchanged.