Neville Bennett – författare

The Leverhulme Primary Project reported here provides for the first time evidence on what is actually happening in teacher education today and on how novice teachers learn their craft. The book looks in detail at the experience of all the student teachers on one post graduate primary teacher training course and of those responsible for them in their university and in schools. It tracks them as they work to acquire the appropriate subject and pedagogical knowledge and as their own beliefs about teaching develop during the course. A final section follows some of the students through their fist year as qualified teachers. Teacher education is going through a peiod of radical change and more peole than ever before now have some responsibility, whether in higher education or in school for the training of teachers. None of them can afford to ignore the fresh insights into how teachers are made contained in this book.

Recent research has shown that group learning is a method of classroom organisation with which many teachers feel uncomfortable. Yet well done it can produce greater independence, greater cooperation and better quality work from children of all abilities. Talking and Learning in Groups , like the rest of the Leverhulme skills series attempts to identify in general terms the competencies and strategies which are needed for this aspect of class management and to guide teachers in discovering what works for them. The modular text gives evidence of the success of cooperative learning and discusses its various forms. It them gives specific guidance on how to do it. There are individual sections on choosing groups, on groups management and training and on monitoring and assessment. The text is supported by activities, both for discussion and for use in the classroom and by transcripts of actual classroom conversations, and illustrated with ten specially comissioned black and white photos showing various aspects of cooperative learning.

Very little is known about the quality of the learning experiences provided for pupils. This book contains the results of a major research project, conducted in a sample of English primary schools, in which particular attention was paid to the tasks children were assigned, to the degree of match between assigned tasks and pupil attainment, to the detailed observation of children at work. The teacher’s problems in assigning work appropriate to children’s attainments and the special problem of matching posed by the transfer of children from one class to another were also subjected to analysis. Lessons learned from the project were used as a basis for the design of an in-service course for teachers. The course, which was aimed at improving teachers’ matching skills was closely evaluated. The report contains data and analysis pertinent to each of the above issues. The findings reveal that despite the conscientious efforts of able teachers a number of serious issues are apparent – particularly in areas such as classroom organization and teacher diagnosis of children’s work.

Very little is known about the quality of the learning experiences provided for pupils. This book contains the results of a major research project, conducted in a sample of English primary schools, in which particular attention was paid to the tasks children were assigned, to the degree of match between assigned tasks and pupil attainment, to the detailed observation of children at work. The teacher’s problems in assigning work appropriate to children’s attainments and the special problem of matching posed by the transfer of children from one class to another were also subjected to analysis. Lessons learned from the project were used as a basis for the design of an in-service course for teachers. The course, which was aimed at improving teachers’ matching skills was closely evaluated. The report contains data and analysis pertinent to each of the above issues. The findings reveal that despite the conscientious efforts of able teachers a number of serious issues are apparent – particularly in areas such as classroom organization and teacher diagnosis of children’s work.

The Leverhulme Primary Project reported here provides for the first time evidence on what is actually happening in teacher education today and on how novice teachers learn their craft. The book looks in detail at the experience of all the student teachers on one post graduate primary teacher training course and of those responsible for them in their university and in schools. It tracks them as they work to acquire the appropriate subject and pedagogical knowledge and as their own beliefs about teaching develop during the course. A final section follows some of the students through their fist year as qualified teachers. Teacher education is going through a peiod of radical change and more peole than ever before now have some responsibility, whether in higher education or in school for the training of teachers. None of them can afford to ignore the fresh insights into how teachers are made contained in this book.

Recent research has shown that group learning is a method of classroom organisation with which many teachers feel uncomfortable. Yet well done it can produce greater independence, greater cooperation and better quality work from children of all abilities. Talking and Learning in Groups , like the rest of the Leverhulme skills series attempts to identify in general terms the competencies and strategies which are needed for this aspect of class management and to guide teachers in discovering what works for them. The modular text gives evidence of the success of cooperative learning and discusses its various forms. It them gives specific guidance on how to do it. There are individual sections on choosing groups, on groups management and training and on monitoring and assessment. The text is supported by activities, both for discussion and for use in the classroom and by transcripts of actual classroom conversations, and illustrated with ten specially comissioned black and white photos showing various aspects of cooperative learning.

Many military accounts of the British side of the Falklands War have been published as well as memoirs written by servicemen who took part, so this aspect of the story of the Argentine occupation and the British liberation of this remote territory in the South Atlantic is well known. But little attention has been paid to the Falkland islanders who had direct personal experience of this extraordinary crisis in their history. That is why the previously unpublished diaries of Neville Bennett and his wife Valerie, a fireman and a nurse who lived with their two daughters in Port Stanley throughout the war, is such vivid and revealing reading.As chief fireman Neville was frequently called out to deal with fires and other incidents during the occupation, and each day he recorded what happened and what he thought about it in his sharp and forthright way. Valerie saw a different side of the occupation through her work at the Stanley hospital where she had to handle the Argentines as well as daily accidents and emergencies.Their joint record of the exceptional circumstances in the Falklands in April, May and June 1982 gives us a fascinating inside view of family life during the occupation and of their relations with the Argentine soldiers and commanders. It is engrossing reading.