Do we need more male primary teachers? Tensions and contradictions in the perspectives of male and female trainees.

Primary teaching ITT courses across the UK have been under pressure from central government, Ofsted and the media to recruit more male students to their courses with the aim of increasing the proportion of males in the primary teaching workforce. This is because increasing the number of male role models in primary schools has been mooted as the solution to boys’ underachievement, especially in reading and writing. There is, however, little evidence showing any correlation between boys’ educational outcomes and the number of male primary teachers in schools. The purpose of the project reported in this paper was to ascertain the beliefs of the future primary school workforce about this focus on the need for male role models in schools. A mixed methods approach was employed; 120 male and female primary trainees were surveyed and a further 48 took part in group interviews, all of whom were based in an Initial Teacher Training department in a university in North West England. Results indicated that although aspiring teachers felt that males and females could make equally good role models for children their personal value systems perpetuated the myth that boys need male role models to achieve better educational outcomes

The Role of Eif6 in Skeletal Muscle Homeostasis Revealed by Endurance Training Co-expression Networks

Regular endurance training improves muscle oxidative capacity and reduces the risk of age-related disorders. Understanding the molecular networks underlying this phenomenon is crucial. Here, by exploiting the power of computational modeling, we show that endurance training induces profound changes in gene regulatory networks linking signaling and selective control of translation to energy metabolism and tissue remodeling. We discovered that knockdown of the mTOR-independent factor Eif6, which we predicted to be a key regulator of this process, affects mitochondrial respiration efficiency, ROS production, and exercise performance. Our work demonstrates the validity of a data-driven approach to understanding muscle homeostasis

Phonics: A ‘subject’ or part of the bigger picture of reading? Views and practices of student teachers

This paper explores the extent to which student teachers, in their final year of a 3-year undergraduate programme teach phonics as part of a holistic reading programmelinked to reading for meaning and for pleasure. It reports the results of surveys, lesson observations and interviews with a sample of students studying at one university in the Northwest of England.Findings suggest that student teachers do not always make these links and that the prevailing influence of school culture, notably mentors, onthe practices of student teachers and their emerging subject knowledge can be significant

Cut out: collaging against the invisibility of women in print climbing magazines

Climbing magazines from the 1970s to the 2000s, originating as a product of male-dominated climbing cultures, provide a rich illustrative source for embracing visual methodology. Working as a multidisciplinary collective of four across history, art, sociology, we are using photomontage methods to interrogate the photographic representations, absences and stark invisibility of women and women climbers held within our climbing magazine collection. We engage collage as our means of working with the magazine imagery and representations therein. Situating art making at the kitchen table, Dada artist Hannah Höch (1889-1978) invites us to trespass towards a collective, resistant leisure activity. We do so by workshopping to deconstruct, disassemble and reassemble our visual artefacts to speak back and through the ways women’s bodies are objectified, and materially and discursively play out against exclusive leisure. Identifiable representations of women appear in the magazines, which chime with the complexities of absence, sexualization, and conditional inclusion. We chat and discuss and unobtrusively transcribe our emergent commentaries. Our visual methodology therefore invigorates the examination of women’s status within climbing culture past and present, across climbing and non-climbing audiences, revealing resonances between past and present attitudes to women, suggesting that representational strategies continue to impact discriminated groups

Effectiveness of a national quality improvement programme to improve survival after emergency abdominal surgery (EPOCH): a stepped-wedge cluster-randomised trial

BACKGROUND: Emergency abdominal surgery is associated with poor patient outcomes. We studied the effectiveness of a national quality improvement (QI) programme to implement a care pathway to improve survival for these patients. METHODS: We did a stepped-wedge cluster-randomised trial of patients aged 40 years or older undergoing emergency open major abdominal surgery. Eligible UK National Health Service (NHS) hospitals (those that had an emergency general surgical service, a substantial volume of emergency abdominal surgery cases, and contributed data to the National Emergency Laparotomy Audit) were organised into 15 geographical clusters and commenced the QI programme in a random order, based on a computer-generated random sequence, over an 85-week period with one geographical cluster commencing the intervention every 5 weeks from the second to the 16th time period. Patients were masked to the study group, but it was not possible to mask hospital staff or investigators. The primary outcome measure was mortality within 90 days of surgery. Analyses were done on an intention-to-treat basis. This study is registered with the ISRCTN registry, number ISRCTN80682973. FINDINGS: Treatment took place between March 3, 2014, and Oct 19, 2015. 22 754 patients were assessed for elegibility. Of 15 873 eligible patients from 93 NHS hospitals, primary outcome data were analysed for 8482 patients in the usual care group and 7374 in the QI group. Eight patients in the usual care group and nine patients in the QI group were not included in the analysis because of missing primary outcome data. The primary outcome of 90-day mortality occurred in 1210 (16%) patients in the QI group compared with 1393 (16%) patients in the usual care group (HR 1·11, 0·96-1·28). INTERPRETATION: No survival benefit was observed from this QI programme to implement a care pathway for patients undergoing emergency abdominal surgery. Future QI programmes should ensure that teams have both the time and resources needed to improve patient care. FUNDING: National Institute for Health Research Health Services and Delivery Research Programme

A phenomenological exploration of graduate nurse transition to professional practice within a transition to practice program

Aim: To explore the experiences of graduate nurses enrolled in a transition program, to gain insight into what graduates experienced as beneficial, as barriers and to seek meaning to the phenomena of transition as experienced within a transition program. Background: A graduate nurse’s transition to professional practice is a time of high emotion where graduates leave the familiar grounds of university for the unknown of professional practice. Numerous studies, spanning many decades, have investigated issues regarding transition leading to the development of transition programs to aid the recognised burden. Method: The researchers used principles of hermeneutic phenomenology to explore the language used in semi-structured interviews of seven graduate nurses undertaking a Transition to Professional Practice Program in an Australian metropolitan hospital to investigate the lived experiences of transition within a transition program. Results: Thematic analysis of transcribed interviews revealed that transition from student to professional is a time of many new demands that causes shock and can lead to negative emotions. However, many constructive responses and positive emotions were also present. These responses included positive feelings in the care of patients and of support received by graduates from dedicated educators linked to the transition program and by senior nurses on the ward. Conclusion: Transition to practice is an important stage in the career of a Registered Nurse and the transition issues related by graduate nurses in this study corresponded with issues raised in similar transition literature suggesting that continued work is required. However, the benefits of dedicated staff in aiding transition as expressed by the participants of this study is a positive affirmation of the advantages of graduates being enrolled in a transition program.Matthew D.Ankers, Christopher A.Barton, Yvonne K.Parr