Fran Abrams

Mark Solomons

Many teachers, support staff and school leaders are tired, stressed and overstretched. And even though this frequently makes the headlines, it isn’t a new problem. In this book, Mark Solomons and Fran Abrams argue staff wellbeing should be rooted in the culture and climate of our schools. They provide a roadmap to recovery for struggling schools which should lead to improvements in staff morale, workload management and mental wellbeing. With a range of real-life examples, this book focuses on how school leaders can build workplace wellbeing in even the most challenging environments. It includes clear links to research evidence and summaries of the key steps necessary to deal with common issues such as: Identifying and mapping issues in your school Leading for wellbeing Creating and maintaining a happy workforce Developing a culture of everyday wellbeing Overseeing change. Written in an entertaining yet informative manner, this is the go-to guide for school leaders who want to support staff by building a more positive and supportive workplace.

What Makes Teachers Unhappy, and What Can You Do About It? Building a Culture of Staff Wellbeing

As recently as one hundred years ago British children existed in ways now unthinkable; boys as young as eight worked gruelling hours in unlit factories; girls were sold into sexual slavery with dolls still in their grasp; and boys at schools like Rugby and Harrow were brutally trained for their future at the helm of Britain's vast red empire. In Songs of Innocence Fran Abrams charts the transformation of childhood in the UK from early Victorian disagreements about child-rearing to the Scouts' very direct involvement in the First World War. Poignant first-hand accounts of poverty and deprivation as well as innocent pleasures carry the reader through a Dickensian landscape of urchins and Fauntleroys, the cosseted lives of Edwardian children to the self-sufficient charges of Baden-Powell. Fran Abrams draws distinctions along class lines and divisions such as town and country, Romantic and conservative, to achieve a historical perspective shows the progression of the idea of childhood through a century of massive social change brought about by urbanization, war and medico-psychological advances. Songs of Innocence employs searing personal testimony and immaculate research to provide a fascinating exposition of the past and a mirror for the present.

The Story of British Childhood

Songs of Innocence

In this vivid and involving piece of literary reportage, Fran Abrams follows a group of young people for a year, at school and at home. What exactly does it feel like to be a teenager today?

How It Feels to Be A Teenager

A poignant and brilliant account of trying to live in Britain today on the minimum wage - £4.10 an hour Fran Abrams was commissioned by the Guardian to work as a night cleaner at the Savoy - living on (or as it turned out - below) the minimum wage. A short version of that experience appeared in the paper in January 2002. For Profile, she spent a month living on (in fact below) the minimum wage in South Yorkshire working in a pickle factory and then another month in Scotland working as a care assistant. In the tradition of George Orwell_s Down & Out in London & Paris, this book shows what it is like to try to live on £4.10 an hour. Where can you live? What can you afford to eat? Or do in the evening? What are the jobs - and the workmates and bosses like? This book, in entertaining prose, sympathetic portraits and a telling eye for detail reveals all - including the extraordinary differences across the length of Britain.

Living on the Minimum Wage

Below the Breadline

Joanna McIntyre

In the last five years, more child refugees have made perilous journeys into Europe than at any point since the Second World War. Once refugee children begin to establish their new lives, education becomes a priority. However, access to high-quality inclusive education can be challenging and is a social justice issue for schools, policymakers and for the research community. Underpinned by strong theoretical framings and based on socially just principles, this book provides a detailed exploration into this ethically charged, emotive and complex subject. Refugee Education offers an interdisciplinary perspective to critical debates and public discourse about the topic, contextualized by the voices of young refugees and those seeking to support them in and out of education. Shaped by practitioners, the book develops an inclusive model of education for refugee children based on the concepts of safety, belonging and success, and presents practical tools for planning and operationalizing the ethics of inclusive education. This book includes a wide range of case study examples which reveal the positive outcomes that are possible, given the right inputs. It is essential reading for teachers, senior leaders and policymakers as well as academic researchers in education, social policy, migration and refugee studies.

Theorising Practice in Schools

Refugee Education

For the 100th anniversary of the Suffrage Movement, a compelling history of the women (and two men) who made the biggest change ever in British democracy: votes for 50% of the population When Emmeline Pankhurst gathered a small group of women in Manchester 10 October1903, the mood was defiant. For the Suffragette movement, founded that day, sprang not merely from a simple desire to change the law but also from a deep-seated anger over sexism within the Labour movement. The fiery nature of its conception and birth was to characterise the Women's Social and Political Union, as it was formally known, throughout the 12 turbulent years of its life. In fact, what distinguished it from the more staid women's franchise campaigns which went before was its militancy - and, of course, its sheer bloody-minded determination.This is the remarkable (and often heroic story) of the Suffragettes, told through 12 portraits of their leaders, of ordinary members, of radicals and waverers.

Lives of the Suffragettes

Freedom's Cause

Blending interviews with those most closely affected together with views from key commentators and experts the author creates a vivid picture of a system and societal failure; a failure both that is at once both embarrassing and avoidable.

Fran Abrams

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