Jack's notes for strengthening MA writings in relation to the criterion related to your conclusions:

Made appropriate critical use of the literature and, where appropriate, knowledge from other sources, in the development of the study or enquiry and its conclusions.

Suggestions for strengthening conclusions in relation to the most advanced writings, theories and policies of today (emphasis on primary education).

1) Have the confidence, where it is justified, to explain how your enquiries could move forward present writings, theories and policies.

For example you could relate your enquiries to the ideas of Rudduck and McIntyre (2007) from their conclusion below to chapter three of their book on Improving Learning Through Consulting Pupils. You could point out that your interest is not only in consulting pupils, but in producing evidence-based accounts of your educational influence in their learning as you listen to and respond to their educational needs. I've included a relevant quotation at the end of this note.

You could relate your enquiries to the September 2007 Special Issue of Educational Action Research on Young People's Voices. Here are the contents. You have electronic access to any of these papers with your username and password from the url http://www.bath.ac.uk/library/ej/

Educational Action Research, Volume 15 Issue 3 2007

Young People's Voices

EDITORIAL
	Young people's voices 317 – 322 DOI: 10.1080/09650790701514226
Original Articles
	Jean Rudduck (1937-2007) 'Carving a new order of experience': a preliminary appreciation of the work of Jean Rudduck in the field of student voice 323 – 336 Author: Michael Fielding DOI: 10.1080/09650790701514234
	Students as researchers: engaging students' voices in PAR 337 – 349 Authors: Derek Bland; Bill Atweh DOI: 10.1080/09650790701514259
	'If I am brutally honest, research has never appealed to me ' The problems and successes of a peer research project 351 – 369 Authors: Rosemary Kilpatrick;  Claire McCartan;  Siobhan McAlister; Penny McKeown DOI: 10.1080/09650790701514291
	The power of adolescent voices: co-researchers in mental health promotion 371 – 383 Author: Candace Lind DOI: 10.1080/09650790701514309
	So round the spiral again: a reflective participatory research project with children and young people 385 – 402 Authors: Niamh O'Brien; Tina Moules DOI: 10.1080/09650790701514382
	If they'll listen to us about life, we'll listen to them about school: seeing city students' ideas about 'quality' teachers 403 – 415 Authors: Kristien Marquez-Zenkov;  Jim Harmon;  Piet van Lier; Marina Marquez-Zenkov DOI: 10.1080/09650790701514457
	Exclusion in an inclusive action research project: drawing on student perspectives of school science to identify discourses of exclusion 417 – 440 Author: Eva Nyström DOI: 10.1080/09650790701549693
	Developing the skills of seven- and eight-year-old researchers: a whole class approach 441 – 458 Author: Ros Frost DOI: 10.1080/09650790701514796
	Consulting pupils in Assessment for Learning classrooms: the twists and turns of working with students as co-researchers 459 – 478 Authors: Ruth Leitch;  John Gardner;  Stephanie Mitchell;  Laura Lundy;  Oscar Odena;  Despina Galanouli; Peter Clough DOI: 10.1080/09650790701514887
THEORETICAL RESOURCE
	Engaged voices - dialogic interaction and the construction of shared social meanings 479 – 488 Author: Leora Cruddas DOI: 10.1080/09650790701514937
Book Reviews
	BOOK REVIEWS 489 – 497 Authors: Jane Reeves;  Ruth Leitch; Susan Groundwater-Smith DOI: 10.1080/09650790701515082

2) Have the confidence, where it is justified, to point to the implications of your enquiries for national policy on improving education. For example you could point out a need in the present Primary Review to explain how the educational influences in pupils' learning could be improved. You could refer to any of the briefing documents and reports at:

http://www.primaryreview.org.uk/Publications/Interimreports.html

6/2, 6/3 and 6/4 are the latest to be published:

Primary schools: the professional environment, by Liz Jones, Andy Pickard and Ian Stronach, Manchester Metropolitan University, Primary Review Research Survey 6/2.

Primary teachers: initial teacher education, continuing professional development and school leadership development, by Olwen McNamara and Rosemary Webb, Manchester University, and Mark Brundrett, Liverpool John Moores University, Primary Review Research Survey 6/3.

Primary workforce management and reform, by Hilary Burgess, The Open University, Primary Review Research Survey 6/4.

There are separate briefings on each of the above reports.

For example, you could look at the 4 page briefing document

Jones, L., Pickard, A. & Stronach, I. (2008) Primary Schools: The Professional Environment. Primary Review Research Briefings 6/2. Retrieved 23 April 2008 from http://www.primaryreview.org.uk/Downloads/Int_Reps/8.Settings-professionals/RS_6-2_briefing_Professional_environment_080418.pdf

And relate your writings to the conclusion that the emergence of enduring excellence in classrooms and schools can be achieved by more ongoing strategically targeted research that seeks to understand the profound processes of learning and development:

"The relation of research to policy and practice needs to be linked more systematically and enduringly to deep issues concerning learning and motivation, rather than tied to the evaluation of ephemeral initiatives in a naïve kind of 'what works?' rationale. Innovation is too often a matter of ill-considered policy borrowing. Research needs to consider not just outcomes within a rubric of effectiveness and efficiency but also the slower and deeper emergence of enduring excellence in classrooms and schools. This can be achieved by more ongoing, strategically targeted qualitative research that seeks to understand the profound processes of learning and development." (Jones, Pickard & Stronach, 2008, p. 4)

You could point out that contributions to this enduring excellence could be made by teachers researching their questions of the kind, 'how do I improve what I am doing?' in the context of their educational relationships with their pupils.

Here is the quote from Rudduck and McIntyre.

Rudduck, J. & McIntyre, D. (2007) Improving Learning Through Consulting Pupils, Routledge; New York.

Conclusion to chapter three 'What pupils say about teachers and teacher-pupil relationships' pp. 46-56

"Conclusion

Pupils, then, consistently emphasise teacher-pupil relationships as being of central importance for the quality of their lives in classrooms, and, as we have noted, aspects of teachers' professional expertise, while appreciated, tend to come a poor second to teachers being the kind of people who relate well to pupils.

How are we to understand this? One of the most challenging features of pupil consultation is the need to recognise that things often look different from the perspectives of the pupils. Confident as we are of the validity of these findings, it is unlikely that simple 'teacher characteristics' reflect nothing more than teachers' 'natural' characteristics or their simple personal preferences about how to relate to pupils. On the contrary, for teachers to act, for example, 'consistently', respectfully', 'with a sense of humour' and 'knowing what it is like to be young and a teenager', in what are likely to be demanding and stressful situations, depends on them having developed sophisticated professional expertise. Acting in ways that seem desirable to pupils has to be combined with whatever else the teacher was aiming to do; and only the teacher could know the possibilities and the problems involved. Thus, what may well seem to pupils a matter of having a pleasant personality is likely to be for the teacher a complex professional task, probably mastered only through long experience, reflection and hard work.

That, however, is at best only half the story. For surely pupils are right to asset that schools and classrooms should be places characterised by trusting human relationships, where people are treated as 'persons' not as 'statistics'. It should be a priority for all human institutions, including workplaces, that they should be characterised by such human relationships. Furthermore, just as pupils assert is the case in schools, purposeful productivity can be enhanced, and certainly need not be undermined, by such relationships. And if we want such relationships to be valued for civilisation in general, is it not of paramount importance that young people should be educated in schools where priority value is placed on such relationships? Pupils may be wrong in their tendency to equate such civilised values with the personality characteristics of their preferred teachers, but they are right in a far more fundamental sense to value the human and the personal in the work of schools, and reciprocated respect trust and fairness in teacher-pupil relationships." Rudduck & McIntyre, 2007, p. 55)