Child protection and safeguarding are important aspects of work for all professionals working with children. The current article outlines the international context of school psychologists' work in relation to child protection and safeguarding and describes the United Kingdom context in more detail. Given the relatively recent broadening of the UK legislative focus, to include safeguarding in addition to child protection, a review of current practice is needed. A UK survey was commissioned and undertaken in order to identify the current and potential contributions of school psychologists in relation to child protection and safeguarding. This mixed methods survey included an initial focus group with school psychologists, a questionnaire survey of all school psychology services in the UK, and site visits to four selected school psychology services. The research found that school psychologists undertake a wide range of child protection and safeguarding work at universal, targeted and specialized levels. This work includes partnership with a wide variety of other professionals. Future development of school

Background:An increasing body of evidence suggests that working memory can have a significant effect on the academic success of children in school (Gathercole & Alloway, 2008). As such a number of working memory training programmes have been developed and marketed commercially to schools and parents as tools for helping children to boost their working memory and as a result, their learning ability.Aim:The reliability and validity of this body of evidence has been challenged in recent years with questions raised as to whether such programmes actually do boost working memory or show any subsequent impact upon learning (Apter, 2012). This paper aims to examine eight studies published within the last 10 years that explore the effects of commercially available working memory training on working memory and various other factors including ADHD, literacy and numeracy.Rationale/Approach:Drawing on systematic literature review methodology and using study quality assessment frameworks, the paper examines the evidence for the impact of working memory training programmes upon working memory and other neuro-behavioural and neuro-cognitive factors relevant to teaching and learning.Findings/Conclusion:The studies examined used samples from a range of ages (5 to 12 years) and with varied demographic, behavioural and cognitive characteristics. The review indicated that although significant near and far transfer effects for improvements to working memory were found, there were some differences in the pattern of these improvements, with different studies finding different sub-components of working memory benefiting over others. The review also found that the evidence that working memory training leads to improvements in other areas such as literacy and numeracy is inconclusive at best, and that further research will be required for us to better understand the mechanism through which working memory training may improve working memory and academic performance in children.

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