The First Year at School: An International Perspective

Peter Tymms, After taking a degree from Cambridge University in Natural Sciences Peter Tymms taught in a wide variety of schools from Central Africa to the north-east of England before starting an academic career. He was "Lecturer in Performance Indicators" at Moray House, Edinburgh before moving to Newcastle University and then to Durham University where he was promoted to Professor of Education. He is now an Emeritus Professor.

His main research interests include monitoring, assessment, performance indicators, ADHD, reading and research methodology. He originated the PIPS project, which was designed to monitor the affective and cognitive progress of children through primary schools starting with a computer adaptive on-entry baseline assessment. It has been used with more than a million children worldwide. Peter Tymms was Director of the Centre for Evaluation and Monitoring (CEM) until 2011 when he took over as Head of Department and Chair of the Board of Studies in the School of Education. At present he is devoting some of his time to an international project designed to study children starting school around the world. The project is known as iPIPS.

Tiago Bartholo is an Associate Professor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. His research interest includes the robust evaluation of education as a lifelong process, focused on issues of effectiveness, equity, and well-being. He has more than sixteen years of experience teaching at schools, universities, and working on research and professional projects in Brazil, England, and Spain. Worked as a consultant for the FNDE (National Fund for the Development of Education, 2009-2010), the Ministry of Education (Programa Segundo Tempo, 2010-2011), Carlos Chagas Foundation, São Paulo (2014-2020), the Interamerican Development Bank (2017-2018) and the United Nations Development Program (PNUD Brasil, 2022). He has published extensivelyin Brazil and internationally in peer-reviewed journals. Visiting researcher at Durham University, England (2014 and 2017), University of Birmingham, England, (2012 and 2013), and the University of León, Spain (2009). Tiago is currently one of the leading researchers in a national impact study of Covid-19 on students' development and well-being in Brazil, helping design a national recovery plan for public education.

Sarah Howie is the founding Director of the Africa Centre for Scholarship, Director of Unit for International Credentialling and Professor of Education at Stellenbosch University, South Africa since 2017. Previously she was the founding Director of the Centre for Evaluation and Assessment (CEA) and Professor of Education, Faculty of Education, at the University of Pretoria for 17 years.

Her career began at the Foundation for Research Development (now the National Research Foundation) after she had completed her undergraduate and honours degrees from Stellenbosch University and University of Cape Town respectively. She obtained her Master's degree in Education from University of Witwatersrand, whilst working fulltime at the Human Sciences Research Council. She completed her PhD at the University of Twente, the Netherlands and thereafter established the research Centre for Evaluation and Assessment at the University of Pretoria where she was appointed as a Research Director in 2001 and Full Professor in 2007-2017. She has published extensively internationally in peer-reviewed journals and edited and co-edited books. She has served as the National Research Coordinator of the IEA's Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 1995 (Pop3), 1999; Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) 2006, 2011, 2016 and Second International Technology in Education Study (SITES) 1999 and 2006 focused on international assessments in primary and secondary schools. She was also the national coordinator for the Nuffield Foundation funded International Primary Indicators in Primary School (iPIPS) study. She was inducted into the Academy of Science for South Africa in 2006.

Internationally, she was a member of the UNESCO-Brookings Institute international Learning Metrics Task Force for Post-primary (in preparation for Education for All 2015) She was also a member of five international technical research committees associated with design and development of international large-scale assessments of the International Association for Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) (PIRLS 2011 & 2015 and TALIS) and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation Development (OECD) (PISA 2015 & 2018). She is a member of a number of Editorial Boards of international Journals including those in the Taylor and Francis and Elsevier publishing houses. She currently serves on the IEA's International Publications Committee.

Elena Kardanova, With a PhD degree in mathematics fromSaint Petersburg State University Elena Kardanova has worked as a director of the Centre for Psychometrics and Educational Measurement with National Research University Higher School of Economics since 2013. She is a Tenured Professor at HSE and a scientific adviser of the master Program Science of Learning and Assessment. She teaches psychometrics to master and PhD students.

Her main research interests include psychometrics, test development, Item Response Theory, Rasch modelling, assessing complex constructs and adjacent research areas. Elena Kardanova authors many research papers and was and still is in charge of many research projects including international ones. In particular, she initiated iPIPS in Russia in 2014 and supervised the development of its Russian-language version.

Mariane Koslinski is an associate professor in the Faculty of Education and the Educational Opportunities Research Laboratory coordinator at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. She is currently the coordinator of Research Committee 17 Education and Society of the Brazilian Society of Sociology. Her research areas include social inequality and education, educational policy and program implementation and evaluation, residential segregation and educational inequalities.

Christine Merrell started work as a biological scientist before becoming a teacher and studying for a masters degree at Newcastle University where she got a distinction. She then took on the role of Research Associate for PIPS in the Centre for Evaluation and Monitoring (CEM). Her doctorate studied the attainment of pupils with ADHD characteristics in schools. That work led to a series of publications and grants as well as membership of the relevant NICE (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) Committee. Christine rose through the ranks in CEM to become a Director before moving to the Faculty of Social Sciences and Health as Deputy Pro-VC for research.

Christine was an important figure in the iPIPS project and in the editing of this book until she passed away in 2021, well before her time.

Helen Wildy grew up on a wheat and sheep farm in rural Western Australia and attended a one teacher school before completing her secondary schooling at a boarding school in the capital city, Perth, and attending The University of Western Australia (UWA) to prepare to become a Mathematics teacher. After teaching in Western Australia and Victoria, Helen completed Masters and Doctoral degrees again at UWA. Helen worked closely with school systems in WA, developing school principals' leadership capacity and skills to use national assessment program data to improve teaching and learning. Subsequently she spent 30 years in academic positions in 3 of WA's universities, including the final decade as Dean of Education at UWA where she was responsible for teaching and research, and the preparation of teachers. Throughout that time, her particular interest was the teaching and learning of children in their first year of school, and she coordinated the PIPS project across Australia for 20 years. She is now an Emeritus Professor. As well as volunteer roles as a Guide at the Art Gallery of Western Australia and Director of a charity supporting the teaching and learning of children in Bhutan, Helen is currently Acting Deputy Vice Chancellor of Murdoch University in WA.

彼得·提姆斯（Peter Tymms）在劍橋大學獲得自然科學學位後，曾在從中非到英格蘭東北部的各種學校任教，隨後開始了他的學術生涯。他曾擔任愛丁堡莫雷學院的「績效指標講師」，之後轉到紐卡斯爾大學，最終到達達勒姆大學，並晉升為教育學教授。現在他是名譽教授。

他的主要研究興趣包括監測、評估、績效指標、注意力不足過動症（ADHD）、閱讀和研究方法論。他創立了PIPS計畫，旨在通過一項計算機自適應的入學基線評估來監測兒童在小學階段的情感和認知進展。該計畫已在全球超過一百萬名兒童中使用。彼得·提姆斯曾擔任評估與監測中心（CEM）主任，直到2011年接任教育學院的系主任和學術委員會主席。目前，他將部分時間投入於一個國際項目，旨在研究全球兒童入學的情況，該項目稱為iPIPS。

蒂亞戈·巴爾托洛（Tiago Bartholo）是里約熱內盧聯邦大學的副教授。他的研究興趣包括將教育視為一個終身過程的穩健評估，專注於有效性、公平性和福祉等問題。他在巴西、英國和西班牙的學校和大學教學以及研究和專業項目方面擁有超過十六年的經驗。曾擔任FNDE（國家教育發展基金，2009-2010）、教育部（Programa Segundo Tempo，2010-2011）、卡洛斯·查加斯基金會（2014-2020）、美洲開發銀行（2017-2018）和聯合國開發計劃署（PNUD Brasil，2022）的顧問。他在巴西和國際上於同行評審期刊上發表了大量文章。曾於2014年和2017年擔任英國達勒姆大學的訪問研究員，2012年和2013年於英國伯明翰大學，2009年於西班牙萊昂大學。蒂亞戈目前是巴西一項關於Covid-19對學生發展和福祉影響的國家影響研究的主要研究人員之一，協助設計公共教育的國家復甦計畫。

莎拉·霍威（Sarah Howie）是非洲獎學金中心的創始主任，自2017年以來擔任南非斯坦陵布什大學國際認證單位主任及教育學教授。她曾擔任比勒陀利亞大學評估與評價中心（CEA）的創始主任及教育學教授，任職17年。

她的職業生涯始於研究發展基金會（現為國家研究基金會），在此之前她已完成斯坦陵布什大學和開普敦大學的本科及榮譽學位。她在全職於人文科學研究委員會工作期間，獲得了威特沃特斯蘭大學的教育碩士學位。她在荷蘭特文特大學完成了博士學位，隨後在比勒陀利亞大學建立了評估與評價研究中心，並於2001年被任命為研究主任，2007年至2017年擔任全職教授。她在國際同行評審期刊上發表了大量文章，並編輯和共同編輯了多本書籍。她曾擔任IEA數學與科學研究趨勢（TIMSS）1995（Pop3）、1999；國際閱讀素養進展研究（PIRLS）2006、2011、2016及第二屆國際教育技術研究（SITES）1999和2006的國家研究協調員，專注於小學和中學的國際評估。她還是努菲爾德基金會資助的國際小學項目的國家協調員。