The pedagogic considerations and practical ideas presented in this volume offer, we believe, a compelling rationale for exploring the potential of deeper learning across a wide range of subjects through an explicit focus on subject literacies that:

• Promote the prioritisation of deeper understanding of subject-specific concepts alongside subject-specific ways of constructing and communicating that understanding.

• Illustrate how a continuous focus on meaning-making and languaging of understanding will not only support and facilitate conceptual understanding of subject content but will also render learning more transparent by making subject-specific thinking and processing visible and thus more accessible and easier to grasp for learners.

• Emphasise that using more than one language in subject lessons to highlight subject-specific ways of meaning-making across languages can be a powerful learning catalyst. This is because a focus on PLURI-literacies will create synergies that will increase our learners’ meaning-making potential by empowering them to successfully communicate across subjects and languages, purposefully using a wide variety of genres, modes and styles.

• Show that the concept of deeper learning episodes (DLEs) is compatible with a wide range of subjects. At the same time, the experts report that our suggested template for designing such episodes, along with the guiding questions we developed, constitute useful planning tools that offer practitioners effective, systematic and adaptable guidance in designing DLEs.

While understanding the mechanics of deeper learning is fundamental, deeper learning can only become a reality in our classrooms when we pay close attention to the drivers of deeper learning. This will allow learners to embrace a deeper learning mindset, which is required to develop academic tenacity or resilience, to work consistently over sustained periods of time, to engage in and master challenging tasks, to successfully interact with their peers and to self-regulate their learning.

This chapter aims at clarifying basic concepts related to multimedia: communication, comprehension, and learning. Multimedia communication is considered as the intentional creation, display, and reception of multiple kinds of signs in order to convey messages about some content. It entails two subprocesses: meaning and comprehension. Multimedia meaning is a process in which the producer of a message creates multiple external signs based on his or her prior knowledge in order to direct the recipient’s mind so that the recipient understands what the producer means. Multimedia comprehension is the complementary process of reconstructing the previously externalized knowledge in the mind of the recipient. It can be seen as the bottleneck of multimedia communication. Multimedia comprehension and multimedia learning are related but are nevertheless different: While multimedia comprehension results in transient changes in working memory, multimedia learning results in permanent changes in long-term memory. Multimedia learning is a byproduct of multimedia comprehension. Further, an overview of the book is presented.

This chapter introduces the rationale and conceptual ideas for partnership work in education settings in the early years and primary setting. It provides arguments for building dynamic relationships as the basis of partnerships with families and community. You will learn about the benefits of partnerships and how these benefits can impact positively on children, families, professionals and communities as a whole.You will also explore key underpinning policies, legislations and research theories that positions strong, positive and proactive partnerships as a systemic solution to children’s learning development.At the same time, you will be able to appreciate the need to form partnerships for the good of children’s development as well meet the standards of practice that teachers and professionals in general should aspire to achieve.This chapter sets the stage for the rest of book, which aims at enabling and empowering you to build authentic and sustainable partnerships with families, external professionals and community representatives.

In this chapter, we begin by looking at ways that you can plan and implement partnership work. Together, we will learn about a range of different approaches that we can use when planning on building relationships. We will examine strategies to determine the appropriate approach and come to an understanding on the importance of co-design in partnerships. This chapter will show you how to draw on the second premise of the TWINE Model of Partnership – to plan – so that you can prepare yourself to start implementating partnership work.

In this chapter, your thinking around leading partnerships will be challenged. Throughout this chapter, you will be supported to develop a critical understanding of how leadership can impact partnerships, both positively and negatively.In the chapters so far, you have explored conceptual and practical components of partnerships and the key aspects that lead to successful partnership work.We have explored how diversity can challenge us as well as enrich our understanding of family and ways of being. We have also delved deeply into developing approaches, actions, strategies and tools to implement effective partnerships whereby we can measure their success.Of critical importance is how we lead all these processes.The aim of this chapter is for you to identify when leadership approaches need to change in response to the positioning of partnership work and ensure a way forward for all parties.

In this chapter, we build on the legislative requirements, conceptual ideas and theories that underpin the way we see and understand partnership work in education settings. As you engage with the chapter, you will be introduced to theoretical modelling and ideas that can inform your work with families, professionals and community. The ideas presented in this chapter will also support you to understand the various practices and communication strategies that are introduced in the succeeding chapters in this book.

In this chapter, we discuss and illustrate the tools of evaluating partnership work as part of a continuous improvement that you will need to make when building partnerships. As you engage with the chapter, you will learn what evaluation is and how to use evaluation to ensure that partnerships work for the benefit of children and their families. Throughout the chapter, we will explore different methods for collecting data and analysis, including various strategies that will inform the improvement and change necessary for good work in partnership-building.