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The cotton and its blends is the most commonly used textile material in the design and production of protective clothing. However, as the cellulose textiles are the most flammable materials it is necessary to improve its flame retardancy. The government regulations have been the driving force for developing durable flame retardants finishes for textile, to improve its performance and to reduce the negative impact on the environment. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This paper investigates the effect of silica precursor (tetraethoxysilane – TEOS) added in bath with conventional flame retardant urea/ammonium polyphosphate in full and half concentration for achieving environmental-friendly cotton flame retardancy. Silica precursors have excellent thermal stability and high heat resistance with very limited release of toxic gases during the thermal decomposition. Synergistic effect between urea/ammonium polyphosphate and TEOS has been calculated. Thermal properties of treated cotton fabrics were determined by limiting oxygen index (LOI), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and microscale combustion calorimeter (MCC).

TEOS, significantly improves the flame retardancy of cotton when added in the bath with conventional flame retardants urea/ammonium polyphosphate by increasing the LOI values and other thermal properties as increasing char residue measured by TGA and higher heat release rate measured by MCC.

This paper represent a good synergistic effect between urea/ammonium polyphosphate and TEOS. This phenomena is evident in better thermal properties when TEOS was added in the bath with conventional flame retardant especially for half concentration of urea/ammonium polyphosphate.

The purpose of this paper is to probe the extent to which principals, as boundary spanners, manage with the influence of the local educational authority (LEA) and the superintendent over school matters.

The study is based on sequential quantitative→qualitative explanatory mixed research design. It is based on a sample of 161 Hebrew elementary school principals in two school districts in Israel who completed a questionnaire and on in-depth interviews with four school principals.

The findings indicated that school principals initiate assistance from the superintendent and the LEA depending on the influence they have in schools. However, they utilize their relations with each external agency differently. With the LEA, they established mutual exchange relations whereas school principals engage with the superintendent in order to negotiate more effectively with the LEA. By doing so, principals can control external agencies’ involvement in schools along with strengthening the power of the central educational authority.

The study makes a unique contribution to the literature on school principals’ role with external agencies by revealing their navigation and balancing among the various factors that influence schools. The study highlights the agential role of school principals.

This paper aims to provide useful insights into educational under‐achievement among Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel (PAI), investigating the perceptions of local educational administrators (LEAs) towards the education system and its modus vivendi, to uncover difficulties and suggest directions to improve the processes and achievements of the PAI education system.

Qualitative interviews were conducted with 16 stakeholders in local education (mayors, education department managers; school principals and parents’ representatives) in four Arab local governments in Israel to elucidate attitudes toward education.

The small random sample cannot claim to be representative however worrying problems were revealed: deficient resources in comparison to the Jewish education system; an ineffective political culture in local government; inferior status and problematic functioning of Arab education department heads and lack of inclusion of professionals and parents in decision‐making. These factors negatively impact the education system and its products.

The paper suggests local government should determine appropriate local policy, positioning education as a high priority with efficient education departments, more professional staff, and suitable education programs. Additionally state government should provide equal resources for the Arab education system, to lever Arab education in Israel.

This article argues that educational policy in England has passed through four main stages in the last three decades. The first three phases, Social democratic, Resource constrained and Market, all contain elements which now inform the Excellence phase which is being pursued by New Labour. This phase combines a determination to improve the quality of pupil learning with a much more interventionist set of strategies than has been witnessed in recent years. This set of policies has inherent weaknesses. Some of these are derived from the partial incorporation into current policy of the concept of the educational marketplace; others are associated with the concept based for New Labour educational policy, the school effectiveness movement; and yet others derive from an inadequate understanding of the nature of leadership and management in schools which leads to an over‐emphasis on the role of the school principal. The article concludes by suggesting alternative forms of leadership which might be more appropriate for schools in a rapidly changing society.

This article traces the impact of educational policy on the role of primary head teachers in Britain spanning the end of the New Right and the start of the New Left policy implementation processes. It is based on the reported perceptions of a sample of primary school head teachers who have been in post over the entire seven year period. It is argued that the conceptual framework derived from the early work on headship in the UK is still appropriate to an analysis of the role of the primary school head as both leading professional and chief executive but that the emphasis has shifted from one in which heads are selected from aspects of their role to one in which heads are now required to extend their involvement in school management across the main aspects of both parts of their role.

This chapter aims to provide a critical analysis of special needs education within the United Kingdom today. Central to such an analysis is an understanding of the rapidly changing social and political milieu within which special needs education is embedded, including the rapidly changing demographics of schooling, and the devolution of political power into four separate but linked countries – England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Following a discussion of such wider social, political and educational issues, the authors explore the convergences and divergences in policy and practice across the four devolved administrations. The authors describe a plethora of contemporary policy developments within each of the four administrations that speak to the need for special needs education to change in response to 21st century concerns about the problems of access to, and equity in, education for all children. Despite this, the authors remain extremely circumspect about the potential of many of these developments to lead to successful inclusive practices and developments on the ground – and explain why. The analysis in the concluding section focuses on the issue of teacher education for inclusion and some very innovate UK research and development projects that have been reported to successfully engage teachers with new paradigm thinking and practice in the field of inclusive special needs education.

Strategic planning, in the form of school improvement planning, has become the dominant approach to school management in English schools. This has evolved from earlier forms of strategic planning and has significant inherent weaknesses that undermine the extent to which school improvement planning can contribute to the effective management of schools. The development of school improvement planning is examined in this article and its weaknesses analysed. Implied models of school management and leadership, the legacy of school effectiveness and improvement research and the role of the school principal are considered. Based on this analysis, an alternative approach to planning in schools and to school organisation and a more flexible approach to school organisation and leadership is proposed that is grounded in a shorter planning time scale and the development of structures that facilitate involvement, cooperation and collaboration.

Examines the fifthteenth published year of the ITCRR. Runs the whole gamut of textile innovation, research and testing, some of which investigates hitherto untouched aspects. Subjects discussed include cotton fabric processing, asbestos substitutes, textile adjuncts to cardiovascular surgery, wet textile processes, hand evaluation, nanotechnology, thermoplastic composites, robotic ironing, protective clothing (agricultural and industrial), ecological aspects of fibre properties – to name but a few! There would appear to be no limit to the future potential for textile applications.

Examines the sixteenth published year of the ITCRR. Runs the whole gamut of textile innovation, research and testing, some of which investigates hitherto untouched aspects. Subjects discussed include cotton fabric processing, asbestos substitutes, textile adjuncts to cardiovascular surgery, wet textile processes, hand evaluation, nanotechnology, thermoplastic composites, robotic ironing, protective clothing (agricultural and industrial), ecological aspects of fibre properties – to name but a few! There would appear to be no limit to the future potential for textile applications.