Peter Blatchford is Professor in Psychology and Education at the Institute of Education, University of London. His main area of interest is social developmental processes in school settings.  Over the past 30 years he has secured continuous external research funding and had published 8 books and over 60 peer reviewed papers. Large scale research projects he has directed include a pioneering longitudinal study of the educational effects of class size differences ( e.g., The Class Size Debate: Is Small Better？； 2003, Open University Press ) ； and an ESRC funded study in which a programme of collaborative group work for school pupils in classrooms was developed with teachers and then evaluated in a year long quasi experimental study ( the ‘SPRinG’ project, part of the ESRC Teaching and Learning Research Programme, Phase 2 – with Professors Maurice Galton and Peter Kutnick ) . He is director of the largest study yet of the deployment and impact of school support staff, funded by the English and Welsh Governments, ending in 2009. His work on social life in schools. and school breaktimes / recess  is well known ( e.g.,  Social Life in School： Pupils' experiences of breaktime from 7 to 16 years, Falmer Press； The Child at School: Interactions with Peers and Teachers, Edward Arnold [ with Tony Pellegrini ] ).