The BERA Blog was established in 2015 to provide research-informed content on key educational issues in an accessible manner.
This BERA Blog special issue examines possible futures for tertiary education in England and the challenges that are faced by policymakers, institutional leaders, educators and researchers in...
A scenario Imagine this: You, a university lecturer, are invigilating an exam. Students are focused on their question papers, scribbling away. With a little time left, a hand is raised. ‘Would...
Like many headteachers in the state sector, I was excited in 2024 when the newly elected Labour government called for a curriculum and assessment review. Many of us in the primary phase (ages...
The term ‘curriculum making’ is becoming increasingly common in educational policy and practice. It is a concept with a long tradition in curriculum studies, going back to the foundational...
The election of a Labour government in the UK in July 2024 heralded optimism that some serious problems with England’s national curriculum and assessment system, evident since 2014, would...
If teachers are to continue developing their classroom practice, we need them to take risks. Very little research has considered teachers’ attitudes to voluntary risk-taking; which activities...
Scotland’s ‘1+2 languages’ policy, introduced in 2012, reflects the growing global need for multilingualism. It introduced learning a second language (L2) from age five and a third language...
A crucial yet often overlooked aspect of educational equity is the need to address hair-based discrimination in UK educational institutions. While racial inequality in education is well...
A scenario Imagine this: You, a university lecturer, are invigilating an exam. Students are focused on their question papers, scribbling away. With a little time left, a hand is raised. ‘Would...
Continue reading blog postThe role of the mentor has been strengthened in initial teacher education, as a way of helping the student teacher to bridge the theory and the practice of their teaching (Welsh Government, 2018;...
Continue reading blog postAll researchers are motivated by the desire to create new knowledge, to reframe the terms in which a particular topic is understood or suggest new insights that could be acted on in the real...
Continue reading blog postHigher education has traditionally been regarded as a path to stable employment (OECD, 2021). While this is still true for some countries, for others, economic changes and labour market saturation...
Continue reading blog postGenerative AI (GAI) is a form of AI that utilises machine learning and deep learning techniques to generate new data (such as text and images) (Yu et al., 2023). However, teachers’ application...
Continue reading blog postBudget planning in schools is like navigating a ship through unpredictable seas, awash with rising costs, fluctuating pupil numbers and financial vulnerability. All schools must balance resources...
Continue reading blog postThis BERA Blog special issue examines possible futures for tertiary education in England and the challenges that are faced by policymakers, institutional leaders, educators and researchers in...
Continue reading blog post‘Tertiary’ is a wide-ranging term used increasingly by policymakers and commentators as a panacea for a future post-16 education and training system in England (Hazelkorn, 2023). What could...
Continue reading blog postA ‘seamless’ system (Bathmaker et al., 2008), that integrates further and higher education under one umbrella, and brings together vocational, professional and academic education and training,...
Continue reading blog post
