Effectively deploying teaching assistants to support pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND)

This blog draws on an important piece of research published by the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) in England in 2015: Making the Best use of Teaching Assistants (Sharples, Webster and...

Jetting off on another flying faculty visit: what have we learned?

The increased demand for education as a tradable commodity has seen a growing number of international students seeking UK qualifications over the past decade (OECD, 2009). It is becoming...

Towards inclusive and equitable quality education for all: To borrow or not to borrow?

One of the Millennium Development Goals set by the United Nations (UN) in 2000 concerns achieving universal primary education (United Nations, 2015b). Since then, systemic changes have been...

How do we truly assess success and long-term achievement in learning: exams, or innovative contextualised creative assessment?

There is a continual debate and discussion about exams – whether it is standard attainment tests (SATs) at primary school or GCSEs and A-levels at secondary – and how effective they are not...

Walking interviews: A participatory research tool with legs?

Last autumn I was lucky enough to attend one of a series of BERA Postgraduate Forum events that focussed on research methodology. It was pleasing to see that many of the postgraduates in...

Is school choice a reality for all?

We know that parents are given some choice over which school their children can attend. To this end academics, drawing on work by Bourdieu (1990), have explored the habitus and culture of both...

Educational imaginations to save the future?

At an ESRC-Palgrave-Springer Festival of Social Science event about social sciences impact, held at the Royal Society on 7 November 2017 (#FossImpact), I asked a question. Before I repeat this...

Lessons from the past: Why Winifred Mercier’s work still resonates

As teacher educators we have found ourselves sharing academic, developmental and philosophical interests and recently we have found a further shared dimension: that of the life, work and legacy of...

BERA blog highlights from 2017

BERA Blog end of year highlights

While the demise of 2017 will generate little tear-shedding amongst many of our readers, it has been another bumper year for the BERA Blog. Just over two-and-a-half years after its inception, the...