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Why Wales has a head start in the future of post-16 education in the UK and internationally

Wales is currently in the middle of a curriculum and qualifications reform. Since 2015, ‘pioneer’ schools across the principality have been contributing to the development of a new national...

Relative age and the early years foundation stage profile

Who is attributed a ‘good level of development’ – and what might this tell us about how ‘good’ the EYFSP is?

The BERA Blog: Highlights of 2021

BERA Blog end of year highlights

Yuletide greetings and festive cheer to all our readers and authors, wherever you may be. In these challenging times we thank all of you for your continued support of and engagement with the BERA...

Playful creativity

‘Intelligence is what you use when you don’t know what to do.’ (Attributed to Jean Piaget) Learning is often compromised by competitiveness (Brown & Vaughan, 2009). Bred from the...

Playful interventions: Measuring impact on learning

Figure 1: PMM tracking individuals’ understanding of ‘playfulness and me’ over the course of several workshops and a field trip. Red text was added before any workshops were...

Does playfulness have a place in higher education? A reflection on using playfulness when teaching research methods to postgraduate students

Playfulness has been defined as a disposition (Barnett, 1991) a mindset (Skilbeck, 2017) and fundamental for creativity (Cheng-Ping Chang, 2013). I have spent many years working in play and...

Playful praxis: A student’s perspective

Now in my fifth year of higher education (HE), I am in the unfortunate position to have more years as an undergraduate to reflect on than most, yet still have more to look forward to. Yes, I am a...

Connection and creativity despite Covid-19: Playful learning at university during the pandemic

Over the past decade, interest in play and playful learning in higher education (HE) has grown significantly (James & Brookfield, 2014; James & Nerantzi, 2019). Publications, conferences and...

Editorial: The playful academic

Imagine a place of learning where progressive failing, building resilience, and developing individual and collective skills, values and creativity are not only thought about as a theoretical...

The playful academic

This special BERA Blog series, edited by Maarten Koeners, explores how play and playfulness can facilitate learning in higher education – from the points of view of educator, researcher,...

Sharing the ambition: Play and parental interest in Scottish early years education

BCF Curriculum Investigation Grant Research Reports

This report provides evidence from the Sharing the Ambition project, which investigates parents' perceptions of early years education in Scotland, what their priorities are in terms of settings'...

Music teachers are curriculum designers

It is fair to say that the model music curriculum has caused quite a stir in music classrooms in England. A national curriculum already exists for music, and while it is only statutory for around...