What are we educating for?

Although it has always been significant, the question of what we are educating for is now particularly important. There is growing consensus that the educational challenges we face require...

Editorial: What are we educating for? Introducing the BERA Blog Special Issue

This BERA Blog special issue started out as a seminar series in which we brought together policymakers, educational practitioners and researchers to discuss what we are educating for across the...

The politics of reforming secondary education

The biggest mistake of the 1997–2010 Labour governments was the failure in 2004/5 to implement Mike Tomlinson’s report on the future of the secondary education curriculum and assessment. In...

What could we be educating for in primary education?

We know that the primary timetable is overcrowded, testing is embedded in almost every year of a child’s primary schooling (Wyse et al., 2022), and expectations of what teachers must cover grow...

Women curriculum theorists

Feminism is a concept and a practice. As a concept feminism is polysemic, semantically contested, networked, interactive, powerful and dynamic. An important binary that has had real effects in the...

Nature connectedness through the arts

BCF Curriculum Investigation Grant Research Reports

Co-creating a curriculum to support pupil wellbeing in primary schools

Towards curriculum design coherence in primary geography education for sustainability

BCF Curriculum Investigation Grant Research Reports

This report shares the work of four primary teachers from the West Midlands of England involved in a curriculum investigation project funded by the British Curriculum Forum. The project aimed to...

What’s your tag? Graffiti art and curriculum injustice

Research shows that the arts can be highly productive and positive for young people. However, our research suggests that the inclusive potential of the arts can be undermined (Howard, 2022). We...

The power of culture in shaping early childhood curricula: Insights from the curriculum hybridisation model

Culture encompasses the shared beliefs, customs and artifacts of a group or society, shaping the way of life of a community. Local culture refers to the specific cultural practices unique to a...

A pressing need to align the business studies curriculum with current attitudes

This blog post addresses the issue that, if the school curriculum is believed to be a robust framework for the learner to make sense of their world, then the General Certification of School...

Artificial Intelligence in educational research and practice

While Artificial Intelligence (AI), as an academic discipline, has been with us since the 1950s, knowledge of AI’s impact on formal education and all its stakeholders is in its infancy. To plug...

Education, mental wellbeing and the cost-of-living crisis: Bridging research and practice

The rising cost of living is causing high levels of stress and concern for millions of households. For educators, poverty is tangible in the growing numbers of hungry, cold and tired pupils...