Curriculum Investigation Grant research reports

The three reports in this series, published in January 2020, were supported by the Curriculum Investigation Grant for 2018–2019.  Learning from variation, by Ruth Trundley and Helen J....

Playing quiz-games on their phones: A winning combination?

With increasing attention on blended and mobile learning alongside an ever-increasing attempt to measure engagement means that we are constantly looking for ways or tools to help students achieve....

Halting the rise of character education in Britain

Character education has risen up the political agenda in the UK in recent years, as it has in a number of other countries. The United States, Canada, Australia, Singapore, Japan and Taiwan have...

Researching curriculum subjects: understanding how teachers plan, design and lead the curriculum

This event has now been postponed. To be kept updated on when this will be reschedule for, please email conference@bera.ac.uk. This seminar, hosted by BERA, the British Curriculum Forum and the...

BERA Blog highlights from 2019

BERA Blog end of year highlights

A seasonal ‘yo-ho-ho’ to all our BERA Blog readers here in the UK and around the world in this, our fourth end-of-year-highlights special edition. The BB continues to grow, with more special...

Aesthetic education: Recent thoughts on old problems

Aesthetic education is usually concerned with the role of arts appreciation in students’ personal development. Its advocates often pitch it in opposition to instrumentalism, but in doing so,...

General Election 2019: Where do the Tories, Labour and Lib Dems stand on education?

What can we expect from the three main UK political parties if elected to government? I have compared the education sections of the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat manifestos. (All...

The success of Finnish schools: Lessons from a high-performing system

I have recently returned from Tampere University in Finland as part of an Erasmus project called Academic Adventures, and in this blog post I want to share some reflections from that week about...

Gender and sexual identities in early childhood curricula: The case of Canada

Research concerning the intersections between early childhood education and subjectivities has been ubiquitous (see for example, Olmedo & Wilkins, 2016; Ritchie, 2008); yet despite prominent...

The new Ofsted framework

Curriculum may be back in vogue, but it augments rather than replaces the standards agenda

School accountability by Progress 8: A critique of Conservative and Labour proposals

The Conservatives and Labour hold different views on the future of England’s system of school accountability by Progress 8. However, both parties’ thinking is at odds with the research...

‘Me, my selfie and I’: An exploration of children’s perceptions of social media – a PhD pilot study

Numbers of users of social media has increased dramatically in recent years with children and young people recognised as heavy adopters of this virtual social network (Richards, Caldwell, & Go,...