Video art as digital play for young children

In the 21st century, it seems that digital play is an inevitable experience for young children. Studies have claimed that digital devices can support children’s learning (Falloon, 2013) in...

BCF Curriculum Investigation Grant Research Reports

Here you will find the public-facing final reports from each successful BCF Curriculum Investigation Grant, detailing key findings from the research project and how these findings might be taken...

Learning from variation

BCF Curriculum Investigation Grant Research Reports

How can variation theory can be applied to the use of manipulatives to support understanding of early number? This report makes an important contribution to the existing literature on how to teach...

Local language, school and community: Curricular innovation towards closing the attainment gap

BCF Curriculum Investigation Grant Research Reports

An investigation of how schools can, by working in and with local languages and dialects, raise pupils' educational attainment, cultural awareness and self-esteem.

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...

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