The ‘impractical wisdom’ of the Early Career Framework

In 2019, in response to concerns in England regarding teacher recruitment and retention, the Education Secretary announced a two-year centrally funded Early Career Framework (ECF), designed to...

Ethnicity and the early years workforce in maintained nursery schools across England

In this blog post, Mona Sakr and Shaddai Tembo recap key points from their recent BERA event on race and ethnicity in the early years workforce in maintained nursery schools in England. As part...

‘Talking back’ to the securitisation of higher education classrooms

The alignment of education with actions to prevent radicalisation of young people is a global phenomenon and is reflected in the plethora of initiatives emerging from trans-European networks such...

Bringing educational isolation into focus: Identifying non-urban schools and targeting resources to improve educational outcomes

Imagine you’re a student in an isolated secondary school in a rural, coastal or former industrial area of England. You look and sound like all your classmates; there’s very little diversity....

Can we really trust socioeconomic measures used in PISA tests?

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) conducts the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) study of 15-year-old students’ academic achievement. In order...

School exclusions: What does research tell us about the scale of the problem and challenges?

School exclusion is a hot issue within education and there is growing concern about the numbers of exclusions and off-rolling in schools in England. In particular, a number of studies have drawn...

Why is it that we can predict every year which types of students will have been excluded from school?

BERA Early Career Researcher Network Symposium Series 2022

While the numbers may change, the trends are largely the same: young people from certain minority ethnic groups, those who receive free school meals, those who are care-experienced or who are...

The future of the university as a network

The idea and purpose of the contemporary university is key for policymakers, university leaders and researchers. For some, widening university access to the ‘masses’ has created a social...

Autumn 2022

Research Intelligence issue 152: SOS (Save Our Staff): Protecting & enhancing staff wellbeing in education

Gender diversity in the school workforce across the UK home nations

Due to the budgetary pressures of the 2008 financial crisis the then UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, announced a public sector pay freeze in 2010. In 2013 the pay freeze was...

Professionalism for those working with the under-threes: a Northern Irish perspective

Competing discourses in early childhood education and care

Northern Ireland has an established early childhood education and care (ECEC) system with some strengths, such as near-universal participation in pre-school education. However, for children under...

Competing discourses in early childhood education and care

Early childhood education and care (ECEC) has developed to meet different aims to encourage children’s holistic development; embed attitudes consistent with lifelong learning; facilitate...