National curriculum in England: The first 30 years, part 2

This is the second in a two-part series on the development of the national curriculum; read part 1 here. The work of the expert panel, for the most recent review of the national curriculum...

National curriculum in England: The first 30 years, part 1

For the whole of the 1970s I taught in secondary schools. (I am that old!) At that time there was no national curriculum (NC), so teachers usually decided what to teach as well as how to teach....

BERA Bites: A resource for teachers, lecturers and students from the BERA Blog

The BERA Blog editors are pleased to announce the launch of a new series of publications: BERA Bites, edited collections of selected articles on key topics in education published on the BERA Blog....

DfE and NFER on baseline testing: Do they know what they do?

On 4 July 2018, the British Educational Research Association (BERA) expert panel on assessment published the report A baseline without basis (Goldstein et al 2018), in response to the Department...

The future of educational research in Wales

If you would like to view this in Welsh, please click here. The education system in Wales is currently on an ambitious and innovative reform journey and research and evidence informed practices...

Closing the gap in access to free ‘universal’ early education: What affects participation among low-income families?

For over a decade, all children in England have been entitled to free government-funded early education and care from the term after they turn three. One of the aims of this policy is to close the...

Teacher education: A weapon of mass instruction?

Two drivers influence nation states engaging in systemic educational reform: a baffling array of metrics on the subject of learning, performance and effectiveness; and the policy impact of...

Physical Education External Provision in Irish primary schools

External provision is developing as a trend in schools worldwide, and physical education is no exception to this trend – see for instance New Zealand (Dyson et al 2016), the UK (Griggs 2010,...

Globalisation and individualism: Implications for the inclusion agenda

Highlights from the first 1,000 BERA Blog posts

It is known that, over recent decades, societies around the world have witnessed drastic transformations that have affected various facets of people’s lives. These changes have created...

Escape from the exam factory

Like so many of us, I became a teacher because I love my subject and wanted to inspire the same love in my students (a sentiment repeated every year in advertising for teacher training). I most...

New blog challenges the evidence on the government’s new baseline test in reception

In a new article on the BERA Blog, the members of BERA’s expert panel convened to consider the viability of the baseline assessment for school accountability urge the government to think again:...

Challenging the evidence on the new baseline test in reception

In this blog, the authors of the BERA report A baseline without basis: The validity and utility of the proposed reception baseline assessment in England preview the findings of their research....