Developing the role of the teaching assistant: Centralisation as a way forward?

Highlights from the first 1,000 BERA Blog posts

The teaching assistants (TAs) that I meet are enthusiastic, keen to improve their practice, and valued by the teachers and senior leaders that they work with. However, research on the national...

Socially mixed schools but limited social mixing? Children’s and Adults’ Friendships Across Social Class and Ethnic Difference

I had such a homogenous schooling [in a private school] and I think that gave me a terribly blinkered view of society which I’m hoping that I’ve shrugged off some of it, but I don't think you...

Prison Education in England: a wicked policy problem for Michael Gove

A disjuncture exists between the discourses and legislation surrounding the rights of all prisoners to education in Europe and what is happening on the ground in English prisons. Whilst there is a...

Reflections on education in 2015

“The first step in solving a problem is recognizing that there is one.”- Will McAvoy, ‘The Newsroom’, 2012. This should be extremely obvious, yet within our education system, we face a...

EAL Learners’ Mother Tongues: To include or Exclude. A Randomized Comparison of Alternative Approaches

In 1684 Charles Hoole, Latin teacher and celebrated educationalist, published a collection of Latin colloquies, presented side-by-side with English translations. Hoole included the translations so...

‘We’re still here!’ Higher aspirations for young people with life limiting impairments

There are now many more young people living across the UK with life limiting impairments than ever before. An example of this is Duchenne Muscular dystrophy (DMD), a genetic muscle wasting...

An opportunity for change?

the benchmarks of what is deemed acceptable in terms of school improvement are apparently edged up each year Nationally, the speed of change involving education policy is rapid and much of...

Much ado about something: The effects of the National Student Survey on higher education

This research (for the British Academy/Leverhulme) set out to gather evidence on the effects of the National Student Survey (NSS) ten years after its introduction. The effects of the survey go...

‘Turning Schools Inside Out’: Developing Curriculum with Community Partners

In this blog I will be arguing that it would be extremely beneficial for many schools to engage in community curriculum making (CCM) whereby some of the curriculum is developed with community...

How could MOOCs help us to think differently about learning and teaching in the 21st century?

Many are sceptical about the impact of MOOCs on the higher education landscape while others argue that we need to wait before we evaluate the experiment. Regardless of which side of the...

When the poor relation comes to town! Education’s contribution to social science research methods

Maintaining global competitiveness in a fast-changing data landscape requires ongoing investment of resource For some time the development of research capacity has been a concern amongst...

How do you measure a national curriculum?

One of the trends in educational research has been towards more sophisticated understandings about which research methods are appropriate to answer particular research questions. For example a...