OXBOW Schools…and worse

What name would you give to a school or group of schools that won’t share? ‘Oxbow’ sounds a good name to me, after those lakes that were once part of the mainstream but are now cut off to...

Academic educationalists need to engage with teachers online or risk being side lined

As a teacher in Further Education (FE), I read a cross section of teacher blogs and engage with the debate that is burgeoning on social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook and the new blogging...

Preventing Schooling: Muslims, Securitisation and Racialised Politics

The London bombings, 10 years ago this year, radically transformed the education policy framing of Muslim communities in Britain. The events signified a radical shift away from the politics of...

The potential of inter-professional learning in supporting children with speech, language and communication needs

You may be aware of two pieces of research recently published about children’s speech, language and communication needs. The National Literacy Trust (Read On Get On campaign) commissioned James...

Can We Stop It? Yes We Can! Stamping Out English Cultural “imperialism”

I subscribe to The London Review of Books (LRB). The main article on May 7th 2015 was about free schools and academies. It provoked a vigorous debate (on 21/5. 4/6 and 18/6) with serious...

De-professionalising or re-professionalising the Early Childhood Workforce in England

This blog is based on the papers presented in the BERA 2015 Conference Symposium ‘De-professionalising or re-professionalising the Early Childhood Workforce in England?’ Elizabeth Wood, Jo...

Filling in the ‘Hole in the Wall’: The pedagogical implications of digital technology and learning with a SOLE

The World Wide Web has changed how we do everything forever. We can literally find out anything we want thanks to Google and numerous other search engines competing for our attention. You can buy...

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...