Is a shared understanding the key to effective learning?

A child starts learning in the womb, but real learning is perceived to start much later and is certainly not often associated with the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS).  Real learning is often...

The value of Literacy as a Social Practice approach to exploring young children’s experience of being taught to read and write in school

Over the last thirty years in English and Welsh State primary education, successive governments have placed increasing emphasis on ‘raising standards’ in literacy. Children’s attainment or...

Literature’s lasting impression: what makes shared reading of novels powerful?

The twelve-month research project Literature’s Lasting Impression⃰ investigates a defining convention of classroom literary study, shared novel reading. Most people remember ‘reading round...

Making School Design More Ethical and Useful for Teachers

When it comes to school buildings, the architect Peter Blundell Jones observed that in comparison to the “curriculum, the rule book, the head teacher’s policy, the staff hierarchy”, a...

The whys and why nots of taking primary pupils on a farm visit

In keeping with Scottish education historically, the importance of outdoor learning is emphasised in the Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) guidelines (Beames et al., 2009). There had been an...

Group work in primary classrooms: No longer a waste of time

During the 50 years since the Plowden Report, policy with regard to small-group activity in English primary schools has undergone repeated change. However, images of practice remain constant: they...

Biscuits or Banquets?

Becoming a lifetime reader is dependent on developing a love of reading[1] and few would argue against the fact that the ability and motivation to read impacts on the life chances of all...

Participation in recreational activities: views, experiences and choices from children and young people with cerebral palsy

  http://www.playwales.org.uk/eng/ ‘All children and young people have the right to rest, leisure, play and recreation and to take part in cultural and artistic...

Responding to disadvantage within English schools: a collaborative future

BERA Blog Special Issues: General Election 2017

For the last ten years, researchers in the Centre for Equity in Education have been asking why, despite continuous reforms, the most vulnerable children and young people in the English school...

Assessing the manifesto commitments on assessment: progress, improved accountability, or continuous assessment

BERA Blog Special Issues: General Election 2017

Educationists and teachers have long complained of policy overload, particularly during the Gove years when schools suffered a ‘policy epidemic’ with changes to assessment and the...

The politics of mental wellbeing and education

BERA Blog Special Issues: General Election 2017

Social and emotional wellbeing (SEWB) in schools has, over the past decade, emerged as part of a broader mental health agenda, shaped and driven through versions of childhood located in notions of...

The Matthew effect at election time

BERA Blog Special Issues: General Election 2017

The Matthew effect is an expression that has been coined to summarise the parable of the talents found in Matthew’s gospel (Matthew 25:14-30), which suggests that the rich get richer while the...