Should we really call this home schooling? Reflections from the research field

Covid-19, education and educational research

Within this current context, the term ‘home schooling’ is often deployed in a blanket way to describe what is likely to be a plethora of activities and methods of teaching and learning largely...

Teacher identity in a performative age: Coming to research through autoethnography

What is it to be a teacher? In 2014, five years into my career as a primary school teacher, I would have answered that question with a story of early promise as a trainee and professional success...

Is educational research evidence-based?

One issue raised in the debate over evidence-based policymaking and practice has been what should count as evidence. I was prompted to think further about this by a recent paper in the British...

Education, children’s futures and Covid-19

Covid-19, education and educational research

Last year I conducted a research project with 12 early-career primary teachers. While exploring their sense of purpose, I found that many teachers were driven by a commitment to preparing their...

BERA joins call to cancel the introduction of Reception Baseline Assessment (RBA) in the Autumn term

BERA President Dominic Wyse is one of the co-signatories to an open letter that calls upon the Government to abandon its plan to introduce the reception baseline assessment into primary schools in...

Why do school exclusion rates continue to rise in England?

Children and young people excluded from school for poor behaviour have lower than average educational outcomes. They are more likely to experience ‘deep exclusion’ (Levitas et al., 2007), with...

A research approach to curriculum development: A British Curriculum Forum event report

A collection of groundbreaking new work on collaborative curriculum, research and development.

A Curriculum for Wellbeing: A British Curriculum Forum conference

Update (Friday 13 March): unfortunately the conference previewed in this blog, which was to be held on Saturday 14 March, has been postponed. To be kept updated on its rearrangement please email...

Collaborative composition and touchscreen technology in the classroom

The opportunity to make music together is an important strand of every child’s education, fuelling creative, expressive and social development. A recent report by the Musicians’ Union (2019)...

A real, immersive and purposeful curriculum

In a primary school context of nine academies in the West Midlands, our curriculum framework is underpinned by theories from John Dewey’s 20th-century approach to project-based learning (PBL)....

Editorial: Researching education and mental health: From ‘Where are we now?’ to ‘What next?’

The mental health and wellbeing of learners and teaching staff rank among some of the most pressing issues facing education as we enter a new decade. Growing rates of emotional distress among...

Self-harm in primary-aged school children

Finding ways to support and identify children and young people (CYP) who self-harm is an important social issue. Incidences of self-harm in CYP in the UK have risen in the last 20 years, with the...