What are we educating for?

Although it has always been significant, the question of what we are educating for is now particularly important. There is growing consensus that the educational challenges we face require...

Editorial: What are we educating for? Introducing the BERA Blog Special Issue

What are we educating for?

This BERA Blog special issue started out as a seminar series in which we brought together policymakers, educational practitioners and researchers to discuss what we are educating for across the...

The politics of reforming secondary education

What are we educating for?

The biggest mistake of the 1997–2010 Labour governments was the failure in 2004/5 to implement Mike Tomlinson’s report on the future of the secondary education curriculum and assessment. In...

Educating for sustainable futures in secondary education

What are we educating for?

What are we educating for in secondary education? In a world where if we want to know something we can just ‘google it’, and artificial intelligence can generate essays, presentations or...

Exposing the fate of Black Caribbean girls in secondary schools in England

Why are Black Caribbean girls underachieving? When I was mentoring in secondary schools there were plentiful government initiatives focused on raising attainment for Black Caribbean boys in light...

Winter 2023/24

Research Intelligence issue 157: Research & practice on migration & education across the four nations of the UK

BERA Announces 2023 BERA Educational Research Book of the Year

The BERA Educational Research Book of the Year award celebrates the publication of educational research and is awarded to a scholarly book on education deemed to be high quality, engaging and...

‘Just say something!’

As schools and colleges resume after the summer holiday, one issue is certain. With a child bereaved of a parent every 22 minutes in the UK, many teachers will be faced with supporting a grieving...

GCSEs and test anxiety: Exploring secondary teachers’ perspectives

The government took the next step in getting back to ‘normal’ in 2023, as students in England sat examinations subject to pre-pandemic assessment routines for the first time. In so doing, the...

A case study exploring what role music can play in integrating students who have English as an additional language into education

Arts for All: Exploring inclusivity in arts education

In 1976 Stevie Wonder sang ‘Music is a world within itself with a language we all understand’. Is this not true? And if so, why is there a widening disconnect between this view and how the...

A pressing need to align the business studies curriculum with current attitudes

This blog post addresses the issue that, if the school curriculum is believed to be a robust framework for the learner to make sense of their world, then the General Certification of School...

Artificial intelligence: What questions should we be asking?

Artificial intelligence in educational research and practice

The Russell Group (2023) recently published five guiding principles in advocating artificial intelligence (AI) usage in higher education. The document uses the ‘ethical use of generative AI’...