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...

Teacher agency: What is it and why does it matter?

Highlights from the first 1,000 BERA Blog posts

The concept of ‘teacher agency’ has elicited a fair amount of attention recently, including a special edition of Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice. And yet, it remains an elusive...

Applying Intelligence to Teacher Education

I was motivated to write this blog after Michael Wilshaw, Her Majesty's Chief Inspector, gave a speech about teacher recruitment and training at the Festival of Education, at Wellington College on...

Research Matters

A colleague recently applauded the professionalism of educators, quoting in particular the ‘inquisitive minds’ they possess. The positive definitions of inquisitiveness - inclined to...

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...

Structure of professional doctorate programmes

Is it any wonder that there is discussion about the structure of such programmes and what works best for those concerned? What is a doctoral programme? An advanced study of a defined topic? A...