Relative age and the early years foundation stage profile

Who is attributed a ‘good level of development’ – and what might this tell us about how ‘good’ the EYFSP is?

Free school meals: What can the UK learn from Portugal’s model?

Before the Covid-19 pandemic, over 4.2 million children in Britain were living in relative poverty. Since then, this figure has increased by 200,000 (McNeil et al., 2020). Rising levels of food...

Online in-depth interviewing: Covid-induced challenges

Lived experiences do not vanish into thin air like a mirage. They can be revisited under certain conditions using a relevant qualitative method. Simply asserting that a one-to-one in-depth...

Rethinking how we can improve the diversity of the teaching workforce in England

The lack of black and minority ethnic (BAME) teachers and headteachers in English schools is a growing concern facing policymakers in England. In a recent conference of school leaders, Nadhim...

The BERA Blog: Highlights of 2021

BERA Blog end of year highlights

Yuletide greetings and festive cheer to all our readers and authors, wherever you may be. In these challenging times we thank all of you for your continued support of and engagement with the BERA...

Editorial: The playful academic

Imagine a place of learning where progressive failing, building resilience, and developing individual and collective skills, values and creativity are not only thought about as a theoretical...

Playful creativity

‘Intelligence is what you use when you don’t know what to do.’ (Attributed to Jean Piaget) Learning is often compromised by competitiveness (Brown & Vaughan, 2009). Bred from the...

Playful interventions: Measuring impact on learning

Figure 1: PMM tracking individuals’ understanding of ‘playfulness and me’ over the course of several workshops and a field trip. Red text was added before any workshops were...

Connection and creativity despite Covid-19: Playful learning at university during the pandemic

Over the past decade, interest in play and playful learning in higher education (HE) has grown significantly (James & Brookfield, 2014; James & Nerantzi, 2019). Publications, conferences and...