The new model music curriculum: A step far enough?

In the foreword to the new model music curriculum, schools minister Nick Gibb states that it ‘is designed to assist rather than to prescribe’ (DfE, 2021, p. 2). Notably, there is much detail...

Improving the connectivity of research on teaching assistants: Creating a new space for researchers

The international drive towards the inclusion of pupils with special educational needs (SEN) in mainstream schools has become contingent on the creation and utilisation of a paraprofessional...

The reawakening of the old idea of children doing AI programming

Artificial intelligence in educational research and practice

In the recently published British Journal of Educational Technology article, ‘Constructionism and AI: A history and possible futures’, Niall Winters and I examine the 50-year history of...

‘Why can’t I use this voucher?’ The impact of Covid-19 on access and (in)effective support of the school food voucher scheme

The Food Foundation (2020) has found since lockdown started that 5 million people in the UK living in households with children under 18 have experienced food insecurity. A minority (1.8 million)...

Identity building as a pathway to children and young people’s wellbeing in schools

For decades now, there has been a looming child and youth mental health crisis in many developed nations globally (WHO, 2020). Nations have varied in policy responses to the issue, but what many...

The corridors of silence

Our vernacular is somewhat noisy with idioms of silence: deafening silences; as silent as the grave; a wall of silence; suffering in silence. Other idioms offer implicit references to silence,...

Environmental protest & education: ‘Something’s gone wrong somewhere’

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the combustion of fossil fuels is the main contributor to rising atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations. Young people in England...

Taking notice: Children’s observation skills in nature as a basis for the development of early science education

‘In that earliest childhood, we get those invisible glasses through which we look at the world all our lives, and these glasses color our views.’ Lainšček, 2020 This beautiful quote from...

Editorial: Wellbeing and being outdoors

Over the past year, as we have been forced to slow down and restrict our activities because of the Covid-19 pandemic, it is has become apparent just how important it is for our health and...