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Louise Kay

Louise Kay is a lecturer in early childhood in the School of Education at the University of Sheffield. She is a qualified teacher and has worked across all three primary key stages, with the...

Summer 2019

How inclusive of children are our educational research methods? Research Intelligence issue 139: Marking 30 years of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child This special issue of Research...

The competing discourses of school readiness

BERA’s 2019–2020 research commission on the early years – entitled Competing Discourses of Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC): Tensions, Impacts and Democratic Alternatives across the...

Changing culture, changing early childhood curriculum in China

School-based curriculum development (SBCD) has been advocated in order to enhance the quality of early childhood education within the context of modernisation and globalisation (Li, 2005)....

BERA Blog highlights from 2018

BERA Blog end of year highlights

A seasonal welcome to all our BERA Blog readers in the UK and around the world in this, our third end-of-year-highlights special edition. And what a year this has turned out to be. (I really will...

Integrating a parenting education programme into the primary and secondary school curriculum in Nigeria

All young children tend to misbehave from time to time, which makes it necessary for parents/guardians to step in with disciplinary measures. Although the need for child discipline is broadly...

Supporting early-childhood teachers with integrating a humanoid robot to enhance learning

Anthropomorphic robots are increasingly being used as a technology in early childhood settings, and they have been found to enhance social interaction (Tanaka, Cicourel & Movellan, 2007), support...

Drawing a line in the sand: Reflective practice using ‘sandboxing’ with HE students

The ability to reflect in and on practice (Schön, 1983; 1991) is an integral professional skill within the field of education. This metacognitive process develops effective practitioners and...

How can cognitive load theory be applied to the teaching of history?

As a follower of a variety of educational blogs and their Twitter accounts, I became aware of a large number of people talking about the development of cognitive load theory and the impact it...

Using technology for teaching independent-living skills to children with cognitive disabilities

Independent-living skills training is a core service offered by almost every rehabilitation centre for children with cognitive disabilities. The ulti-mate goal is to help children reach a high...

Phonics ‘first and fast’… but at what cost?

Reading is one of life’s profound joys. According to reading expert Maryanne Wolf, reading changes the very structure of our brain and neural pathways; the act allows us to go beyond our own...

To touch or not to touch? Early childhood educators’ beliefs about using touchscreen technologies with our youngest children

The use of touchscreen technologies in the early years has grown, despite strong recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) for children under the age of two to have no...