Cultural Education Plan: Listening Exercise
Government’s commitment to developing a Cultural Education Plan was set out in the Schools White Paper in March 2022: Opportunity for all – Strong schools with great teachers for your child. All state-funded schools are required to teach a broad and balanced curriculum, and this includes promoting pupils’ cultural development and which prepares pupils for […]
Teachers: The forgotten health workforce
Original article by: Lowry C, Leonard-Kane R, Gibbs B et al. (2022) Teachers: the forgotten health workforce. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 115(4): 133–137. Introduction Amidst rising rates of mental illness among children, this commentary highlights the role of teachers as the forgotten health workforce. According to the Mental Health of Children and […]
Effective evaluation in schools and what this looks like in practice
About the session This free webinar brings together experts from ImpactED to celebrate our partnership and to look at effective evaluation in schools and what this looks like in practice. Panellists include: Lucy Preston, Head of School Delivery & Engagement, ImpactEd – Lucy has worked in the education sector over the last 10 years. She […]
The Science of Learning: A fresh look at retrieval practice with Bradley Busch
Retrieval Practice is now a mainstay of many schools and colleges. But the research on it is constantly updating what we currently ‘know’. Each study adds more context and nuance on how best to apply it. In this session, Bradley will explore the latest and greatest studies, combining seminal studies alongside those just released. This […]
Saving lives in schools
Joanna Johnson, Associate Trainer (Grassroots Suicide Prevention), ASIST Trainer (Applied Suicide Intervention Skills), Papyrus Volunteer (Prevention of Suicide in Young People), and Head of Department and Psychology Teacher, Monmouth School for Girls, UK If you were asked what the leading cause of death was in young people, what would you say? Drugs or Alcohol? Car […]
Cognitive Science: Research priorities launch event
Should I be using retrieval practice in every lesson? How can I combine cognitive science strategies with other teaching approaches? How can I implement cognitive science teaching strategies at the micro (lesson) and macro (curriculum) level? These are some of the questions teachers have submitted as part of our research priority setting activity. During this […]
Alphabetic writing systems: The importance, and limits, of phonics
John Bald (FCCT) Independent educational consultant. Former tutor in charge, Reading and Language Centres, Essex Education Department. Introduction Controversy over methods of teaching reading and spelling began with the spread of state primary education in the nineteenth century, and soon occupied similar ground to that of today (Parker, 2021). Should children be taught to recognise […]
From the editor
David Leat, Professor of Curriculum Innovation, Newcastle University, UK Introduction Teachers are curriculum makers. Whatever is mandated in National Curriculum documents or signalled in the Ofsted inspection framework, there is still a long step from the ink on the page to the classroom. However, policy developments over the last 30 plus years have not […]
Curriculum alignment: A reflection of its place in a school curriculum
Ngozi Oguledo, Lead Practitioner, Ortu Gable Hall School, UK What is curriculum? The term ‘curriculum’ has been derived from the Latin word currere, which means to run a course (Pinar, 2012). Considering curriculum in this way suggests that it will consist of an aim, a pathway taken to achieve the aim, and steps to ascertain […]
Rethinking curriculum: Designing for the future
Victoria Cook, Education and Research Project Specialist, Chartered College of Teaching, UK Dominic Wyse, Professor of Early Childhood and Primary Education, UCL Institute of Education, UK Questions concerning curriculum design and implementation have been high on the educational research and policy agenda internationally over the past decade (Manyukhina and Wyse, 2019). Curriculum design must take […]
Curriculum innovation: Investigating the intricacies between the roles and responsibilities of policy makers, teachers and leaders
REBEKAH GEAR, LECTURER IN PRIMARY EDUCATION, NOTTINGHAM TRENT UNIVERSITY, UK REBECCA HURLEY, PRINCIPAL AND CURRICULUM STRATEGIC LEAD, DIVERSE ACADEMIES TRUST, UK PROFESSOR MICK WATERS, EDUCATION ADVISOR AND AUTHOR, UK; PREVIOUS DIRECTOR OF CURRICULUM, QUALIFICATIONS AND CURRICULUM AUTHORITY, UK Curriculum innovation provides the tools to enable the needs of individual school communities to be met, supporting […]
In-school tutoring and classroom practice: An integrated curriculum for whole-school impact
DOUGLAS FAIRFIELD, EDUCATION ADVISER, EDUCATION DEVELOPMENT TRUST, UK LAURA FOX, SENIOR EDUCATION ADVISER, EDUCATION DEVELOPMENT TRUST, UK Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, a decade of progress towards closing the education disadvantage gap in the UK has, for all intents and purposes, been eradicated, with the disparity in progress at Key Stage […]
How might the use of Schemes of Work impact on teacher autonomy?
Annu Pabla and Jack Bryne Stothard, Institute of Education, University of Derby, UK Introduction This article considers and critiques the pedagogical and curricular implications of relying heavily upon schemes of work/schemes of learning (SoW/L) for the profession of teaching, as well as for the learners in our mathematics classrooms. We consider our own experiences and […]
Collaboration for inclusion: When research and practice spark new possibilities
Aimee Durning MBE, Director of Inclusion and Community University of Cambridge Primary School Stephen Kilgour, SEND Advisor and Outreach Teacher at Tapestry Shona Morgan, Outreach Advisor Cherry Gardens School, London Andrea Silvain, Co-Headteacher at School 360 James Biddulph FCCT FRSA, Executive Headteacher University of Cambridge Primary School Introduction Sometimes when we talk about special educational […]
Nurturing epistemic agency through interdisciplinary enquiry
DR CAROLINE THOMAS AND DR LEE HAZELDINE, SENIOR LECTURERS IN EDUCATION, RESEARCHERS IN EPISTEMIC INSIGHT IN INITIAL TEACHER EDUCATION, CANTERBURY CHRIST CHURCH UNIVERSITY, UK The OECD considers the development of epistemic knowledge an imperative for the 21st century (OECD, 2018, 2021). Epistemic knowledge describes what student-teachers and their pupils learn about the methods, processes and […]
Leadership for creative thinking in schools: How current research and innovation is putting creativity back into schools in England
BILL LUCAS, PROFESSOR OF LEARNING, UNIVERSITY OF WINCHESTER, UK The curricula of both Scotland (Creative Scotland, nd) and Wales (Welsh Government, 2015) actively encourage creative thinking. In England, however, creative thinking is largely absent in the current National Curriculum. Recently, through the Creativity Collaboratives initiated by Arts Council England (Durham University, 2019), and arising from […]
Developing creative thinking
RUTH UNSWORTH AND PETER RAYMOND, SENIOR LECTURERS, YORK ST JOHN UNIVERSITY, UK The ability to think creatively is recognised as a key life skill in our complex, globalised society (Vincent-Lancrin et al., 2019). Yet there is conflict surrounding definitions and uses of creativity in relation to education. Some authors argue that creativity is a skill […]
Teaching for creativity using the five creative habits of mind at primary and secondary
RUTH BROWN, FACULTY LEAD CREATIVE ARTS, DUCHESS’S COMMUNITY HIGH SCHOOL, UK RYAN LONGSTAFF, DEPUTY HEADTEACHER, CAMBOIS PRIMARY SCHOOL, UK NIA RICHARDS, PROGRAMME MANAGER, CREATIVITY, CULTURE AND EDUCATION (PARTNER TO THE NORTH EAST CREATIVITY COLLABORATIVE), UK The North East Creativity Collaborative is one of eight cohorts in Art Council England’s three-year programme, testing practices in teaching […]
The power of stories: Integrating high quality reading to raise achievement
RACHEL WATSON, HEAD OF HISTORY, BISHOP CHALLONER CATHOLIC COLLEGE, UK The power of stories must not be underestimated. Stories are used from an early age to develop children’s vocabulary and understanding of the world around them; so why do we not use stories more often in secondary school lessons? The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF, 2018) […]
ACT Teaching Citizenship Conference 2023
Climate Empowerment – the role of Citizenship and Personal Development Teachers This year’s conference theme is Climate Empowerment – the role of Citizenship and Personal Development Teachers. This draws on the term adopted by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change to denote their most recent priorities for education announced at COP27. ACT’s Teaching Citizenship […]
