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 […]
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 necessarily […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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) […]
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 […]
JENNY GRIFFITHS, RESEARCH AND KNOWLEDGE MANAGER, TEACH FIRST, UK Background In the wake of two years of disruption of learning due to the pandemic, there are increasing concerns about the wellbeing of children and young people beyond the narrative of the need for academic ‘catch-up’ (DfE, 2023). Reports of greater numbers of children performing below […]
ALEX MORGAN, HEATHER PENNINGTON AND EMMAJANE MILTON, SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES, CARDIFF UNIVERSITY, UK Introduction There is an acknowledgment that low levels of wellbeing can impact negatively on learners’ mental health in both the immediate and longer term (HEPI, 2019). The legacy of the COVID-19 pandemic has intensified these concerns around the wellbeing and mental […]
ELIZABETH LUPTON AND HANNAH WHAITES, PRIMARY CURRICULUM, UNITED LEARNING, UK The Department for Education recognises the important role that education and children’s services should have in all aspects of sustainability. In their sustainability and climate strategy for the education and children’s services system, they set out four strategic aims: 1. to provide ‘excellence in education […]
DR PENELOPE WOOLF, DIRECTOR OF IMPACT AND LEARNING DESIGN, OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, UK DR ARIEL LINDORFF, DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, UK JANE DIGBY, MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS MANAGER, OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, UK Research indicates that low levels of wellbeing and associated mental health problems can have adverse consequences for the health and development of […]
VICTORIA COOK, EDUCATION AND RESEARCH PROJECT SPECIALIST, CHARTERED COLLEGE OF TEACHING, UK Academic learning can be made experiential and practical by taking curriculum learning outdoors (Mann et al., 2022a). While learning outside the classroom can include built-environment locations (such as museums or city streetscapes), the value of learning in natural outdoor settings is most frequently […]
HAYLEY MURPHY, DIRECTOR OF TEACHING AND LEARNING AND YEAR 2 TEACHER, EVERSFIELD PREPARATORY SCHOOL, UK When using collaborative learning (CL) in Year 2 lessons, I became conscious that the focus was on task outcome and that the students’ collaborative skills were not as effective as they could be. During my Year 2 CL lesson in […]
