KATIE GOOCH, PRIMARY RELIGION AND WORLDVIEWS LEAD, UNITED LEARNING, UK Religious education (RE) as a subject has long existed in a hinterland, outside of the National Curriculum and subject to regional variation through the local Standing Advisory Council on Religious Education (SACREs) and locally agreed syllabus (LAS). Academisation is changing (perhaps challenging) the status quo […]
PAUL BUTLER, TRUST LEAD PRACTITIONER, WASHWOOD HEATH MAT, UK. FORMERLY HEAD OF ENGLISH, NEW COLLEGE LEICESTER, UK Talk plays a vital role in both the academic and pastoral development of students. To ensure that students are ready for the complex, challenging and ever-changing life of the 21st century, they must be equipped with key knowledge […]
ALAN JOHNSON, ASSISTANT HEAD, TEACHING AND LEARNING, MOUNT KELLY SCHOOL, UK To paraphrase Ken Robinson, we are all looking for ways to raise standards in education; I’ve never heard of anyone saying that they’re trying to lower them… Incremental improvement and evolution rather than revolution are ideologies to which we have been drawn at Mount […]
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) […]
LISA STEPHENSON AND RACHEL LOFTHOUSE, CARNEGIE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION, LEEDS BECKETT UNIVERSITY, UK Introduction Oral language skills underpin children’s educational success and enhance positive cognitive, social, emotional and life outcomes. However, significant numbers of children struggle to develop competence in speaking and listening, especially children from areas of high economic deprivation (Dobinson and Dockrell, 2021). […]
HOLLY SULLIVAN, HEAD OF CREATIVE AND EXPRESSIVE ARTS, ALICE SMITH SCHOOL, KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA Mary Myatt encourages teachers to think of Key Stage 3 as the ‘intellectual powerhouse of the secondary school’, in which ‘students are entitled to a broad and diverse curriculum until the end of it’ (quoted in Amass, 2022). Designing a creative […]
Scott Buckler and Harriett Moore, Holy Trinity School, Kidderminster, UK Introduction Within science, misconceptions can occur for a range of reasons (e.g. an opinion based on incorrect thinking); however, misconceptions can be resistant to change. The consistency of misconceptions has been specifically noticeable during transition from primary to secondary science (Driver et al., 2014). Consequently, […]
ALISON BEDFORD, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN QUEENSLAND AND THE GLENNIE SCHOOL, AUSTRALIA Introduction Secondary students are often reluctant to work collaboratively and take shared responsibility for each other’s learning. This project sought to explore approaches that promote collaboration and foster critical thinking through the adoption of a cognition-centred inquiry (CCI) pedagogy, which foregrounds the explicit teaching […]
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 […]
Thomas Johnson, Headteacher, Seymour Park Community Primary School, UK Khawla Badwan, Reader in Applied Linguistics, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK This article reports on a project that engages primary school children in climate change education through various activities rooted in the practice of listening differently to different types of voice. These engagements place children’s experiences and […]
