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Changing the narrative on youth violence and knife crime: turning evidence from young people into policy change
By Blog Editor, IOE Digital, on 19 July 2024
The Knife Angel sculpture, made from over 100,000 seized blades. Photo credit: Ian Livesey.
Throughout the Labour Party’s 2024 general election campaign, tackling antisocial behaviour and youth violence were central themes. Amongst other commitments, Labour pledged to put 13,000 more neighbourhood police and community support officers on the beat and crack down on knife crime, including by introducing mandatory action plans for young people carrying knives, and bringing in tougher sanctions for the possession and sale of machetes, zombie knives and swords. Read the rest of this entry »
Teacher education, research and practice: addressing the recruitment and retention crisis through the reassertion of professional judgement
By Blog Editor, IOE Digital, on 9 July 2024
Credit: Hero Images / Adobe Stock.
This commentary is adapted from John’s contribution to the ESRC Education Research Programme event, ‘Education after the election: Priorities for change’, which you can watch back, along with commentaries from speakers covering early years, schools, skills and higher education.
There is a crisis in teacher recruitment and retention in England. This is a long-term problem and there is no sign of it abating, or of any of the measures taken by the last government having had a long-term, meaningful impact in addressing it. In the current year, there is a significant projected under-recruitment of teachers in the primary sector and in the majority of secondary subject areas. Meanwhile, teacher attrition rates have risen back up to pre-pandemic levels. And there is worrying evidence that teaching has become less attractive because it conspicuously lacks the flexible working patterns that are available to graduates in most comparable jobs. Read the rest of this entry »
Improving the nation’s numeracy: what can we learn from the British cohorts?
By Blog Editor, IOE Digital, on 4 July 2024
Adapted from 9george / Adobe Stock.
Charlotte Booth, Claire Crawford, Vanessa Moulton
Every new government likes to put their own stamp on the National Curriculum – with varying use of evidence to support their changes.
The next government is sure to be no different, no matter who wins today. While the UK’s two main parties have campaigned on very different platforms, there is one issue where the Conservatives and Labour do agree – the importance of maths. Read the rest of this entry »
The Gender Wage Gap: decline and deceleration
By Blog Editor, IOE Digital, on 3 July 2024
Credit: Feodora / Adobe.
Heather Joshi, Alex Bryson, David Wilkinson, Francesca Foliano, Bozena Wielgoszewska.
Unequal pay between men and women is a key driver of social and economic gender inequality. In the 1920s, women’s pay was around 50% of men’s. A hundred years later, the gap is around 15%. It continues to fall but only very slowly. Aside from the push given by World War 2, the factors behind this long-term convergence are the closing of gaps between women’s and men’s education and employment experiences, helped by equal opportunities policies, especially those initiated by Barbara Castle in the 1970s. While the pay gap has been falling historically, within lifetimes it tends to widen as cohorts pass from youth to midlife.
Our ESRC-funded research project at UCL has examined the Gender Wage Gap as reported in the British Birth Cohort Studies, which track Read the rest of this entry »
From Kabul to Crawley: using collaboration to understand Afghan resettlement across England
By Blog Editor, IOE Digital, on 1 July 2024
Afghanistan flag on a vintage suitcase. Credit: Sezerozger / Adobe Stock.
Caroline Oliver, with Mustafa Raheal, Mursal Rasa; María López, Louise Ryan, London Metropolitan University; and Janroj Keles, Middlesex University.
The national conversation around immigration often gets caught up in slogans, but sat behind this are complex realities of displacement and resettlement. Our research aims to capture the intricate stories beyond the headlines, focusing on Afghan resettled populations in England. This necessitates a collaborative approach, using novel methods. Read the rest of this entry »
In the hands of a new government: the future of primary education in England
By IOE Blog Editor, on 4 June 2024
This is the first of four blog posts about primary education from the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Pedagogy (HHCP) at IOE. Each post addresses key points that are included in a new HHCP briefing paper written to inform debate about education in England as we approach the general election. The four posts are:
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- In the hands of a new government: the future of primary education in England.
- Children, choice and the curriculum.
- Hands on learning: a progressive pedagogy.
- Assessment in primary schools: reducing the ‘Sats effect’.
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Credit: WavebreakMediaMicro via Adobe Stock.
Children from age four to eleven have a natural thirst for learning, and a quickly developing capacity for independent learning. This is a golden opportunity that must not be squandered by a national curriculum and pedagogy and assessment systems that fail to reflect the best evidence we have. While we have heard some welcome proposed manifesto promises about early years, secondary and further education, primary education is in danger of being neglected.
England’s national curriculum, statutory guidance on pedagogy, such as that on literacy, and statutory assessment systems reflect a level of control by government that is unprecedented in the history of curriculum development in England, and which is an outlier internationally. The agency of all actors in the system needs rethinking. Read the rest of this entry »
The future of primary education in England: a response to recent discussions
By Blog Editor, IOE Digital, on 20 June 2024
Credit: Phil Meech for UCL
I agree so much with the arguments running through the four recent blog posts on primary education from the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Pedagogy. Today, curriculum and pedagogy are dominated by assessment requirements. This explains why so much of the curriculum is about knowledge acquisition and regurgitation – and, as Alice Bradbury’s piece points out, why so many pupils are bored or anxious about their Sats performance. Children are, after all, active, inquisitive, creative creatures. They need a curriculum, pedagogy and assessment system befitting these qualities. Read the rest of this entry »
Assessment in primary schools: reducing the ‘Sats effect’
By Blog Editor, IOE Digital, on 7 June 2024
This is the final in a mini-series of blog posts about primary education from the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Pedagogy (HHCP) at IOE. Each post addresses key points that are included in a new HHCP briefing paper written to inform debate about education in England as we approach the general election. The four posts are:
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- In the hands of new government: the future of primary education in England
- Children, choice and the curriculum
- Hands on learning: a progressive pedagogy
- Assessment in primary schools: reducing the ‘Sats effect’
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Credit: Cavan for Adobe via Adobe Stock.
Assessment plays a key role in any teacher’s work: through formative assessment, teachers understand what children can do and what they need to learn next. This guides how learning is planned and what is taught. However, the current assessment landscape in England is dominated by statutory, summative assessment, where the purpose of the assessment is not to help children learn, but to measure what they can do. This is one part of the education system which, as we in HHCP argue in our new briefing paper, needs a different approach. Read the rest of this entry »
Hands on learning: a progressive pedagogy
By Blog Editor, IOE Digital, on 6 June 2024
This is the third of four blog posts about primary education from the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Pedagogy (HHCP) at IOE. Each post addresses key points that are included in a new HHCP briefing paper written to inform debate about education in England as we approach the general election. The four posts are:
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- In the hands of a new government: the future of primary education in England
- Children, choice and the curriculum
- Hands on learning: a progressive pedagogy
- Assessment in primary schools: reducing the ‘Sats effect’
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Credit: Drazen via Adobe Stock.
Children’s opportunities for authentic, hands-on experiences as part of their learning, such as science experiments, school trips, and ‘forest school’, are decreasing. Rising constraints on school budgets, combined with a detailed curriculum that prioritises traditional, knowledge-heavy content, means that schools are less likely to be able to provide children with these real-life, resource-intensive activities. Yet, they provide children with an essential component of primary education. Read the rest of this entry »
Children, choice and the curriculum
By Blog Editor, IOE Digital, on 5 June 2024
This is the second of four blog posts about primary education from the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Pedagogy (HHCP) at IOE. Each post addresses key points that are included in a new HHCP briefing paper written to inform debate about education in England as we approach the general election. The four posts are:
Credit: Cavan for Adobe via Adobe Stock.
Curriculum is a fundamental aspect of schooling as it dictates what children learn. Behind each curriculum is a set of significant assumptions about what we intend for our children to achieve by the time they complete their schooling. These assumptions reflect our societal values and the kind of citizens we aspire to nurture. Read the rest of this entry »
