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Votes at 16: the role of Citizenship education
By IOE Blog Editor, on 4 December 2025
Credit: meeboonstudio via Adobe Stock.
4 December 2025
By Hans Svennevig, UCL Institute of Education, with Sera Shortland, Mackenzie Dawson-Hunt and Tania Malik
Votes at 16, a manifesto commitment of the current Labour government, brings in an increase in voter franchise in England. Campaigns to increase the franchise to 16- and 17-year-olds have been around for some time, and this policy brings England in line with Scotland, which has had the right since 2015 and Wales since 2017 (in each case with voter registration starting at age 14). Northern Ireland looks set to follow in 2027.
As educators, we believe the best way to make this reform meaningful is to have high quality Citizenship education. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer agrees, as does the recently announced Curriculum and Assessment Review report and the government’s response to it. These reforms and the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, requiring academies to follow the National Curriculum, will help improve Citizenship education. Research from a range of academics, including Germ Janmaat at the IOE, or colleagues at the Association for Citizenship Teaching, Middlesex University, Nottingham Trent University and the Royal Holloway University highlight the value of this provision. Read the rest of this entry »
Beyond words: creative listening in (dis)ability and employment
By IOE Blog Editor, on 3 December 2025
Photo credits: Duncan Mercieca.
3 December 2025
By Duncan Mercieca and Leda Kamenopoulou
On 5 November 2025, we gathered at the UCL Institute of Education (IOE) for an interactive workshop designed for disabled young people aged 16–25, many of whom are navigating unemployment. Families and carers joined too, creating a space where experiences could be shared openly. The aim was simple yet profound: to rethink what employment means when viewed through the lens of disability – and to do so creatively. Read the rest of this entry »
Bridging research and policy: the role of science-policy organisations in evidence-informed policymaking
By IOE Blog Editor, on 2 December 2025
Credit: 2024 Alejandro Salinas Lopez “alperucho”.
2 December 2025
By Jessica Ko
In an era where policy decisions increasingly demand robust evidence, science-policy organisations (SPOs) are emerging as pivotal actors in shaping more equitable and effective public systems. However, extant research has largely focused on the role of the individual knowledge broker rather than organisational factors in the policymaking process. This is a research gap that our British Academy-funded research project hopes to address. Read the rest of this entry »
Closing the loop: what schools and universities can learn from each other through a ‘funds of knowledge’ approach
By IOE Blog Editor, on 27 November 2025
Credit: Darren Tsang / 1314 Family Style for UCL IOE.
27 November 2025
By Joseph Mintz, Gayoung Choi and Jianing Zhou
As educators, we routinely reflect on how to respond to and meet diverse learner needs within our classrooms. But do we also see and value the knowledge and experiences that students bring with them? Engaging with that question means looking at ourselves, our own backgrounds, experiences and perspectives, and thinking about how those shape what and how we teach. This is especially so when our backgrounds differ from those of many of our students. Read the rest of this entry »
Is it time to drop the terminology of ‘powerful knowledge’ in talking about the school curriculum?
By IOE Blog Editor, on 25 November 2025
Credit: Richard Stonehouse for UCL IOE.
25 November 2025
By John White
At the heart of the Curriculum and Assessment Review Final Report, Building a world-class curriculum for all, is the claim that the curriculum should be ‘knowledge-rich’ and ‘centred on powerful knowledge’. The government response endorses this, using the same two expressions. These terms were also used, in the same closely related way, in an address on ‘The importance of a knowledge-rich curriculum’ by the former Schools Minister, Nick Gibb, in 2021.
The idea that the curriculum should be rich in knowledge and based on powerful knowledge has been around since the Gove reforms of the earlier part of the last decade. How far will it shape curriculum policy in the last half of this one? Read the rest of this entry »
Teaching controversial issues in schools – challenges and opportunities
By IOE Blog Editor, on 20 November 2025
Credit: Cavan for Adobe via Adobe Stock.
20 November 2025
Brexit, migration and the Israel/Palestine conflict are just three issues that have saturated public debate and generated polarised reactions in recent times. Meanwhile, young people in particular are increasingly receiving their news through social media (Internet Matters 2025), and research suggests that, although the relationship is complex, social media does play a role in aggravating ‘destructive’ polarisation (Esau et al 2024). Read the rest of this entry »
Why tackling child poverty needs more than increasing family incomes
By IOE Blog Editor, on 18 November 2025
Credit: zinkevych via Adobe Stock.
18 November 2025
Child poverty currently affects almost one in three children in the UK. Rates are higher among larger families, lone parents, Black and Asian households, and those raising a child with disabilities, as well as in some locations such as parts of London, where the figure rises above 40%. With the government’s child poverty review under way and a growing body of analysis suggesting that lifting the two-child welfare cap would in particular make a significant difference, it’s a critical moment to reflect on what poverty really means for children.
Behind these numbers are real families navigating impossible choices – whether to heat their homes, pay rent, or put food on the table. Poverty restricts choice and opportunity, undermining children’s health, wellbeing, education and life chances. Understanding what life looks like for those affected is essential if policy is to deliver genuine change. A new UCL Press book, Urban Childhoods: Growing up in Inequality and Hope, does just this, bringing together the voices of children and families.
Field notes from a glacier, thirty years on – a hard-hitting lesson in climate change education
By IOE Blog Editor, on 13 November 2025
Credit: Michal via Adobe Stock.
13 November 2025
Thirty years ago, as a doctoral student in glaciology, I travelled to Iceland to undertake fieldwork for my PhD. My research focused on the hydrology of glaciers, specifically, using Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) to investigate the pathways and behaviour of meltwater within and beneath the ice. Effectively, I was mapping the hidden ‘plumbing’ through which meltwater travels. Understanding glacial water flow is crucial as it influences glacier motion, stability and runoff, with implications for both glaciological theory and water resource management.
Alongside fellow doctoral students from the University of Leeds, I spent two consecutive summers camping at the foot of Falljökull (which translates directly to ‘falling glacier’ in Icelandic), an outlet glacier of the Vatnajökull ice cap in South Iceland. Each day for five weeks we re-ran the same routine: hike onto the glacier, collect data, return to camp, eat, sleep, repeat. Over time, Falljökull became more than a research site; it was a companion – dynamic, unpredictable, and alive. The icefall, where the glacier descends steeply from Vatnajökull, loomed in the distance – mystical, terrifying and unreachable.
Fast forward three decades, and much of my professional life now centres on climate change and sustainability education – research, practice and policy. And this October, I returned to Iceland for the first time since my final field season, all those years ago. Accompanied by my family, I was driven by a promise I’d made to myself: to one day revisit Falljökull, to share its beauty (and a glimpse of my former life) with my teenage children, and to confront, with trepidation, the impact of climate change on this once-familiar landscape. Read the rest of this entry »
The urgent task of improving the working lives of teachers
By IOE Blog Editor, on 4 November 2025
Credit: WavebreakMediaMicro via Adobe Stock.
4 November 2025
By Mary Bousted, Honorary Professor, UCL
October saw the launch in the House of Lords of the Teaching Commission’s report Shaping the Future of Education. I presented the Commission’s analysis on the state of the teaching profession and proposals to improve the profession’s standing.
The teacher and leader members of the Commission, working alongside policy and research professionals brought the reality of the challenges facing teachers and school leaders into strong contact with the research evidence in a way that is highly illuminating and powerful. The report is the most comprehensive source of evidence on the state of the profession available. Read the rest of this entry »
The long slow turn: sapience, technology and the future of education
By IOE Blog Editor, on 30 October 2025
Credit: Quarta via Adobe.
30 October 2025
The promise of artificial intelligence (AI) has been narrated as a story of inevitability. The language of acceleration, such as transformative disruption, exponential change and technological revolution, implies that social institutions must simply keep up. Yet, as history shows, every major technological advance has unfolded through long intervals of adjustment. Steam, railways and electricity all began as engineering marvels but only later became social realities. Each required decades of reorganisation, new laws, new forms of labour and fresh habits of mind. The same will be true of AI. Read the rest of this entry »
