Credit: zphoto83 via Adobe Stock.

9 December 2025

By Elisabeth Herbert, Helen Williams, Jo Van Herwegen, Laura Outhwaite, UCL Institute of Education (IOE) and Cat Eadle (Dyscalculia Network)

The IOE and the Dyscalculia Network are collaborating to raise awareness of dyscalculia and mathematical learning difficulties through developing research, resources and events that centre around lived experience. In this piece we set out how our recent initiatives are making an impact. (more…)

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. (more…)

Accessibility is not just physical access, it also concerns digital products, spaces and services. Credit: Sophie Mitchell for UCL.

11 March 2025

By Leda Kamenopoulou and Ben Watson

What is and what is not accessibility?

Accessibility is often defined as the extent to which products, services and spaces are easy for people with disabilities to access and use. In this blog post, we argue that this is a narrow view and accessibility is a lot more than that. We do this by busting six common misconceptions. (more…)

UCL speaker presenting with a microphone. Credit: Mary Hinkley for UCL.

29 October 2024

By Leda Kamenopoulou

Synchronous accessibility can be challenging

In a previous IOE blog, I wrote about accessibility as a right and not an option, and I summarised key actions for creating accessible digital content, such as Word and PowerPoint documents. These resources, however, are almost always created asynchronously. In this post, I consider how to make sure live teaching delivery is accessible, focusing in this instance on the needs of students with hearing impairment. I list best practices that I recommend as an expert on inclusive education and sensory accessibility, and as a programme leader for UCL’s Special and Inclusive Education MA, experienced in putting reasonable adjustments in place for our students. (more…)

Credit: WavebreakMediaMicro via Adobe Stock.

10 September 2024

By Joseph Mintz

Government policy for the schools system in England has moved away from using the term ‘differentiation’, replacing it with what they have called ‘adaptive teaching’. This is an idiosyncratic term in this context, and it seems that by adaptive teaching the Government means to refer to an emphasis on direct instruction and mastery learning. I argue here that this shift risks the individual learning needs of children with special educational needs being ignored, and that this has not been given enough attention in policy, practice or teacher education. (more…)

Sir Francis Galton in 1912 (left) and Sir Cyril Burt (right). Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

25 July 2024

By Sandra Leaton Gray and David Scott

This blog post is Part 2 of a series relating to our newly published book: Intelligence, Sapience and Learning: Concepts, Framings and Practices.

Sir Francis Galton (1822-1911) and Sir Cyril Burt (1883-1971) were two pioneers of differential psychology who had close connections to UCL and IOE respectively. They worked at a time when a theistic philosophy in education was on the decline, and the new discipline of Psychology was in the ascendancy. The lives of Galton and Burt provide us with a cautionary tale about the dangers of working unchallenged in the field of science, with little accountability. (more…)

Credit: Quarta via Adobe.

24 July 2024

By David Scott and Sandra Leaton Gray

We have just published a book about some key educational concepts, with the title: Intelligence, Sapience and Learning: Concepts, Framings and Practices. These concepts are a central consideration for educators at IOE or at least we feel that they should be. In a companionate book – Women Curriculum Theorists: Power, Knowledge and Subjectivity – we looked in a similar way at the relations and connections between the concepts and practices of ‘woman’, ‘learning’ and ‘curriculum’. Social categories of gender, race, religion, dis-ability, sexuality and class are other examples of key life-defining concepts. Our new book seeks to shed light on the workings of these social categories because a proper examination of them is an essential starting point for understanding how the world and objects in that world are arranged and ordered. (more…)

Credit: Smolaw11 / Adobe.

16 January 2024

By Lindsey Macmillan and Jake Anders

The start of 2024 has seen a renewed focus on persistent absenteeism from school, with the Secretary of State for Education announcing a major national drive to improve school attendance, and the Shadow Secretary of State for Education laying out Labour’s plans to ‘rebuild the broken relationship between schools, families and the Government’. Yet this is not a new problem: the issue of persistent absenteeism has been looming since schools returned to ‘normal’ after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Everyone agrees that the rise in pupil absence since the pandemic is of significant concern. But the causes and what we should do about this are much less clear. (more…)

CICADA Stories, Bloomsbury Theatre

15 December 2022

By Carol Rivas, Amanda Moore, Kusha Anand, Alison Wu and Ozan Aksoy

This post is adapted from a blog for Biomed Central.

Even before the pandemic, many people with chronic conditions or disabilities, particularly those from minoritised ethnic groups, faced obstacles in accessing or utilising networks of support, health and social care. During the pandemic, some of these obstacles increased disproportionately, and widened the inequalities gap.

Now, during Disability History Month (16 November to 16 December), it is instructive to consider the interplay of different intersecting factors that compromise good health outcomes when considering inequalities. For example, chronic conditions such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease increase vulnerability to COVID-19 and are disproportionately (more…)

Credit: Pexels / Pixabay

6 December 2022

By Jo Van Herwegen, Elisabeth Herbert and Laura Outhwaite 

A good grasp of maths has been linked to greater success in employment and better health. But a large proportion of us – up to 22% – have mathematical learning difficulties. What’s more, around 6% of children in primary schools may have dyscalculia, a mathematical learning disability.

Developmental dyscalculia is a persistent difficulty in understanding numbers which can affect anyone, regardless of age or ability.

If 6% of children have dyscalculia, that would mean one or two children in each primary school class of 30 – about as many children as have been estimated to have dyslexia. But dyscalculia is less well known, by both the general public and teachers. It is also less well researched in comparison to other learning difficulties.

Children with dyscalculia may struggle to learn foundational mathematical skills and concepts, such as simple counting, (more…)