Credit: Lucy Pope for UCL IOE.

22 March 2025

By Jane Perryman and Sandra Leaton Gray

When researchers visit schools to ask young people about their experiences of moving up to secondary school, a number of recurring themes emerge. Pupils anticipate new uniforms, the chance to study new subjects in specialist classrooms, access to advanced equipment, opportunities to meet new teachers, join extracurricular clubs and form new friendships.

However, alongside this excitement, many also experience anxiety. Concerns about navigating a larger school site, managing increased academic demands, encountering bullying and struggling to establish friendships are common. Schools are well aware of these challenges and have long developed robust strategies to ease the transition. Liaison with primary schools, induction days and structured pastoral support ensure that by the end of the first term most students have settled in and adjusted to secondary school life.

Five years ago, however, this well-established process was profoundly disrupted. The Covid-19 pandemic meant that many young people arrived at secondary school with highly fragmented educational experiences, varying levels of academic preparedness and, in some cases, significant social and emotional challenges. As parents of sons in the suddenly disrupted Year 6/7 cohort, we wondered what we could do to help. In response, our research at IOE, supported by the UCL Coronavirus Response Fund, sought to identify the most effective strategies to support Year 7 pupils at that time. The recommendations we developed emphasised relationship-building over immediate academic catch-up, flexibility in routines, digital literacy training and a focus on physical activity and wellbeing. (more…)

Credit: zinkevych via Adobe Stock.

5 March 2025

By Claire Cameron, Aase Villadsen, Amelia Roberts, Jo Van Herwegen, Vivian Hill, Dominic Wyse

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson is right to call for “…a national effort to tackle the epidemic of school absence so we can give all children the best start in life”, but the solutions adopted by recent successive governments, especially fining parents, have not been effective. We need a rethink in how to address attendance at school. Whether through truancy, also known as skipping school, or formal exclusion, far too many children are missing out on their right to education, with potentially lifelong consequences. As many studies show, these children are more likely to be socially disadvantaged children and those with special educational needs or mental health problems. We believe an approach based around the principles of social pedagogy offers a better way forward. Our new research highlights why this needs to start in primary school. (more…)

Credit: ake1150 via Adobe Stock.

18 February 2025

By Jon Swain

Within the field of education research there is a rich tradition of qualitative research that seeks to give voice to and understand the lives of children, to which my book, Negotiating Gendered Identities in Primary School: Children’s lives with their peers, is a recent addition. Published in open access, it focuses on how 10-11-year-old girls and boys experience life in their informal peer group. Based on research I carried out in two co-educational primary schools, one state and one independent, it explores the dynamics of friendships and social hierarchies, identities and how time is spent outside of lessons, including the use of social media. It interrogates how children make meanings: who they think they are, what it means to be a girl or a boy, and what forms of femininity and masculinity are most dominant. (more…)

The Knife Angel sculpture, made from over 100,000 seized blades. Photo credit: Ian Livesey.

19 July 2024

By Rachel Seabrook

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. (more…)

International Youth Climate Delegate Program group at COP28, Dubai. Photo by COP28 / Anthony Fleyhan.

20 February 2024

By Kate Greer and Nicola Walshe

COP28 news coverage focused attention on an agreement to transition away from fossil fuels, plus funding for ‘loss and damage’, but what happened in the UNFCCC Action for Climate Empowerment (ACE) workstream concerned with engaging all citizens in climate change action through education and public participation?  (more…)

Credit: Cavan via Adobe Stock.

2 November 2023

By Claire Cameron and Eva Lloyd, Visiting Professor, UCL

A growing research literature has demonstrated that positive experiences early on in life are associated with more positive adult outcomes, so investing early is key for societal wellbeing. Central to this is the children’s workforce, from health visitors to early childhood education and care practitioners and social workers. In a newly published edited volume from past and present TCRU researchers, Social Research for our Times (UCL Press), we examine how social research and policy can interact (or not) to achieve progressive objectives for children and the professionals who provide their care. Whether the research is ‘strategic’ (with a longer-term orientation) or ‘tactical’ (more…)

Credit: Kues1 via Adobe

13 June 2023

By Louise Archer 

This article was originally published on Wonkhe.

What is the secret of social mobility? How and why do some working class young people “go against the grain” to succeed educationally?

Our recent ASPIRES study, based at UCL, found that luck seems to play a key role in creating opportunities for social mobility.

The study draws on insights from over 200 longitudinal interviews conducted with 20 working class young people and 22 of their parents over an 11-year period, from age 10-21. (more…)

Image credit: Africa Studio via Adobe Stock.

1 April 2023

By John Jerrim

Online fraud is very serious business. We are faced with it every day. Indeed, as I am writing this blog, I’ve just received an email from a prince from a far-off-land who has an “exciting” business opportunity he wishes to discuss with me…….

I’m sure you have all received such emails as well: it is estimated that around 3.4 billion spam emails are sent every day. But how many young people are actually at risk of being duped by such a primitive digital scam?

Given that in many countries today it’s April Fools’ Day, essentially a day where we celebrate gullibility, let’s take a look. (more…)

31 January 2023

By Jake Anders 

Although young people were among those least likely to be directly affected by severe effects of COVID-19, they were not immune from its immediate effects on health. We are better able to understand the implications of this using data from the COVID Social Mobility & Opportunities study (COSMO). The study includes a representative sample of over 13,000 young people across England, who were aged 14–15 at the onset of the pandemic, and 16–17 during the academic year 2020/21 when our first data were collected.

COSMO’s purpose is also wider than the direct health impacts of COVID-19. As such, this blog post — drawing on our latest COSMO briefing published today — also takes a wider look at young people’s health behaviours during this period. (more…)

Photo: UNFCC via Creative Commons

23 November 2022

By Kate Greer and Nicola Walshe, Centre for Climate Change and Sustainability Education (CCCSE)

So, how was COP?

Good…? Exhausting…? Productive…? Challenging…?

It is difficult to sum up the experience of attending the annual UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties, or COP. COP can be heartwarming and heartbreaking. It can leave you feeling determined and despairing. Motivated and overwhelmed. Fearful and hopeful. All at the same time. Intertwined with the tangle of feelings that we bring home from our experience at COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, one thing is (relatively) clear. This year, COP27 resulted in good news for education. Through an immense collaborative effort of Member Parties and Observers, progress was made towards implementing an internationally coordinated educational response to climate change. Here, we briefly reflect on this achievement and its implications for climate change education in England and further afield.

Of foremost importance for education is that at COP27 countries agreed to a new global Action Plan on Action for Climate Empowerment, or ACE. ACE is the term used to describe a broad area of work set out in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (1992) and the Paris Agreement (2015) which includes education alongside five other elements: (more…)