This research paper explores the effects of promoting empowerment in the key stage three history curriculum. For this research the term 'empowerment' relates to engaging pupils, enlightening them to the world around them and encouraging them to use their voices. Through applying an empowering approach to the history curriculum we can teach pupils…

As we move towards an ever-increasing authoritarian, neoliberal and populist education, it is noticeable how elements of religious thought are embedded into our language and practices. This article uses the lens of political theology, drawing on Carl Schmitt's work which explores how the secular is often based on theological concepts such as…

The COVID-19 pandemic prompted unprecedented school closures in England, which quickly generated widespread concern at the impacts of missed schooling: 'lost learning' became the dominant motif of these concerns and 'catch-up' emerged as the received solution. This article focuses on the central pillar of the government's post-pandemic response:…

The English mass state education system, developing over 150 years, has created subsystems for children and young people who had difficulty in functioning at or beyond 'mainstream' schooling, or whose behaviour was deemed inappropriate. While many descriptions and labels proliferated in the education system, by 1981 children notionally had been…

England is experiencing a teacher recruitment and retention crisis which has only worsened since the COVID-19 pandemic. One-third of teachers leave before they have completed five years. This paper discusses the results of a small-scale study completed with six inner-London secondary teachers which focuses on their everyday experiences in these…

This article outlines the damage done by more than a decade of Conservative education policy and offers a set of arguments by which Labour could win support for a radical reconfiguration of formal education in England. It sets out elements from the Socialist Educational Association's "Manifesto for Education" in an attempt to inspire a…

This article opens with two contrasting accounts of the provenance of Oak National Academy before tracing Oak's controversial development as a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Education as a means (it is argued) of extending control not only over what teachers teach but over how they may teach it.

I grew up on free school meals and now work as a school improvement adviser. In this article, I address discontinuities within my 'support and challenge' role, a role that can be constrained by educational policy enacted within a performative and panoptic culture of fear. Successive governments have concerned themselves with promoting equity…

Governmental agendas to improve the emotional wellbeing of our children and young people (CYP) by providing more mental health support in education have gained more attention in recent years. This renewed focus comes in the aftermath of COVID-19 and is couched heavily in repairing the mental health fallout from the pandemic. Whilst these…

This article explores how film, as a pedagogic device, can be used as a stimulus for dialogic engagement around social justice issues such as human rights, conflict and equity. Based on findings from a doctoral research study -- and illustrated with an example from the film, "The Box" -- it is argued that through dialogue, film can…

Since devolution, the Scottish Government has had powers for education and child family policy (The Scotland Act, 1998) which sit apart from England, Wales and Northern Ireland. This is the Scottish Government's great strength. This article begins by exposing the Scottish early learning and childcare context across the spectrum of policy,…

Increasing school choice has been an active objective of policy in England but not in Scotland. Whereas in England all families are expected to list a rank ordering of schools, in Scotland the vast majority of children attend their catchment school by default. This article reviews the differences in approach, family experience and outcomes between…

Pupils' talk within classrooms has recently seen a renewed focus of attention, usually under the banner of oracy. Much of the justification at policy level seems to stem from a 'levelling-up' agenda, based on oracy's distinctive contribution to enhancing opportunity through developing pupils' communicative competence with benefits for…

Promoting equity is a policy challenge facing education systems throughout the world, not least in the United Kingdom where there are continuing concerns about the progress of learners from disadvantaged backgrounds. This paper draws on the experience of its author within a series of large-scale government-funded improvement initiatives to address…

Play and playfulness have been central to progressive pedagogies since the birth of the kindergarten. Yet their position in many contemporary education discourses is often ambivalent and at times fragile. In the Global North, many critics warn of a 'play crisis' and 'play deficit'. This essay attempts to trace a cultural and intellectual history…