Our current curriculum and qualifications framework is a "fragmented mess" according to many of those who teach in, and lead, our schools. How can we change it with minimal disruption, particularly after four years of often destructive meddling from above? A number of individuals and groups at school level have been working to develop a…

This article notes that the attempt to include all young people in education, an aim of Labour governments over the years, still relies on an expanded and expensive special educational needs "industry". How to include all lower attainers and those with disabilities in the education system and the economy is a political issue for a Labour…

In this article the author suggests a number of measures and policies that should be part of a socialist education manifesto. These specific suggestions address curriculum and assessment issues such as an anti-discriminatory curriculum for equality, funded education outside the school, the development of critical thinking and democracy in schools,…

The author is a long-time advocate inside the Labour Party for ending selective education and the 11-plus. She outlines how Labour Party frontbenchers routinely ignore or deflect calls from Party members to stand up for comprehensive education in both word and deed. As UKIP, whose policy is to extend selective education more widely, rises in the…

This article is about the "who" of policy rather than the "what". It is a plea for debate and discussion about the purposes of education. It is an argument for replacing technocratic solutions with democratic ones. It is about possibility rather than necessity.

It is 25 years since the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) was abolished and management of education in central London transferred to 13 London boroughs. The author reflects on the experience of being an ex-ILEA head teacher, and of managing one of the new local education authorities in the immediate post-ILEA period. He begins by commenting…

The author, who teaches in a Norfolk comprehensive school, presents an account of her involvement with the new research practice of lesson study, and discusses its benefits as part of a continuing professional development programme designed to encourage teachers to become more reflective.

This reflection does not pretend to be a scientific survey of curriculum trends but is, as the title suggests, a personal reminiscence of governorship across different phases of education, with snippets about the curriculum that my memory recalls.

In this article from 1936, author Marion Richardson begins by discussing how teachers have changed their approach to teaching drawing--from teaching students to draw still life and copy from objects to allowing children to use their own technique. She explains, "We have changed our methods, partly because we no longer think of art as…

The past 30 years have seen a series of major shifts in English education. Central to these changes has been the growth of data systems which now measure and control the work of teachers to a huge degree. This form of data-led surveillance was predicted in the work of Gilles Deleuze, a totalising process where data become more important than the…

This article describes how one local teachers' union branch has developed an active and imaginative campaign as it has challenged both national education policy and also the very specific attacks on schools in the community. By connecting local and national issues, and by linking struggles on pay and pensions to wider questions of policy, the…

Social media, such as Twitter and blogs, has opened up new possibilities for teachers to communicate. In the face of increasingly centralised policy agendas, social media has created spaces for teachers to talk to each other, share with each other and learn from each other. This article explores how teachers are creating their own spaces by using…

This article describes an initiative led by two classroom teachers from the Netherlands to put teachers back at the centre of the educational process. The article argues that the educational system has become inverted, with those who are most influential (teachers) having the least opportunity to influence. The challenge is to "flip the…

The late Jean Rudduck led the most extensive and sustained programme of Student Voice work in the United Kingdom to date through the Economic and Social Research Council project "Consulting Pupils about Teaching and Learning". She continues to inspire discussion around Student Voice and its transformational possibilities, bequeathing…

Students and schools struggle to create recognised spaces within which partnership dialogues about learning and teaching can occur. This reduces the roles of students and their school organisations to either complainants or organisers of marginal activities. Students in Victoria, Australia have initiated a "Teach the Teacher" program, in…