Whereas the previous government, regarding education primarily as a means to an end, showed little interest in questions of curriculum content, Gove's counter-revolution involves the enforcement of a deeply authoritarian politics of knowledge. An adequate response to such cultural and curricular conservatism needs to expose the falsity of…

Student voice is a construct that has come to mean many things to many people. In this article the author is interested in forms of student voice practice that generate a shift in status for students, from passive recipients of schooling to governance partners with teachers in the classroom. She argues that governance partnerships that include…

When we join with another who shares our sensibilities, we have potential for doing good. This article explores how the self-initiated art making of children that happens outside the classroom challenges the child emotionally and intellectually more than teacher-directed school art. Furthermore, authentic collaborative art making creates a site…

This article is the text from a talk given to the conference The Primary Curriculum: English, mathematics and science in 2014 on 27 February 2013 at Canterbury Hall, London, organised by the National Association for Primary Education (NAPE). In it the author argues that the current consultation process is flawed as there is an ideological divide…

This is a descriptive, as much as an interpretive, article about the Syrian educational system and the first-hand experience of an EFL (English as a Foreign Language) practitioner describing the system from within, as much as from without. "From within" because it is based on observations derived from his own teaching experience at a…

Embedding setting (subject-based ability-grouping) into the primary school environment creates structural conflict--physically and culturally--fundamentally changing the nature of primary schools through the imposition of secondary practices and cultures and the loss of pastoral care. This article examines the hidden implications for teachers and…

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…

This review of Caroline Pratt's life and work in early years education includes an account of how a six-year-old boy taught a woman in her thirties what she needed to know in order to open a school--in 1914--that continues to this day, a school that was, in the founder's own words, fitted to the child and not the other way around. It…

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…

In this article the author offers an example of a student-staff partnership program based in a higher education context in the United States. This program positions undergraduate students as pedagogical consultants to academic staff. The goal of the program is to counter traditional hierarchies and imbalanced power relations and foster a shift in…

"FORUM" has marked the progress of the Cambridge Primary Review by three previous articles from Robin Alexander, the Review's director, and by critiques and responses from several others, notably "FORUM"'s Michael Armstrong. In 2013 the Review was superseded by the Cambridge Primary Review Trust, and this article is…

This article advocates an approach to outdoor exploration that begins by welcoming the unknown and quite possibly disorientating aspects of wild places. It proposes that one of the major ways in which young children make lasting connections with landscape is through imagination and the power of invention, and argues for the rights of children to…

This article sketches one line of march for the counter-offensive to current education policy called for in the previous issue of "FORUM." It highlights three key areas where, in his drive to "revolutionise" the education service, the Education Secretary has over-extended himself and become vulnerable. It calls for sharp and…

This article describes in some detail aspects of the Student Voice initiative funded and championed by Ontario's Ministry of Education since 2008. The project enables thousands of students to make their voices heard in meaningful ways and to participate in student-led research. Some students from grades 7 to 12 become members of the Student…

This article reflects on a fairly recent continuing education experience, seeking to identify some general principles for getting the most out of an approach to learning that has objectives which celebrate the acquisition of new knowledge" for its own sake," rather than with a specific end in view, such as the attainment of a…