Alice Bradbury
Biographic Data
| ID | 758555 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Alice Bradbury |
| GIVEN NAMES | Alice |
| FAMILY NAME | Bradbury |
| SIGNATURE | BRADBURY A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University College London |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3269-6199 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 33 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 187 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 33 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2011 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
Falling pupil numbers and school closures: Setting a research agenda for a new era of precarity
This paper explores the significant phenomenon of decreasing pupil numbers in England due to lower birth rates and the impact of a school closure on a school community. It then discusses how the sociology of education might research this major issue. Across England, and particularly in London, falling pupil numbers have resulted in nearly 100 permanent school closures in the last five years, with many more schools at risk. Our analysis shows scho…
Barriers to Curriculum Reform: The Role of Context and Policy
This paper explores the barriers faced by primary schools in England looking to reform their curricula. Drawing on six varied case studies of schools involved in a programme of curriculum innovation support, we examine how Ofsted inspections, assessment pressure, school location, lack of time, and staffing concerns all limit schools’ ability to revise their curricula. We argue that, even with dedicated time and support, schools found it challengi…
Headteachers and external inspection in England
In December 2023 a UK Government Inquiry concluded that Ofsted, the English inspection regime, had ‘contributed’ to the death of a Headteacher, Ruth Perry, who had committed suicide whilst awaiting publication of an inspection report. The headteacher's suicide brought to the forefront of public discourse concerns about Ofsted and its effects, particularly on senior leaders. This paper examines the findings of a recent English research project ent…
The dominance of synthetic phonics in reading policy in England
While the Science of Reading (SoR) has not been a commonly used term in the United Kingdom, many of the tropes of the ‘reading wars’ in the United States are also present in the debates in England and in other jurisdictions. Since the late 2000s, successive government policies in England have fundamentally altered what were, historically, accepted practices of teaching reading that could be described as a balanced approach. From 2008 to 2024, the…
A network policy analysis of England’s National Tutoring Programme: Covid-19 and the embedding of the private sector in state governance
This paper examines the UK government’s main intervention in education during and after the COVID crisis—the National Tutoring Programme (NTP)—which operated in England from 2020–24. It involves a truncated genealogy of the NTP which shows how, when learning loss emerged as a key policy problem, the private sector was promoted as the main policy solution. We trace the evolution and decline of the NTP in response to schools’ experiences and needs.…
Turning school inspections toxic: Insights from an inquiry into Ofsted in England
Primary teachers’ experiences of Ofsted inspections: ‘Driving the Joy Out of Education’
Research has long suggested that Ofsted, the school inspection service in England, has a negative impact on teachers and school leaders. Concern over this issue intensified following media reports linking the suicide of a primary headteacher, Ruth Perry, to a negative Ofsted report in early 2023. Existing analysis of the inspection policy is largely based on empirical work with secondary teachers. Using a Foucauldian framework, this paper examine…
A Tipping Point’ in Teacher Retention and Accountability: The Case of Inspection
Accountability policy and its negative effects on teachers’ working lives and retention is internationally recognised as a problem in education with school evaluation and inspection being a particular issue, particularly in England. Research suggests that the school inspection system Ofsted impacts negatively on the health and well-being of staff and negatively influences teachers’ working practices, which can affect teacher retention. This paper…
Fearing the ‘Clipboard Police’: Exploring How Marginalised Schools Experience Ofsted Inspections in an Era of Precarity
Research suggests that the inspection service in England, Ofsted, has negative impacts on teachers and creates a culture of fear and performativity. Of particular concern is Ofsted’s potential to harm schools and educators as they are navigating the ongoing impacts of the pandemic, growing child poverty, and crises relating to teacher retention, SEND, and mental health. This paper draws on data collected as part of a national survey and focus gro…
Crisis policy enactment: Primary school leaders’ responses to the Covid-19 pandemic in England
This paper explores the enactment of government policy during the Covid pandemic in primary schools in England. Based on interviews with school leaders and teachers across the period 2020–21 (n = 66), drawn from two major studies of primary schools’ priorities during the crisis, we argue that school leaders’ responses can be understood as a distinct form of policy enactment particular to an unprecedented crisis. Policy arrived in schools differen…
Policy disruptors or entrepreneurs? The tensions emerging from a network of philosophy educators
The passion, pedagogy and politics of reading
The teaching of reading has been a source of contentious debate for many years. Margaret Meek Spencer contributed her passion for the importance of specific texts to help children learn to read. In addition to the kinds of texts to be used, important aspects of the debateimportant aspects of the debate include the relationship between national curriculum policies and robust research evidence about what works in teaching reading This paper notes a…
Minoritised teachers’ experiences of multiple, intersectional racisms in the school system in England: ‘Carrying the Weight of Racism’
This paper recounts the experiences of 24 primary and secondary teachers from a number of minoritised groups in the education system in England, using interview data collected for a project exploring the retention of minority teachers. The teachers’ experiences of racism are discussed alongside other intersectional aspects of their identities–including gender, class, accent, and the subject they taught–to emphasise the variety of racisms experien…
A frontline service? Nursery Schools as local community hubs in an era of austerity
Nursery Schools in the UK have been described as the ‘jewel in the crown’ of early years provision because of the quality of education and a wide range of other support services that they provide, particularly for children from socio-economically disadvantaged families and those with complex special educational needs (SEN). In this paper, we explore the role of Nursery Schools in the local community, arguing that they have been re/constructed as …
Intervention culture, grouping and triage: High-stakes tests and practices of division in English primary schools
This paper explores the practices of division in operation in primary schools in England in response to the pressures of high stakes tests at age 10/11, known as SATs. Using data from interviews with 20 primary headteachers and information from a survey of nearly 300 primary heads, we argue that the organisation of pupils in preparation for SATs involves 1) the use of grouping by ‘ability’ in sets, despite the increasing evidence of the disadvant…
Parental choice of childcare in England: Choosing in phases and the split market
This article explores how parents choose childcare settings for their pre‐school children within a context of complex policy on eligibility for free provision and a developing market. Using data from interviews with 17 mainly middle‐class parents in England, we explore in detail how parents go about choosing a childcare setting and the different phases of this process. This adds further nuance to the existing literature on choosing practices and …
Datafied at four: The role of data in the ‘schoolification’ of early childhood education in England
This paper examines processes of datafication in early childhood education (ECE) settings for children from birth-five years in England and how this relates to increased formalisation. Unusually, ECE in England includes a standardised curriculum and formative and statutory assessments; thus it has been described as subject to both datafication and ‘schoolification’, a term used to describe the adoption of school-like practices and values in ECE. …
Making little neo-liberals: The production of ideal child/learner subjectivities in primary school through choice, self-improvement and ‘growth mindsets’
This article aims to look at the intersection of policy and lived experience at the level of the individual child by dissecting how primary education policy in England demands and expects a particular learner subjectivity. The focus is on children in the first years of primary school, and how statutory assessments provide a model of the ‘ideal learner’ who is self-regulating and able to make choices which are self-improving. The article uses data…
A critical race theory framework for education policy analysis: The case of bilingual learners and assessment policy in England
This paper combines tools from policy sociology with those from Critical Race Theory (CRT) to build a framework for a CRT-based education policy analysis, based on a set of questions about the relationship between policy and racial inequalities. Drawing on a case study of assessment policy in England, the paper examines how tools from both bodies of scholarship can be used to interrogate the motivations, results, and assumptions implicit in polic…
The impact of the Phonics Screening Check on grouping by ability: A ‘necessary evil’ amid the policy storm
This article examines the impact of a statutory assessment in England, the Phonics Screening Check ( PSC ), on classroom practices of grouping children by ‘ability’. Bearing in mind the argument that assessment is the rudder that steers the otherwise slow‐moving battleship of educational practice, it is argued that the PSC has altered how teachers organise their classes and curriculum in both the affected year group (Year 1, children aged 5–6) an…
The Datafication of Primary and Early Years Education: Playing with Numbers
The Datafication of Primary and Early Years Education explores and critically analyses the growing dominance of data in schools and early childhood education settings. Recognising the shift in practice and priorities towards the production and analysis of attainment data that are compared locally, nationally and internationally, this important book explores the role and impact of digital data in the ‘data-obsessed’ school. Through insightful case…
Creating an Ofsted story: The role of early years assessment data in schools’ narratives of progress
This paper explores the growing importance of measures of progress in judgements of schools’ effectiveness in England, with a focus on the role of the early years (settings for children aged 2–5) in providing data for these measures. Qualitative data from a research project involving three diverse school-based and pre-compulsory early years settings are used to explore how teachers and school leaders prioritise the collection of data in their eve…
Not all pedagogies are created equal: Researching and resisting teacher-led early childhood education for urban communities
Reading the title of this book, you might be forgiven for thinking this was a text which argued against those who think we should take ‘race’ and class seriously in accounts of schooling, and in tu
Revisions to rationality: The translation of ‘new knowledges’ into policy under the Coalition Government
This article gives an account of the use of knowledges from emerging scientific fields in education and youth policy making under the Coalition government (2010–15) in the UK. We identify a common process of ‘translation’ and offer three illustrations of policy-making in the UK that utilise diverse knowledges produced in academic fields (neuroscience, network theory and well-being). This production of ‘new knowledges’ in policy contexts allows fo…
Primary schools and network governance: A policy analysis of reception baseline assessment
Primary school reception baseline assessment was designed to produce a single ‘baseline’ data figure on the basis of which young children's progress across primary school could be measured and accounted for. This paper suggests that within the context of punitive performativity, head teachers might be considered ‘irresponsible’ if not engaging with the new accountability measure in its voluntary year. Using DfE‐accredited baseline assessment prov…
Education policy and the ‘ideal learner’: Producing recognisable learner-subjects through early years assessment
This article examines how education policy, in the form of a statutory assessment system used in the first year of primary schools, defines the ‘ideal learner’. This ideal model is important because it prescribes the characteristics and skills a child needs to display in order to be recognisable as a learner. An analysis of the content of the assessment itself is used alongside ethnographic data from classrooms where the assessment is conducted, …
Revising rationality: The use of ‘Nudge’ approaches in neoliberal education policy
This article argues that the concept of rationality is undergoing significant revision in UK education policy-making, influenced by developments in several academic fields. This article focuses on the take up of behavioural economics in policy as one aspect of this revision of the concept of rationality, discussing how this has happened and its implications. Framed by a wider debate regarding the significance of a ‘crisis’ in neoliberal approache…
Creating an Ofsted story: The role of early years assessment data in schools’ narratives of progress
This paper explores the growing importance of measures of progress in judgements of schools’ effectiveness in England, with a focus on the role of the early years (settings for children aged 2–5) in providing data for these measures. Qualitative data from a research project involving three diverse school-based and pre-compulsory early years settings are used to explore how teachers and school leaders prioritise the collection of data in their eve…
Making little neo-liberals: The production of ideal child/learner subjectivities in primary school through choice, self-improvement and ‘growth mindsets’
This article aims to look at the intersection of policy and lived experience at the level of the individual child by dissecting how primary education policy in England demands and expects a particular learner subjectivity. The focus is on children in the first years of primary school, and how statutory assessments provide a model of the ‘ideal learner’ who is self-regulating and able to make choices which are self-improving. The article uses data…
The impact of the Phonics Screening Check on grouping by ability: A ‘necessary evil’ amid the policy storm
This article examines the impact of a statutory assessment in England, the Phonics Screening Check ( PSC ), on classroom practices of grouping children by ‘ability’. Bearing in mind the argument that assessment is the rudder that steers the otherwise slow‐moving battleship of educational practice, it is argued that the PSC has altered how teachers organise their classes and curriculum in both the affected year group (Year 1, children aged 5–6) an…
Equity, ethnicity and the hidden dangers of ‘contextual’ measures of school performance
‘Contextual value added’ (CVA) scores have been used as a means of monitoring school performance in England since 2007. This article explains how these scores are calculated using biographical pupil data (including ethnicity, gender and Free School Meal status) in order to judge the impact of a school on pupils’ attainment. This article argues that the use of ethnicity as a variable in setting expected levels of progress between two points of tes…
Governance, accountability and the datafication of early years education in England
In this paper we attempt to critically ‘make visible the flow and circulation of data’ through analysing the datafication of the early years education sector in England (children aged 2–5). The concept of datafication is used to understand the processes and impacts of burgeoning data‐based governance and accountability regimes. This analysis builds upon early childhood researchers who were influenced by Foucault and others, who have noted the way…
Rethinking assessment and inequality: The production of disparities in attainment in early years education
Despite decades of research and debate, the issue of unequal outcomes continues to be a concern in educational systems worldwide. In England, published data relating to pupils’ attainment across ethnic groups and by class indicators has been used to demonstrate continued inequalities in schools. This article attempts to deconstruct the relationship between assessment results and inequality by questioning the assumption that results only record in…
Crisis policy enactment: Primary school leaders’ responses to the Covid-19 pandemic in England
This paper explores the enactment of government policy during the Covid pandemic in primary schools in England. Based on interviews with school leaders and teachers across the period 2020–21 (n = 66), drawn from two major studies of primary schools’ priorities during the crisis, we argue that school leaders’ responses can be understood as a distinct form of policy enactment particular to an unprecedented crisis. Policy arrived in schools differen…
Revisions to rationality: The translation of ‘new knowledges’ into policy under the Coalition Government
This article gives an account of the use of knowledges from emerging scientific fields in education and youth policy making under the Coalition government (2010–15) in the UK. We identify a common process of ‘translation’ and offer three illustrations of policy-making in the UK that utilise diverse knowledges produced in academic fields (neuroscience, network theory and well-being). This production of ‘new knowledges’ in policy contexts allows fo…
A Tipping Point’ in Teacher Retention and Accountability: The Case of Inspection
Accountability policy and its negative effects on teachers’ working lives and retention is internationally recognised as a problem in education with school evaluation and inspection being a particular issue, particularly in England. Research suggests that the school inspection system Ofsted impacts negatively on the health and well-being of staff and negatively influences teachers’ working practices, which can affect teacher retention. This paper…
Minoritised teachers’ experiences of multiple, intersectional racisms in the school system in England: ‘Carrying the Weight of Racism’
This paper recounts the experiences of 24 primary and secondary teachers from a number of minoritised groups in the education system in England, using interview data collected for a project exploring the retention of minority teachers. The teachers’ experiences of racism are discussed alongside other intersectional aspects of their identities–including gender, class, accent, and the subject they taught–to emphasise the variety of racisms experien…
Intervention culture, grouping and triage: High-stakes tests and practices of division in English primary schools
This paper explores the practices of division in operation in primary schools in England in response to the pressures of high stakes tests at age 10/11, known as SATs. Using data from interviews with 20 primary headteachers and information from a survey of nearly 300 primary heads, we argue that the organisation of pupils in preparation for SATs involves 1) the use of grouping by ‘ability’ in sets, despite the increasing evidence of the disadvant…
Early childhood assessment: Observation, teacher ‘knowledge’ and the production of attainment data in early years settings
Since 2003 children in England have been formally assessed at the age of 5 after their first year in school, and their numerical scores reported to parents and analysed at school and national levels. The use of statutory assessment for this age group is unique in the UK, where other regions use less formal methods of assessment. It is also unusual internationally. This paper examines the peculiarity of this assessment system, the Early Years Foun…
From model minorities to disposable models: The De-Legitimisation of Educational Success Through Discourses of Authenticity
This article explores teachers' use of discourses of authenticity in relation to minoritised students, with a focus on the relationship between these discourses and ‘model minority’ status. The paper aims to advance the critical thinking about ‘model minorities’ in the education system in England by examining the diversity of identity positions and minoritised groups that can be constituted as belonging to this category in different contexts. It …
A critical race theory framework for education policy analysis: The case of bilingual learners and assessment policy in England
This paper combines tools from policy sociology with those from Critical Race Theory (CRT) to build a framework for a CRT-based education policy analysis, based on a set of questions about the relationship between policy and racial inequalities. Drawing on a case study of assessment policy in England, the paper examines how tools from both bodies of scholarship can be used to interrogate the motivations, results, and assumptions implicit in polic…
Primary teachers’ experiences of Ofsted inspections: ‘Driving the Joy Out of Education’
Research has long suggested that Ofsted, the school inspection service in England, has a negative impact on teachers and school leaders. Concern over this issue intensified following media reports linking the suicide of a primary headteacher, Ruth Perry, to a negative Ofsted report in early 2023. Existing analysis of the inspection policy is largely based on empirical work with secondary teachers. Using a Foucauldian framework, this paper examine…
Turning school inspections toxic: Insights from an inquiry into Ofsted in England
Parental choice of childcare in England: Choosing in phases and the split market
This article explores how parents choose childcare settings for their pre‐school children within a context of complex policy on eligibility for free provision and a developing market. Using data from interviews with 17 mainly middle‐class parents in England, we explore in detail how parents go about choosing a childcare setting and the different phases of this process. This adds further nuance to the existing literature on choosing practices and …
Not all pedagogies are created equal: Researching and resisting teacher-led early childhood education for urban communities
Reading the title of this book, you might be forgiven for thinking this was a text which argued against those who think we should take ‘race’ and class seriously in accounts of schooling, and in tu
Growing gaps: Educational inequality around the world
Growing gaps: educational inequality around the world." Gender and Education, 24(5), pp. 567–568
Equity, ethnicity and the hidden dangers of ‘contextual’ measures of school performance
‘Contextual value added’ (CVA) scores have been used as a means of monitoring school performance in England since 2007. This article explains how these scores are calculated using biographical pupil data (including ethnicity, gender and Free School Meal status) in order to judge the impact of a school on pupils’ attainment. This article argues that the use of ethnicity as a variable in setting expected levels of progress between two points of tes…
Rethinking assessment and inequality: The production of disparities in attainment in early years education
Despite decades of research and debate, the issue of unequal outcomes continues to be a concern in educational systems worldwide. In England, published data relating to pupils’ attainment across ethnic groups and by class indicators has been used to demonstrate continued inequalities in schools. This article attempts to deconstruct the relationship between assessment results and inequality by questioning the assumption that results only record in…
Growing gaps: Educational inequality around the world
Growing gaps: educational inequality around the world." Gender and Education, 24(5), pp. 567–568
Revising rationality: The use of ‘Nudge’ approaches in neoliberal education policy
This article argues that the concept of rationality is undergoing significant revision in UK education policy-making, influenced by developments in several academic fields. This article focuses on the take up of behavioural economics in policy as one aspect of this revision of the concept of rationality, discussing how this has happened and its implications. Framed by a wider debate regarding the significance of a ‘crisis’ in neoliberal approache…
Education policy and the ‘ideal learner’: Producing recognisable learner-subjects through early years assessment
This article examines how education policy, in the form of a statutory assessment system used in the first year of primary schools, defines the ‘ideal learner’. This ideal model is important because it prescribes the characteristics and skills a child needs to display in order to be recognisable as a learner. An analysis of the content of the assessment itself is used alongside ethnographic data from classrooms where the assessment is conducted, …
From model minorities to disposable models: The De-Legitimisation of Educational Success Through Discourses of Authenticity
This article explores teachers' use of discourses of authenticity in relation to minoritised students, with a focus on the relationship between these discourses and ‘model minority’ status. The paper aims to advance the critical thinking about ‘model minorities’ in the education system in England by examining the diversity of identity positions and minoritised groups that can be constituted as belonging to this category in different contexts. It …
Early childhood assessment: Observation, teacher ‘knowledge’ and the production of attainment data in early years settings
Since 2003 children in England have been formally assessed at the age of 5 after their first year in school, and their numerical scores reported to parents and analysed at school and national levels. The use of statutory assessment for this age group is unique in the UK, where other regions use less formal methods of assessment. It is also unusual internationally. This paper examines the peculiarity of this assessment system, the Early Years Foun…
Governance, accountability and the datafication of early years education in England
In this paper we attempt to critically ‘make visible the flow and circulation of data’ through analysing the datafication of the early years education sector in England (children aged 2–5). The concept of datafication is used to understand the processes and impacts of burgeoning data‐based governance and accountability regimes. This analysis builds upon early childhood researchers who were influenced by Foucault and others, who have noted the way…
The Datafication of Primary and Early Years Education: Playing with Numbers
The Datafication of Primary and Early Years Education explores and critically analyses the growing dominance of data in schools and early childhood education settings. Recognising the shift in practice and priorities towards the production and analysis of attainment data that are compared locally, nationally and internationally, this important book explores the role and impact of digital data in the ‘data-obsessed’ school. Through insightful case…
Creating an Ofsted story: The role of early years assessment data in schools’ narratives of progress
This paper explores the growing importance of measures of progress in judgements of schools’ effectiveness in England, with a focus on the role of the early years (settings for children aged 2–5) in providing data for these measures. Qualitative data from a research project involving three diverse school-based and pre-compulsory early years settings are used to explore how teachers and school leaders prioritise the collection of data in their eve…
Not all pedagogies are created equal: Researching and resisting teacher-led early childhood education for urban communities
Reading the title of this book, you might be forgiven for thinking this was a text which argued against those who think we should take ‘race’ and class seriously in accounts of schooling, and in tu
Revisions to rationality: The translation of ‘new knowledges’ into policy under the Coalition Government
This article gives an account of the use of knowledges from emerging scientific fields in education and youth policy making under the Coalition government (2010–15) in the UK. We identify a common process of ‘translation’ and offer three illustrations of policy-making in the UK that utilise diverse knowledges produced in academic fields (neuroscience, network theory and well-being). This production of ‘new knowledges’ in policy contexts allows fo…
Primary schools and network governance: A policy analysis of reception baseline assessment
Primary school reception baseline assessment was designed to produce a single ‘baseline’ data figure on the basis of which young children's progress across primary school could be measured and accounted for. This paper suggests that within the context of punitive performativity, head teachers might be considered ‘irresponsible’ if not engaging with the new accountability measure in its voluntary year. Using DfE‐accredited baseline assessment prov…
The impact of the Phonics Screening Check on grouping by ability: A ‘necessary evil’ amid the policy storm
This article examines the impact of a statutory assessment in England, the Phonics Screening Check ( PSC ), on classroom practices of grouping children by ‘ability’. Bearing in mind the argument that assessment is the rudder that steers the otherwise slow‐moving battleship of educational practice, it is argued that the PSC has altered how teachers organise their classes and curriculum in both the affected year group (Year 1, children aged 5–6) an…
Datafied at four: The role of data in the ‘schoolification’ of early childhood education in England
This paper examines processes of datafication in early childhood education (ECE) settings for children from birth-five years in England and how this relates to increased formalisation. Unusually, ECE in England includes a standardised curriculum and formative and statutory assessments; thus it has been described as subject to both datafication and ‘schoolification’, a term used to describe the adoption of school-like practices and values in ECE. …
Making little neo-liberals: The production of ideal child/learner subjectivities in primary school through choice, self-improvement and ‘growth mindsets’
This article aims to look at the intersection of policy and lived experience at the level of the individual child by dissecting how primary education policy in England demands and expects a particular learner subjectivity. The focus is on children in the first years of primary school, and how statutory assessments provide a model of the ‘ideal learner’ who is self-regulating and able to make choices which are self-improving. The article uses data…
A critical race theory framework for education policy analysis: The case of bilingual learners and assessment policy in England
This paper combines tools from policy sociology with those from Critical Race Theory (CRT) to build a framework for a CRT-based education policy analysis, based on a set of questions about the relationship between policy and racial inequalities. Drawing on a case study of assessment policy in England, the paper examines how tools from both bodies of scholarship can be used to interrogate the motivations, results, and assumptions implicit in polic…
Parental choice of childcare in England: Choosing in phases and the split market
This article explores how parents choose childcare settings for their pre‐school children within a context of complex policy on eligibility for free provision and a developing market. Using data from interviews with 17 mainly middle‐class parents in England, we explore in detail how parents go about choosing a childcare setting and the different phases of this process. This adds further nuance to the existing literature on choosing practices and …
A frontline service? Nursery Schools as local community hubs in an era of austerity
Nursery Schools in the UK have been described as the ‘jewel in the crown’ of early years provision because of the quality of education and a wide range of other support services that they provide, particularly for children from socio-economically disadvantaged families and those with complex special educational needs (SEN). In this paper, we explore the role of Nursery Schools in the local community, arguing that they have been re/constructed as …
Intervention culture, grouping and triage: High-stakes tests and practices of division in English primary schools
This paper explores the practices of division in operation in primary schools in England in response to the pressures of high stakes tests at age 10/11, known as SATs. Using data from interviews with 20 primary headteachers and information from a survey of nearly 300 primary heads, we argue that the organisation of pupils in preparation for SATs involves 1) the use of grouping by ‘ability’ in sets, despite the increasing evidence of the disadvant…
Policy disruptors or entrepreneurs? The tensions emerging from a network of philosophy educators
The passion, pedagogy and politics of reading
The teaching of reading has been a source of contentious debate for many years. Margaret Meek Spencer contributed her passion for the importance of specific texts to help children learn to read. In addition to the kinds of texts to be used, important aspects of the debateimportant aspects of the debate include the relationship between national curriculum policies and robust research evidence about what works in teaching reading This paper notes a…
Minoritised teachers’ experiences of multiple, intersectional racisms in the school system in England: ‘Carrying the Weight of Racism’
This paper recounts the experiences of 24 primary and secondary teachers from a number of minoritised groups in the education system in England, using interview data collected for a project exploring the retention of minority teachers. The teachers’ experiences of racism are discussed alongside other intersectional aspects of their identities–including gender, class, accent, and the subject they taught–to emphasise the variety of racisms experien…
Crisis policy enactment: Primary school leaders’ responses to the Covid-19 pandemic in England
This paper explores the enactment of government policy during the Covid pandemic in primary schools in England. Based on interviews with school leaders and teachers across the period 2020–21 (n = 66), drawn from two major studies of primary schools’ priorities during the crisis, we argue that school leaders’ responses can be understood as a distinct form of policy enactment particular to an unprecedented crisis. Policy arrived in schools differen…
Headteachers and external inspection in England
In December 2023 a UK Government Inquiry concluded that Ofsted, the English inspection regime, had ‘contributed’ to the death of a Headteacher, Ruth Perry, who had committed suicide whilst awaiting publication of an inspection report. The headteacher's suicide brought to the forefront of public discourse concerns about Ofsted and its effects, particularly on senior leaders. This paper examines the findings of a recent English research project ent…
Sociology (28 works) · Political science (25 works) · Law (19 works) · Global Educational Policies and Reforms (18 works) · Pedagogy (18 works) · Psychology (16 works) · Law (13 works) · Economics (11 works) · Early Childhood Education and Development (9 works) · Gender Studies (9 works)