Commitments to inclusive education have been articulated in policy across the UK, in the context of increasingly inclusive rhetoric in education policy globally over recent years. This paper uses a critical policy analysis approach to understand the framing of inclusion within national legislation, policy documents and associated key resources…

This paper explores the complex landscape of alternative provision across the UK and its implications for school exclusion. Drawing on interviews with over 400 professionals, parents, and pupils in ten selected local authorities in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, we find marked differences in the scale and nature of provision. These…

The roles of early childhood educators in England have been marked, in recent times, by prescriptive occupational standards, surveillance, and responsibilisation. Over the last thirty years, early educators have been discursively positioned through workforce policy in multiple, competing, and everchanging ways. In addition, ideal professional…

Initially launched in 2013, researchED claims to be a 'grassroots' organisation which disseminates the best educational research to classroom practitioners. During the last 10 years, it has played a pivotal role in cementing the 'new science' of educational research as the primary route to educational effectiveness. ResearchED events are popular…

Unprecedented global temperatures have brought the question of how to teach sensitive issues of climate change to the fore. In this paper we suggest that a refocusing on adaptation productively shifts the debate to climate justice and practical solutions to building community resilience. The paper examines a practice-led project that sought to…

James Callaghan's speech at Ruskin College, Oxford in October 1976 is widely considered a pivotal moment in modern English educational policy. Whilst it is not our intention to challenge this fundamental point, the paper will critically interrogate some long-held assumptions about the motivation that led Callaghan to deliver his speech at Ruskin…

Recent policy developments in England, particularly since 2021, have resulted in increased regulation and marketisation of Initial Teacher Training (ITT)/Initial Teacher Education (ITE). Although the origins of these developments go back much further than 2021, the current context in which ITE operates in England is, arguably, both challenging and…

An education reform claimocracy is rule by assertion, and in this article we examine the claims made for the academisation and MATification of the provision of and access to school places in England. We examine the claimocracy at work in regard to the Conservative government white paper, "Opportunity for All. Strong Schools with Great…

The last 25 years have seen a dramatic shift in tuition fee policy in England. This paper uses Critical Discourse Analysis to understand the motivations behind policy setting, comparing the pivotal reviews undertaken by Dearing, Browne and Augar. It concludes that four themes may have influenced tuition fee policy making: national politics and…

System leadership continues to be constructed largely as a desirable, even normative, evolution of educational leadership, with critiques often focusing on implementation rather than principles. This belies its increasingly recognised role in processes of disintermediation, in which the 'middle tier' comprising local government is dismantled. In…

All education is political; the radical approach to Citizenship Education promotes social justice and critical active participation. In synthesizing a pedagogy of discomfort and the principles of subversive teaching, this is predicated on the notion that authority should be accountable, that people should be able and enabled to take decision…

In Anglophone countries, narratives of public schooling tend to emphasise generic hopes about schooling as central to the idea of a public good, including fostering community, delivering equality and protecting broad notions of democracy. However, as public systems become more open to privatised logics, these hopes sit alongside fears for the…

Brian Simon (1915-2002) was a leading advocate of comprehensive education in the second half of the twentieth century in Britain. In the 1980s, in the face of the ideological offensive from the New Right, he firmly stood by Marxist ideals and resolutely resisted policies of the right-wing leading to the 1988 Education Reform Act. Despite this…

The nearly 400 maintained nursery schools in England are schools for children aged 2-4 years. They hold a unique position in offering state-funded provision for this age group, outside of a primary school environment, and are disproportionately located in areas of disadvantage [EE. 2020. "Briefing Note: The Comprehensive Spending Review and…

Private supplementary tutoring, widely known as shadow education, has become a global phenomenon. It has a range of providers, including commercial companies, university students desiring extra pocket money, and regular school teachers who provide tutoring as a sideline activity. This paper focuses on the last category. Governments are commonly…