Tag: schools

  • Faith Schools in England and Wales

    28.2% of schools are faith schools, most of them Christian.

  • Transgender Education Policies in England and Wales

    There is little specific formal guidance for schools and more than half trans pupils feel like they can’t be themselves in school.

  • Academies in England and Wales

    Academies were first introduced under New Labour in the year 2000 to drive up standards and improve equality of opportunity. However academies under the coalition and the new Tories have been more about creating a quasi market in education.

  • What is the Pupil Premium and how Effective is it?

    The Pupil Premium provides extra funding to schools to improve the educational outcomes of disadvantaged children in England and Wales. Both Local Education Authority Schools and Academies in England and Wales get the following Pupil Premium Funding (2022 to 2033 figures) £1385 (primary) or £985 per pupil who is eligible for Free School Meals (or…

  • Covid-19 and the Increase in Illegal Schools.

    Back in 2019 OFSTED estimated that around 6000 pupils were taught in unregistered, illegal schools in England and Wales. The most common type of unregistered schools offer ‘alternative provision’ – 28%, while 25% are general educational schools and 21% are religious (although the media tends to focus primarily on the later!). Since Covid-19 OFSTED have…

  • Researching in Classrooms

    The classic method for researching in classrooms is non-participant observation, the method used by OFSTED inspectors. However, there are other methods available to the researcher who wishes to conduct research on actual lessons within schools. Classrooms are closed environments with very clear rules of behaviour and typically containing around 20-30 students, one teacher and maybe…

  • Issues surrounding researching in schools

    There are tens of thousands of schools in the United Kingdom, which means that observational research which focuses on just one, or a handful of schools will be unrepresentative. This is also a  problem with any of the popular documentary programmes which focus on just one school – they are very interesting as they focus…

  • Are schools institutionally racist?

    Some education polices such as prevent seem to be racist, and most ethnic minority students would agree!

  • Will E-learning Platforms change Education?

    Big data enthusiasts argue that the greater data collection and analysis potential provided by e-learning platforms such as Khan Academy and Udacity provide much more immediate feedback to students about how they learn, and they thus predict a future in which schools and private data companies will work together in a new educational ecosystem… This…

  • Should girls be allowed to wear trousers in school?

    Most UK schools have introduced trousers for girls into their uniform codes in the last twenty years, but some continue to ban them and will send home any girl who turns up wearing trousers, at least according to Trousers for All, which campaigns to give girls the option to wear trousers as part of their school uniform.…