Twenty years ago this week – on Indian Republic Day, 26 January 2000 – I wandered into the slums behind the Charminar, in the Old City of Hyderabad, and my life changed. Building on my PhD at what is now the UCL Institute of Education, I had become an expert on private education. Twenty years... Continue Reading →
Promoting Democratic and Participatory Behaviours In Young Children
It is now thirty years since the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) was globally ratified by nearly two hundred States, recognising education as being a fundamental right. In 2005, The UN Committee clarified the practical application of Article 12 by saying that a child’s right to express their views should... Continue Reading →
Reflective Practice
Reflective practice and its challenges are my constant. Why is this? Supervision of doctoral students at Buckingham relies on the development of academic reflective practice and necessitates all of us to be research active and meaningfully reflective. To cut a clear path through the intellectual thinking around this process is very time intense and as... Continue Reading →
International Day of the Girl
Since 2012, October 11th has been marked as the International Day of the Girl. The day aims to highlight and address the needs and challenges girls face, while promoting girls' empowerment and the fulfilment of their human rights. This year’s theme was: GirlForce: Unscripted and Unstoppable Global charities working in the gender equality and... Continue Reading →
The Art of ‘Slow Teaching’
Back in 2002 the School of Education trained its first cohort of teachers. There were just 12 on the course. Sam Draper talks to one of those teachers - Judy Gracie, on going the distance and carving out a career in education. In this incredibly demanding profession, with its pressures to rise up the ladder... Continue Reading →
Guiding the Sage back to the Stage – Chris Parsons, Deputy Head (Academic) at Norwich Lower School examines what might be lost if teachers simply get out of the way and ‘facilitate’ learning.
Let’s talk about ‘The Teacher’. What exactly is the point of them…? “To teach!” some might hotly (or facetiously) retort. “To help learners learn!” some might worthily respond… The thing is, nothing else in nature or technology can learn like a human being. To be able to derive abstract ideas from spoken words and... Continue Reading →