Professor Robert Plomin is a researcher at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London. In 2018 he published a book, Blueprint, which reveals his research findings. He looked at the genes and life-histories of 10,000 twin pairs born 1994-6, some of whom were identical, some not, some brought up by the same... Continue Reading →
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 →
The biggest problem in our schools is the low level of education reached by about 30% of children – worse than in other rich countries. Many of them (but far from all) are from poorer homes. These children are behind by the age of 4 and few catch up. In England, the latest data shows... Continue Reading →
Ahead of the Universities Council for the Education of Teachers (UCET) conference in early November and the imminent election, an article was published in the TES which has caused much debate. According to the article (see link at bottom of blog) the University sector are proposing that all UK state-school teachers should be qualified to... Continue Reading →
In September 2019 John Dunford published his malpractice in exams report for JCQ (the Joint Council for Qualifications). JCQ is in fact run by the exam boards, but then they are responsible for detecting and preventing malpractice. In 2018 there were 2735 penalties for malpractice – a small number given that 11.5 million certificates were... Continue Reading →
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 →
A long time ago in a galaxy far far away... (well, a comprehensive school in Essex around 2006) I was asked if a new maths teacher could observe my lesson. He was not long from the Caribbean and was struggling with behaviour management. An important point to note is that this was June and he... Continue Reading →
British teenagers have lower IQs than 30 years ago, reversing the ‘Flynn effect’, seeing scores rise in 20th century. Professor Flynn believes the drop is due to youth culture stagnating and dumbing down. Is a decline in speaking related? Children find face-to-face conversation ‘too much effort’, preferring to watch YouTube than meet friends or pursue... Continue Reading →
Professor Barnaby Lenon, Dean of Education, looks at the impact of class sizes. Class sizes in the UK are quite large – an average of 25 at primary schools compared to an OECD average of 21. There are mixed opinions amongst researchers about the merits of smaller class sizes. PISA research suggested that small class... Continue Reading →
