Young children encounter a diverse range of written and multimodal texts in their play and everyday lives. Prior to formal education, children may not be considered 'readers' or 'writers' in the conventional sense, yet nonetheless, they engage creatively and agentively in everyday literacies. However, little is known about the motives and…

In recent years, music education has seen a decline in the number of students choosing to continue their studies at Key Stage 4 (14- to 16-year-old students) and choose music as a GCSE option in England. Whilst the English Baccalaureate (EBacc), a school performance measure which excludes the arts, has come under much scrutiny as to its impact on…

Research has shown that e-learning games do not have the same level of appeal to girls, as they do to boys; particularly in the crucial 11-14 age group. In the United Kingdom, this is typically when they start to make subject choices that impact their future studies and careers. Given the shortage of females who choose computer science as a…

This study responds to calls for more research on motivations for learning languages other than English (LOTEs) in the new era dominated by global English. In particular, it focuses on the role of societal contextual factors surrounding the status of English and the status of the LOTE as an L2/L3, as factors which may offer a more nuanced…

In considering how to bring joy back to education and the curriculum in England, I argue that it is also necessary to bring the joy of teaching back to classroom practitioners. A fundamental contribution to this may be leadership typologies employed by schools' senior leadership. As an experienced secondary English teacher, over the last 20 years…

One of the aims of primary education, as suggested by the Cambridge Primary Review, should be, 'Exploring, knowing, understanding and making sense'. It should give the children 'the opportunity to encounter, explore and engage with the wealth of human experience and the different ways through which humans make sense of the world and act upon it'.…

This research sits within the wider field of emergent research considering how foreign nationals experience ESOL education in England, exploring how these particular experiences are understood through a gendered lens. It identifies how women from different ethnicities have varied experiences and opinions on equal access to ESOL provision. In…

This article brings a novel perspective to the relationship between the physical dimensions of Home Learning Environments (HLE) and young people's learning motivations during COVID-19 pandemic in UK. The architectural/physical focus of this investigation helps orient the reader to the literature/expertise I draw on. Based on 28 young people (16-18…

This paper reports on an intervention study conducted with the A level students whom I teach at a sixth form college in the north-west of England. The study aimed to survey the students' perceptions of the purposes of history education, and to broaden their understanding of the debate. The study drew upon data from 82 online forum posts from 41…

Nine English primary schools piloted homework tasks that utilised mathematical problems set in "everyday" contexts to generate specific forms of parental involvement in children's learning and, as a result, make mathematics homework enjoyable. Homework is pedagogically and socioculturally significant because of the effect it has on…

An external focus of attention and autonomy support are identified as key factors to optimize motor learning; however, research in children is limited. Moreover, research has failed to examine these factors in ecologically valid motor learning settings, like physical education. Therefore, the present study examined the effects of external focus of…

In this opinion piece we problematise foreign language (FL) learning curricula which are rigidly based on carefully sequenced input and constrained learning opportunities. Whilst an important component in language learning, language knowledge constitutes more than phonics vocabulary and grammar. Our stance is premised on the understanding that,…

Current research suggests that student engagement with academic schoolwork in secondary school classrooms is often insufficient. This issue is of relevance because student engagement is a prerequisite for acquiring knowledge and skills and is also a mediator of achievement and important life outcomes. In response to this, the present study…

With the UK entering its fourth decade of this crisis with no end in sight, it is timely to ask how current policy directions for language learning beyond the compulsory phase (currently age 14 in all 4 UK nations) align with learners' psychological needs in relation to language learning. After a review of these psychological needs within…

Background: The marketization of higher education (HE), which positions students as consumers and academics as service providers, may adversely affect students' motivation for learning and academics' motivation for teaching. According to self-determination theory (SDT), high-quality forms of motivation are achieved when individuals experience…