Background: Adults with learning disabilities often face barriers when accessing relationships and can require additional support. The Personal Relationship Advisory Group (PRAG) is a provision in a community learning disability service in North England, which offers multidisciplinary advice regarding relationship concerns. The current project…

There is a growing consensus that existing arrangements for policy making in education are far from optimal. This paper is about policy making and the roles of--and relationships between--elected officials, civil servants and academics in the making of policy. It aims to open up a conversation about new ways of making education policy that make…

This paper is about English parents' experiences of making decisions about special school placements in the national context of rising special school placements and more parental choice and school diversity. The aim of this research was to investigate whether the current legislative focus on optimising parent choice operates as intended from the…

This study used a mixed methods approach to determine mainstream teachers' attitudes towards inclusion of children with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties (SEBD) considering the influence of age, experience, qualifications and the support they receive. The study further considered whether there was a link between attitudes and…

This conversation was prompted by a blog entry posted by Tim Dracup in January 2012. The subsequent e-exchange between Tim and Barry Hymer explored a number of issues central to the nature and aetiology of giftedness, confronting these issues from contrasting ontological and epistemological stances. As a result, their conversation includes…

As education in England emerges from a major curriculum review (DfE 2013), the next few years will see significant changes in what is taught in schools and how this is assessed. As a core subject, under the current proposals, all students, from the beginning of primary school until age 16, will study science in some detail. Biology is an exciting,…

This commentary addresses the analysis in Persson's (2012a) article. According to the authors, the agenda for change amongst scholars has four productive proposals. These are: (1) that scholars should broaden their disciplinary outlook beyond psychology and education; (2) that they should eschew policy borrowing; (3) that they should clarify, for…

The Lingfield review promises a major shake-up of professionalism in the further education (FE) sector. As the dust settles and ministers consider which parts of his vision to take forward and how, the journal staff ask a range of voices from across the sector for their thoughts on the emerging shape of professionalism in FE. These contributors…

This article uses young people's responses to a newspaper cartoon as a way of exploring the concept of multimodal literacy. The discussion draws on data from a study which aimed to elicit the geopolitical views of 16-19-year-olds in a multi-ethnic British city by using cartoons as a way of encouraging them to talk about their thoughts and feelings…

This article examines School Direct, a model of initial teacher education (ITE) in England, recently introduced by the coalition government and based on a paradigm of teaching as a craft to be learned as an apprenticeship, significantly reducing and in some cases removing the influence of higher education. The history of the move away from…

There is much to welcome in Doug Richard's independent report on the future of apprenticeships. The Richard review offers proposals for redefining and improving the quality of apprenticeships, and for focusing them more on the needs of employers. But will the proposals work, if adopted, and what will be the impact on adults? For this article, the…

The "Does Religious Education work?" project is part of the Religion and Society programme funded by two major research councils in the UK. It sets out to track the trajectory of Religious Education (RE) in secondary schools in the UK from the aims and intentions represented in policy through its enactment in classroom practice to the…

Describes the state of Summerhill following the death of its former director, A.S. Neill, in 1973 and raises several questions about its operating procedures. (SS)

Sixteen year old James Coster talks about being black in England. He presents reasons for the necessity of the racial separatism that he advocates. (GC)