Close
The curriculum is what children experience every day in their early years settings and primary schools.
National curricula reflect society’s aspirations for their children and young people, and assessments is an important part of curricula.
Our research provides evidence on better ways to understand and create curriculum and assessment systems, at national levels in policy, and in schools and classrooms.
We work on curricula holistically but also in relation to curriculum areas such as language and literacy, creativity, and the arts. Children’s and teachers’ agency, through curriculum, pedagogy and assessment, are a vital focus for our work.
Our research on the curriculum includes:
- Curriculum design
- Rethinking Curriculum
- Creating Curricula: Aims, Knowledge and Control
- Breadth and balance: the essential elements of a recovery curriculum
- Watch Why is a Broad and Balanced Curriculum in Early Years Settings and Primary Schools Important?
- Knowledge, Curriculum, and Pedagogy: Universality and developmental difference across educational phases
- Watch: The Teaching Instinct: Effective pedagogy for young children in homes and schools
- Watch: What if we took play more seriously in the schools system?
- Language and literacy
- The Grammar and Writing Research Project
- Phonics and the teaching of reading
- Impact of the phonics screening check on Year 2
- How Writing Works: From the Invention of the Alphabet to the Rise of Social Media
- Experimental trials and ‘what works?’ in education: The case of grammar for writing
- Two-year-old and three-year-old children’s writing: the contradictions of children’s and adults’ conceptualisations
- The Good Writing Guide for Education Students
- Teaching English, Language and Literacy
- The Grammar and Writing Research Project
- Synthetic phonics and the teaching of reading.
- The Balancing Act: An evidence-based approach to teaching phonics, reading and writing
- Assessment
- Handbook of Curriculum, Pedagogy and Assessment
- Oral evidence given to the House of Commons Education Committee
- The Phonics Screening Check – why all the fuss?
- The datafication of primary and early years education
- Intervention culture, grouping and triage: high-stakes tests and practices of division in English primary schools
- Separating primary school children in preparation for SATs could be ‘damaging’.
- Creativity and the arts
- Why the arts should be at the heart of a recovery curriculum covered in Nursery World
- Creativity and Education: Comparing the national curricula of the states of the European Union with the United Kingdom
- All is not lost in the art of creative writing
- Learning About Culture
- Using picture books and illustration to improve pupil’s literacy
- Teachers working directly with professional writers, learning techniques they can apply in the classroom
- Using drama and storytelling to develop pupils’ communication skills
- Providing pupils with a meaningful purpose for writing and teaching specific writing techniques
- Educating young children through daily singing.
- Children’s and teachers’ agency
