Research
Research in the Department of Curriculum, Pedagogy and Assessment (CPA).
Research projects
Current projects
We have an exciting research portfolio of projects, including:
- Between-class attainment grouping and educational inequality
- Branching Out: Tackling mental health inequalities in schools with Community Artscapers
- Broadening Secondary School Science 2018-2021
- COVID-19: Trainee TEACHers’ challenges and barriers to mental health and WELLbeing support
- Eco-Capabilities: Supporting children’s wellbeing through participatory art in nature
- Early career support: pilot evaluation
- Educational technologies in mathematics education
- Grassroots Evaluation
- International School Partnerships
- Low attainment in mathematics: an investigation of Year 9 students in England
- Minority ethnic PGCE student teachers’ racialised experiences while learning to teach and the implications for retention
- More than ‘mixed-attainment good, ability grouping bad’: The perspectives of trainee teachers towards grouping in the primary classroom
- Programme for International Student Assessment 2025 (PISA 2025)
- Raising Standards in Holocaust Education
- Responding to misinformation, disinformation and conspiracy theories in the classroom
- Retention of Teachers from Minority Ethnic Groups in Disadvantaged Schools
- SMART spaces evaluation
- Talking about ChatGPT: exploring secondary school pupils’ perspectives of Large Language Models
- Teachers and Citizenship Knowledge (TACK)
- The Student Grouping Study: Investigating the impact of setting and mixed-attainment grouping
- Understandings of social justice in secondary science education among ITE students and their university tutors
- Value-added measures in post-16 settings
- Visions of artificial intelligence, biometrics and digital surveillance in schools
Completed projects
Team: Dr Mary Richardson, Professor Sandra Leaton Gray (Project Leads); Naomi Care: Assessment MicroAnalytics Limited, Dr Rose Clesham - Pearson PTE Academic, Dr Bryan Maddox - Assessment MicroAnalytics Limited (Collaborators)
Team: Professor Sandra Leaton Gray (Principal Investigator); Dr Jane Perryman, Professor Eleanore Hargreaves, Dr Katya Saville, Professor Jennie Golding, Dr Lauren Hammond, Dr Beate Hellawell, Dr Helen Lawson, Dr Emma Jones, Dr Jie Liu, Professor Michael Reiss (Co-Investigators).
Reports and publications
- Moving Up: Starting Secondary school during the Covid-19 Pandemic (student flyer)
- Moving Up: Secondary school transition processes during the COVID-19 pandemic
- Starting secondary school in 2020 - Student Guide
- Starting secondary school in 2020 - Teacher Guide
Blog and articles
- Moving Up: Lessons from Researching Transitions During a Global Pandemic (Transformative Change: Educational and Life Transitions) - Dr Emma Jones and Dr Katya Saville.
- Moving up to secondary school during a pandemic is difficult. Here are some ways for teachers to help (IOE blog) - Sandra Leaton Gray and Jane Perryman.
Team: Professor Nicola Walshe, Dr Kris De Meyer (Co-leaders); Dr Alison Kitson, Dr Lucy Hubble-Rose, Sarah Sharp (Researchers).
Special interest groups
- Mathematics Education SIG
- Science Education SIG - for more info contact Amanda McCrory at a.mccrory@ucl.ac.uk
- Religious Education SIG - for more info contact: Alexis Stones at a.stones@ucl.ac.uk
Case studies
Rethinking mathematics education: why digital technologies deserve a place in your classroom
How we teach maths needs to evolve. A professional development course trains teachers to use digital technologies critically, reshaping how students encounter, explore, and make sense of mathematics.
29 Jan 2026
Promoting gender equality through sexuality education with primary-aged children in China
How UCL research is listening to children's voices and perspectives to enhance educational design around gender equality, inclusion and diversity in the Chinese context.
05 Aug 2024
UCL and British Council Iraq working together for better climate change and sustainability education
UCL’s Centre for Climate Change and Sustainability Education partnered with British Council Iraq to enhance Iraqi climate change and sustainability education.
25 Mar 2024
Further information
For further details about our researchers, publications, activities, groups and themes:
- Contact Professor Eleanore Hargreaves
- Visit UCL Profiles
Contact us
UCL Institute of Education
University College London
20 Bedford Way
London WC1H 0AL
