Research

Research themes 

• Children’s agency
• Curriculum
• Social justice 

Children’s agency

Agency is defined as a socially situated capacity to act. This capacity is central to children’s development, and their ability to lead happy, successful lives. Evidence demonstrates that having a sense of agency and being able to exercise agency to shape learning experience contributes to children’s academic achievement and socio-emotional wellbeing. 

Our research on children’s agency aims to develop a better understanding of the impact of educational policies, practices, and environments on children’s agency and its role in helping children to succeed in school and beyond. 

Our research on children’s agency:

• Children’s Agency in the National Curriculum (CHANT)
• Download: Children’s Agency, Knowledge, and the Primary Curriculum (pdf)
• Children’s agency research summary for the Chartered College of Teaching’s Education Exchange
• Consultation for the Republic of Ireland National Council for Curriculum and Assessment
• What next for Curriculum?
• Leverhulme Trust: Children’s Agency and the National Curriculum
• Learner agency and the curriculum: a critical realist perspective
• Children’s agency: What is it, and what should be done?
• Living and Learning During a Pandemic
• Watch: Transforming young children’s education: towards agency and participation
• Watch: HHCP Conference 2021 Children’s Agency and the Curriculum.
• Watch: Children's agency animation 

Curriculum

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

• Consultation for the Republic of Ireland National Council for Curriculum and Assessment
• Watch: Children’s Agency and the Curriculum Conference
• What next for curriculum?
• Learner agency and the curriculum: a critical realist perspective. 

Social justice

Our research focuses on how pedagogy can be improved for all children but particularly those living in disadvantaged circumstances. HHCP research seeks to address inequalities and injustices that may prevent children’s progress in education, including those related to the disparities in experience arising from the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Our research on social justice:

• Food banks in early years settings
• Food banks in schools: exploring the impact on children’s learning
• Schools never shut: the extraordinary lengths teachers have been going to in supporting children during lockdown
• Evidence Submission to the House of Commons Education Committee on the impact of COVID-19 on education and children’s services
• Choosing welfare over worksheets and care over ‘catch-up’: teachers’ priorities during lockdown
• Supporting primary learning during the COVID-19 outbreak – IOE coffee break
• Why nursery schools are a secret weapon in the fight against inequality
• Why nursery schools are essential
• Westminster and Schools are Increasingly Worlds Apart
• Evidence Submission to the House of Lords Life Beyond Covid Inquiry
• Primary school testing will do more harm than good
• The use of the Phonics Screening Check in Year 2: The views of Year 2 teachers and headteachers (pdf) – covered by Nursery World and the Telegraph
• The role of teaching/classroom assistants during the COVID crisis
• ‘School choice’ policies are associated with increased separation of students by social class
• A frontline service? Nursery Schools as local community hubs in an era of austerity