With almost daily reports of failings in school management, what can be done to improve educational outcomes for everyone?Pat Thomson takes on England’s muddled education system, highlighting failings caused by the actions of ministers in successive governments. While corrupt actions are taken by some, it is predominantly the corruption of the system that is at fault. She exposes fraudulent and unethical practices, including the skewing of the curriculum and manipulation of results...

Revision is often taken as a largely instrumental process which happens after the real work of writing is done – it is an unavoidable and tedious process. Refining by contrast is imaginative work, it requires craft, connoisseurship and courage, and builds knowledge about academic writing purposes and practices. Refining Your Academic Writing will help you complete your writing project and provides a reading, revising and rewriting repertoire that you can adapt and add to. It offer...

There's something for everyone in this collection of funny short stories. It's packed full of talking pigs, UFOs, gorillas, witches, mischievous house elves, flying postmen and lots more! Find out how Bozo the gorilla helps Jimmy deal with his lazy big brother, what Dinah Price does when she finds the three bears tucked up in her bed and what fate Agnethia Toadfax, trainee witch, has in store for Mr Smike the rude librarian . . .

Most teachers become heads for idealistic reasons, wanting to make a difference to the lives of children and young people. Yet serving heads suggest the job is getting harder, talking openly about stress and leaving the job. Many teachers now see headship as a risky business, and succession planning, while necessary, will not on its own be sufficient to attract the diverse range of applicants required to satisfactorily fill leadership positions. School Leadership: Heads on the Block

'A truly exceptional book.' - Michael W. Apple, University of Wisconsin, Madison'A gripping insight into the local struggles facing disadvantaged schools and a compelling account of the injustice of their place in the bigger picture.' - Professor Geoff Whitty, Director, Institute of Education, University of LondonSchools in disadvantaged areas are struggling in the current economic and political environment. Like schools everywhere they are being asked to do more with less,...

Pierre Bourdieu was one of the most important thinkers of the twentieth century. He argued for, and practiced, rigorous and reflexive scholarship, interrogating the inequities and injustices of modern societies. Through a lifetime’s explication of the ways in which schooling both produces and reproduces the status quo, Bourdieu offered a powerful critique and method of analysis of the history of schooling, and of contemporary educational polices and trends.Though frequently used in...

Schools are complex institutions. They do not easily reveal themselves to researchers who rely on only one or two methods. Understanding a school, its neighbourhood and its students requires a researcher with a more complex repertoire of verbal, statistical and visual research strategies.Place-Based Methods for Researching Schools shows how multiple methods can be used together to research schools, rather than dealing with decontextualised methods, one by one. Taking a nov...

‘Why study the arts at school?’ This book offers a fresh perspective on this question. Informed by rigorous research, the book argues that the arts help young people to develop key skills, knowledge and practices that support them to become both critical appreciative audiences and socially engaged cultural producers. Drawing on a three-year study in partnership with the Royal Shakespeare Company and Tate art museum, Schools and Cultural Citizenship sets out an ecological ...

Managing Your Research Project is a practical and accessible guide that will help researchers navigate the complexities of project management. This user-friendly resource offers valuable insights and tools for funded, commissioned, unfunded, and student research in academic settings.Instead of advocating for a single project management approach, the book provides a variety of options, empowering readers to develop a style that works best for them. Each chapter is packed wi...

There are a number of books which aim to help doctoral researchers write the PhD. This book offers something different - the scholarly detox. This is not a faddish alternative, it’s not extreme. It’s a moderate approach intended to gently interrupt old ways of doing things and establish new habits and orientations to writing the PhD.The book addresses the problems that most doctoral researchers experience at some time during their candidature – being unclear about their contributio...

It’s not easy getting published, but everyone has to do it. Writing for Peer Reviewed Journals presents an insider’s perspective on the secret business of academic publishing, making explicit many of the dilemmas and struggles faced by all writers, but rarely discussed. Its unique approach is theorised and practical. It offers a set of moves for writing a journal article that is structured and doable but also attends to the identity issues that manifest on the page and in...

Neoliberalism has been widely criticised because of its role in prioritising ‘free markets’ as the optimum way of solving problems and organising society. In the field of education, this leads to an emphasis on the knowledge economy that can reduce both persons and education to economic actors and be detrimental to wider social and ethical goals.Drawing on a range of international contexts across informal, adult, school and university settings, this book provides innovative example...