CSPACE Blog

This blog explores the challenges of, and possibilities around, decolonising educational spaces within the context of t...

This blog explores second career lecturers and vocational students need more support to navigate both work-based and H...

This blog focuses on the lessons learnt from the ‘Walking in Students’ Shoes’ collaborative research project and the w...

This blog opens up a dialogue on bell hooks’s call for ‘liberatory pedagogy’, using a collaborative community mapping ...

In this blog, I reflect on an example of critical pedagogy seminar discussions on the slave trade and the opportunities...

This blog is a short provocation examining bell hooks’ urgent call to remember the body in the classroom, exploring w...

An open letter to adult educators in times of social, political, and environmental crises.

A dystopian representation of the virtual classroom.

This blog introduces the first series of the Educators in Educational Governance (E-EDGE) blogs: exploring the profess...

A discussion of what ‘ differential ’ supervisory space might look and feel like.

An understanding of the Academic Staff Governors’ positioning within a governing body is paramount in maximising the k...

This blog explores the value of professional associations to the ‘hybrid’ and ‘hidden’ curriculum of docto...

How can educators develop their praxis of critical pedagogies in digital spaces? This blog reflects on the work o...

In this blog, Dr Andy Allen, Co-Researcher in the BELMAS project, discusses Post New Governance as a democratic altern...

Playful encounters. Switching-in to switching-off .

A brief account of some early reconnaissance underway on the history of Doctoral supervision.

Unbeknownst to each other, two academics discover they have much in common. Having published books that seem to speak ...

This blog discusses the rethinking of knowledge - rich classroom spaces.

This blog discusses a teacher's vision for teaching students in Higher Education.

What is the place of spirals in thinking about musical development?

Reimagining University Campus Tours: How might key principles of critical pedagogy achievably and creatively enhance ou...

Far from being an agent of “radical social change,” critical pedagogy is an obstacle to it.

This blog offers a brief summary of the lived experiences of teachers using adapted musical instruments within the...

How do we constructively transgress in our teaching when our focus is multicultural poetry, but we live in ...

Gary Poynton explores the concept of reimagining the classroom as an informal learning space outside of the instituti...

Learning, whilst typically through a vertical axis of master/apprentice, can also take place horizontally, between pe...

This piece considers what Education as the Practice of Freedom (hooks 1994) could mean and the forces and powers gener...

Using ideas based in critical pedagogy I discuss ways in which young children might be engaged in effective critical ...

This blog (written in a personal capacity) advocates an educational response to the crisis we face based on s...

A discussion on anti-oppressive and LGBTQ+ pedagogies and how it can be utilised to create a more inclusive and excit...

Having been asked to help organise the Centre for the Study and Practice of Culture in Education’s ( CSpace ) summer...

This blog reflects on the radical idea that we need to introduce media education for pre-school age children in Early ...

A critical analysis on the English curriculum at secondary level and how it is both constructed and produced leadin...

In collaborating with community governors who have experienced failed governance in an environment of special measur...

This article explores the role character education plays within education policy and its implementati...

This blog centres on my reflections on the concept of hybridity in relation to experiences of primary school teaching ...

This blog gives an overview of my EdD thesis ‘Young children’s bodies: multiple perspectives on the embodied experienc...

This blog reports on the findings from my PhD thesis ‘Reconceptualising professional learning and development through ...

This blog gives a summary of the research process and some of the key findings of the first phase of the Co-MAP project...

This blog offers a critique of the long-awaited media report recently published by The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB)....

This blog gives a brief conceptualisation of contemporary conductive education with the aid of a ‘posts’ conversation,...

This blog gives an overview of the transition of the Open School Doors Erasmus+ funded project into the recently launch...

This blog gives an overview of a new international creative research project led by Birmingham City University that ex...

A blog outlining photo-elicitation research on inclusive practice conducted with children and young people in schools i...

Children and young people re-visualising inclusion

A discussion of how the perpetuation of gender stereotypes throughout society, particularly in childhood, can have a ha...

A reflection on past experiences as a young person not in employment, education or training.

This article challenges the political catch up and loss narratives following long periods of school closures and home-...

This reflection examines intersections between independent school songs, those who wrote and taught them and the role o...

PhD student Lynn Holman-Fox reflects on her own music education experience, considering some of the barriers she faced ...

A reflection on coping with adult physical impairment.

This post discusses the importance of highlighting and tackling social and health inequalities before a child reaches ...

This post links the founding principles of the BBC with Adam Curtis’s latest documentary and its wider application to ...

Although it feels like a lifetime ago now due to Covid-19 restrictions - I used to have the privilege of visiting music...

In 2015, BCU developed a community of practice model for the professional development of doctoral supervisors. This mo...

Within the myriad of thoughts, emotions and perceptions around what behaviour management entails, through my own exper...

Student-staff collaboration in learning and teaching has been an influential movement in UK higher education (HE) parti...

Liam Maloy will present his new book: " Spinning the Child : Musical Constructions of Childhood through Records, Radio ...

The BCU Education journal magazine that will contain research based articles that can be used by teachers and easily r...

Considerations of how teacher assessment is (or is not) used in Primary schools to inform end of Primary Schools asses...

Conceptualising and planning a research project from scratch is a challenge. Applying for funding to support your idea...

This blog draws on the notion of threshold concepts focusing on the Key Stage 3 group composing context. Using video-r...

This blog post shares the moments of success I have found as an educator and doctoral student during the period of lock...

This blog listing is about my experiences as the module lead on Critical Perspective 2, a module on School of Educatio...

A PhD researcher shares her observations on the importance of considering tastes and preferences when delivering holid...

This blog explores the experience of an academic who spent a year writing fiction and highlights the ways in which both...

This article discusses a new project that aims to explore the experiences of children with SEND and their parents durin...

The purpose of this piece is to encourage readers to reflect on the source/s of their theory and to critique the need ...

Research informed teaching focuses on enhancing the knowledge of students through research, teaching students to develo...

CSPACE Blog

Talking with and listening to Black Muslims of Britain

What do we talk about when we talk about education?

Managing professional literacies in HE: transitioning from workplace literacies to vocationally orientated lecturing in HE

Igniting a collective ethics of care in our teaching and learning community: learning from the ‘Walking in Students’ Shoes’ project

Collaborative, Community Mapping with Young People as ‘Liberatory Pedagogy’

Pedagogical Hope: Decolonising Seminar Discussions on Slavery

Bodies remembered, bodies under siege: bell hooks’ legacy in an age of border violence

What now adult educators?

Dis-tance learning: A dystopian view of the virtual classroom

E-EDGE series: The Birmingham Project

If ‘[the classroom] remains the most radical space of possibility in the academy', then what possibilities are opened in supervisory space?

E-EDGE series: Governors and Communities of Practice

The value of professional associations to the ‘hybrid’ and ‘hidden’ curriculum of doctoral education

Critical Pedagogy, digital teaching and learning in a radically changing landscape

E-EDGE series: Post New Governance as democratic alternative

Playful encounters. Switching-in to switching-off.

The history of Doctoral supervision: some early reconnaissance

Troubling academic writing in the academy: a conversation about more than writing

How can I hear if I am not listening?

Students at University: my teaching vision and approach

Spirals and all that

Reimagining University Campus Tours

bell hooks and the Exhaustion of Critical Pedagogy

Making Access to Whole Class Ensemble Teaching and Learning Inclusive

What is Missing: Actualization

Education through sub-culture: reconceptualising the ‘classroom’

Peers supporting the development of peers in Initial Teacher Education: Is professional dialogue an effective approach?

Education is Change

Constructing effective critical dialogue through group work in a Key Stage One classroom

Education, Social Justice and Survival in a Time of Crisis

Queer Pedagogy

Reflection and dialogue in embracing change: from primary teacher to academic researcher

Why We Need Media Education in the Early Years

How a ‘one size fits all’ approach in secondary English does not work!

Empowering community governor decision-making in school improvement

Character Education and Its Place in 21st Century Society?

'Becoming Hybrid': Reflections on Teaching during the COVID-19 Pandemic

‘You’re sitting the smartest, well done’: Young children’s embodied experiences of starting school in England.

Reconceptualising professional learning and development through a Froebelian lens

“We became an emergency service”: school leaders reflecting on their experiences during the Covid-19 pandemic

Reporting the reporters

A match made in the Academy – When Conductive Education met the ‘Posts’

Open School Doors transitions to Co-MAP

International Co-MAP project launches with Birmingham Schools of Sanctuary

Children and young people re-visualising inclusion

Gender stereotypes in childhood: what’s the harm?

Mystery tour for a so-called “NEET”

'The political catch-up': learning from parents' experiences of home-schooling children with SEND

Tacet: Female Directors of Music in UK Independent School History.

Girls don't do this!

A reflection on coping with adult physical impairment

All Born Equal? Tackling social inequalities from birth to five to safeguard lifelong wellbeing

Inform, Educate, Entertain: The BBC at the end of history

Visiting Manor Church of England Academy: thoughts about music technology and gender

From practitioner inquiry on doctoral supervision into an internally funded creative research project

4:1 gets the job done-right?

Co-developing students and staff classroom consciousness – some key ingredients

Spinning the child: musical constructions of childhood through records, radio and television

Coming soon – the BCU School of Education journal magazine!

The place of teacher assessment in Primary School statutory testing

The Research Garden: finding your way through the undergrowth and having the courage to try

Threshold concepts and formative assessment within Key Stage 3 group composing

Moments of Light: Loss, Work and Research

Critical Perspective 2: Formative Presentations

Holiday food programmes and food insecurity prevention- recommendations for delivery.

Crossing boundaries: reflections on being an academic and a writer of fiction

Home schooling; Children; Families; School; Special Educational Needs and Disabilities

Lockdown in Theory

Research Informed Teaching