Physical education can be a subject that students find challenging when they are given little autonomy. This article explores two high school case studies, in the UK and Australia respectively, where students were given a great deal of choice over their learning and assessment journeys. In the UK case study, a Sport England survey was used with…

Supporting children to successfully transition from primary to secondary school is of utmost importance for several reasons, including to prevent future emotional and behavioural problems. Level Up is a novel, UK-based intervention consisting of five online group sessions, straddling the summer holidays, and providing at-risk children and their…

This paper explores the ways in which collaborative action research can facilitate the development of inclusive practices and thinking in schools. The paper uses examples from a study that involved three countries and eight secondary schools to illustrate how the process of collaborative action research promoted inclusive thinking and practices.…

Medical schools worldwide undertake widening access (WA) initiatives (e.g. pipeline, outreach and academic enrichment programmes) to support pupils from high schools which do not traditionally send high numbers of applicants to medicine. UK literature indicates that pupils in these schools feel that their teachers are ill-equipped, cautious or…

This paper recounts the authors' journey of changing practice from teaching adult literacy to helping other teachers by creating digital and printed learning resources and tutor training materials to support a foundational literacy program designed to help those who teach English speaking adults to read and write.

Involving young people in the co-production of whole-school wellbeing strategies is aligned with the United Nations rights of the child and current UK legislation. This exploratory participatory action research (PAR) project aimed to facilitate teacher-student collaboration in one high school to develop whole-school practice with a focus on…

The purpose of this review is to expand understanding of the ways culturally, ethnically, and racially diverse youth have begun to reimagine urban and rural spaces using digital storytelling and photovoice, two methods that often fall under the broad field of youth participatory action research. To explain the conditions under which these methods…

This study explores the views of children and young people who have experienced school exclusion and placement in alternative educational provision regarding which factors supported their reintegration into mainstream schools. Nine primary and secondary pupils participated, aged between 10-16 years. The study uses Q methodology and is emancipatory…

I explore a series of incidents in my English classroom, which occurred while I was preparing my students for their high-stakes GCSE English Language exam ('Paper 2: Writers' viewpoints and perspectives'). I thereby attempt to confront some of my own failings and biases with regard to non-fiction and the teaching of persuasive writing in…

This paper is firmly grounded in the position that engaging with students' voices in schools is central to the development of inclusive practices. It explores the tensions that can be created when efforts are made to engage with students' voices in relation to their experiences of learning and teaching. An example from a three-year research and…

Pupil voice is an emerging force for change and improvement in many UK schools, but what is not fully understood is how best to access pupil voice within the specific context of secondary mathematics departments. This paper presents a research project designed to use pupils as co-researchers in increasing knowledge about how to improve learning in…

In this piece Peter Kent, headteacher of Lawrence Sheriff School in Rugby in the UK, reflects upon the role of the student voice in selecting and recruiting new teaching staff. Contextualised by some recent unsympathetic reporting in the UK media, Peter explains why for their school community, using the student voice to inform teacher recruitment…

This volume contains a collection of selected papers submitted to the 19th Annual International Conference of the Bulgarian Comparative Education Society (BCES) held in June 2021. The 19th BCES Conference theme is "New Challenges to Education: Lessons from around the World." The book includes 40 papers written by 66 authors from 15…

Learning mentoring programmes can be effective tools for increasing social, personal and educational development for young people. This article explores the views of girl mentees who experienced difficulty managing their mentoring programme within their school. Mentoring can be employed in different ways with different pupils to help the overall…

The principle of "pupil voice" has attained a high profile over the past decade and its key principles of encouraging pupil consultation and participation are evident in official policy and guidance in many countries around the world. While there has been official endorsement of the notions that pupils have a right to voice their…