England has a 'pre-qualification' system of higher education admissions, where applications and offers are made to young people before exam results are received. While in most cases offers are conditional on achieving a grade target in A Level exams, recent years have seen an exponential growth in 'unconditional offers', where the offer of a place…

How do early years practitioners construct what it means to be professional? How do they perceive the relationship between Froebelian theory and practice, if at all? What value do they attach to early years qualifications? This paper explores these questions drawing on data from thirty-three interviews with early years practitioners working in six…

Continuing to study mathematics throughout schooling is considered important in most developed countries, where mathematics is incorporated within the curriculum until school-leaving age. By comparison, in England, relatively few post-16 (upper secondary) students study mathematics once it becomes optional. Core Maths qualifications, introduced in…

Recent vocational education and training (VET) reforms in many countries have focused on reducing the number of VET qualifications available and restructuring qualifications so that they better meet the needs of working life. This literature review provides examples of how VET qualifications have been rationalised in various countries and briefly…

This original study presents findings from a study of members of the first cohort of legal degree apprentices. Introduced in the UK in 2016, legal degree apprenticeships (LAs) remove uncertainty towards legal qualification in an otherwise competitive graduate recruitment environment and could help to increase social mobility into the professions.…

This paper looks at the flexibilisation of teachers' employment relations in England in the context of an accelerated deregulation of work and employment conditions and of educational provision. It brings to light a contrasted picture, where external flexibilisation, through the recruitment of unqualified teachers, seems to be contained by a…

Music Education is changing rapidly worldwide. What effective and promising practices in music teaching and learning are available and can be cross-culturally applied? Using Finland as a case study, this exploratory research highlights promising current endeavors in primary and secondary school music education. In light of these undertakings, data…

The digitalisation and datafication of education has raised profound questions about the changing role of teachers' educational expertise and agency, as automated processes, data-driven analytics and accountability regimes produce new forms of knowledge and governance. Increasingly, research is paying greater attention to the significant role of…

This paper explores the current provisiom and roles of school counsellors in England's schools. Government interventions are discussed and the ongoing problems with the deteriorating mental health of children and adolescents, caused by social pressures, and then the Covid 19 pandemic, addressed. The numbers of counsellors available has risen, but…

Much has been written about the sustained attempts by successive governments to professionalise the early years sector over the past 20 years in England. A feature of these policy interventions has been to focus on creating a graduate workforce to improve academic outcomes for young children. In this article, the authors draw on data from their…

Given the evolving and diverse nature of post-16 computing curricula within England, this papers' primary objective was to identify the factors which influence the decision-making processes for education providers when choosing computing curricula. As a main provider of the vast array of post-16 qualifications, and due to their neglect both…

Purpose: This paper reviews changing government policy on adult education in England over the past 20 years and the funding regimes affecting adult and community learning and union-led learning, which play a major role in learning opportunities for socially excluded adults. Design/methodology/approach: A review and analysis of extant literature,…

Understanding the role of higher education in a system of high participation is becoming more important to providers and policymakers internationally. In this system, whereby increasingly higher education is taking place in vocational institutions, there has been renewed focus on the distinct nature of this provision, and the benefits it may hold…

This article discusses concerns raised by the Office for Students (OfS) and other policy actors regarding perceived grade inflation in undergraduate degree classifications in England. I employ a desert-based justice philosophical framework to argue that the criticisms made by the OfS can be understood in light of the position that degree…

A-level music, a qualification taken most often in English and Welsh school contexts around the age of 18, has been a long-standing feature of the musical training of many musicians. Historically bound up with Western European Art Music, the qualification has somewhat broadened its horizons in recent times, though with mixed success in opening up…