Implications of localism in educational policy on the aspirations of young people in Cornwall

The physical location of Cornwall, England impacts upon its social and economic development and is evident in the aspirations ascribed to and held by young people within the region. Schools have been set the task of raising aspirations, as low expectations are perceived to be a barrier to high attainment in schooling. We draw upon research in two Cornish secondary schools that attempted to raise aspirations through school change and by entering into the Academy schools programme. What we found was that their location was generally perceived as a disadvantage to aspiration. We suggest that within the current climate of localisation in educational policy it will be difficult for individual schools to scrutinise themselves and their practices. It will be difficult to ensure that they do not perpetuate poor social outcomes through entrenched beliefs about a link between physical isolation and social disadvantage

Home-to-school transport in contemporary schooling contexts: an irony in motion

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Democracy and schooling: The paradox of co‐operative schools in a neoliberal age?

From the first co-operative trust school at Reddish Vale in Manchester in 2006, the following decade would witness a remarkable growth of ‘co-operative schools’ in England, which at one point numbered over 850. This paper outlines the key development of democratic education by the co-operative schools network. It explains the approach to democracy and explores the way values were put into practice. At the heart of co-operativism lay a tension between engaging with technical everyday reforms and utopian transformative visions of an educational future. A new arena of debate and practice was established with considerable importance for our understanding of democratic education within the mainstream

Thinking about bus journeys to school: A playful approach to working through lived experiences with young travellers

Getting from home to school is an integral part of each day for young people. The school day starts and ends with a journey, whether this be by foot, on a bike, in a car or in larger scale private or public transport vehicles. For some young people and their families, this journey is easy and maybe even fun, for some it might be a nightmare. The journey to school can be a short hop or a long haul. Each individual has their own particular journey to school but what unites the individual student stories is a general lack of acknowledgement of these experiences by staff in the school they attend. Perhaps a reason for this is that the journey to school lies in a space between, a space between home and school. For staff, the school day begins when the students arrive on the school site, as this is when their responsibility begins. However, for students, the journey from home is integral to their school day, so it could be argued that for the young travellers their school day has begun before they reach the site, and it may not have started in a way that makes them ‘ready for learning’. In this piece, we are thinking about journeys to school by bus and more specifically, those journeys made by high school students; young people aged 11 to16 or 18 years old

A University for All Ages? An exploration of age-stereotyping and unconscious bias and its impact on the student experience.

Aims of project: To explore aspects of age stereotyping and age related unconscious bias on the multi-age site of Plymouth University campus. To investigate ways in which members of the PU community experience and express understandings of age. To explore how conceptions and expectations of age are shaped by the informal environment and practices, particularly those practices related to joining and becoming a member of the university community. Background/context to project: The University might be considered a space associated with ‘being’ a certain age, constructed not just with learning in mind but also a space where rites of passage from childhood to adulthood are enacted. Yet these assumptions can be problematic; unconscious age-related bias can result in unintentional discriminatory practice and missed opportunities. For those who do not fit into these aged expectations, there is the potential to feel out of place and excluded. The project explored and disrupted the notion of time and chronological time in particular. To do this we drew on the concepts of khronos, aion and kairis. Khronos is irreversible time; which has a strict order of before, now, after; it is measurable, it is the empirical material from which our narratives are often constructed. The alternative to this linear idea of time might be described as cyclical time, as in the rhythms of bodies and/or seasons. Aion refers to time as experience, duration, lived time and non-linear directionality; the continuous present of intimate intensity; it is the time of personal transformation. Kairos expresses time as opportunity, 'presencing' and manifestation, it is about timeliness and iterability (Honkanen, 2007; Kennedy and Kohan, 2017). These different concepts helped to guide our interpretations of the data and of expressions of time/age and agelessness.PedRI

Education for Sustainable Development: Towards the Sustainable University

We  planned  this  conference  in  anticipation  of  the  end  of  the  UN  Decade  of  Education  for  Sustainable   Development  (DESD),  and  the  start  of  the  next  phase  for  those  involved  in  ESD  here  and   internationally.    At  Plymouth  University,  2015  marks  ten  year  anniversary  since  cross-­‐institutional   work  on  sustainability  and  sustainability  education  was  spearheaded  by  the  founding  of  the  Centre  for   Sustainable  Futures  (CSF).    Coincidentally,  2015  also  marks  a  ten  years  since  the  influential  HEFCE   policy  document  ‘Sustainable  Development  in  Higher  Education’  was  released.   Holding  the  conference  in  January  –  named  after  the  Roman  god  of  doorways,  of  endings  and   beginnings  –  we  sought  to  look  at  some  of  what  has  been  achieved  in  sustainability  education  to  date   and  explore  its  prospects  as  we  move  forward.   Following  an  enthusiastic  response  to  the  call  for  abstracts,  the  conference  featured  a  diverse  range   of  research  papers,  posters,  and  roundtable  presentations  from  academics  and  practitioners  across   the  UK  and  beyond.  The  conference  was  arranged  around  three  overarching  themes:     ESD  Pedagogy:  Criticality,  Creativity,  and  Collaboration   What  are  the  teaching  and  learning  processes  that  enable  students  to  develop  their  own  capacity  to   think  critically  and  creatively  in  the  face  of  global  sustainability  challenges  and,  secondly,  to  act   collaboratively  in  ways  that  pursue  more  hopeful  and  sustainable  futures?   Innovative  Learning  Spaces  for  ESD   What  are  the  physical  environments  that  provide  opportunities  for  new  forms  of  sustainability   education  to  flourish?  What  lies  beyond  the  lecture  hall  that  is  conducive  to  student  learning  through   inquiry-­‐based,  active,  participatory,  interdisciplinary  and  experiential  methods?   Towards  the  Sustainable  University   What  are  effective  approaches  for  leading  institutional  change,  organisational  learning,  and  staff  CPD   towards  sustainability?  This  publication  focuses  on  the  last  theme  –  Towards  the  Sustainable  University.    The  previous   PedRIO  Occasional  Paper  8  looks  at  the  first  theme  ESD  Pedagogy:  Criticality,  Creativity,  and   Collaboration