Human superpowers: Talking in class

The spoken word wields immense power. Everyday conversation is the basis of human relationships: communication underpins collaboration, the engine that facilitated the success of our species...

Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better (Beckett, 1983): GCSE English students’ relationship with failure

The pressure to ‘fail better’ weighs heavy in GCSE English resit classrooms, echoing Samuel Beckett’s famous words from Worstward Ho. However, this oft-repeated mantra, stripped of its...

An ideological wolf lurking in the metaphorical sheep’s clothing? The importance of metaphor analysis in English education

In the current era of regulation and regimentation, English teachers’ sense of professionalism is constrained by their ‘policy’ identities (Ball, 2003). Their sense of subject exists within...

‘Satellite colleges’: Overseas branches of British independent schools as a growing field of research

The international school sector has seen significant growth in recent years, with the UK-based International Schools Consultancy reporting that there are 13,614 English-medium schools around the...

Boundary crossings with artists, teachers and children: Integrating creative pedagogies for young people’s wellbeing

BERA Conference 2023

Global organisations (OECD, 2018) highlight the need for renewed focus on creativity and wellbeing in education. While Wales and Scotland have innovated their curriculum to reflect a stronger...

Editorial: Doing cynefin: Exploring ideas on belonging, connectedness and community in the Curriculum for Wales

Wales is a small country that is distinctive in its landscape, culture and language. This gives the notion of place a particular resonance in Wales and reinforces the significance of local...

Cynefin and Wales: The key to the future of language and culture / Cynefin a Chymru: Yr allwedd i ddyfodol iaith a diwylliant

Cynefin can be interpreted in many ways. This blog post explores our understanding of cynefin as permeating across government policy, national institutions and local communities, filtering through...

Do I finally feel a sense of cynefin?

The Curriculum for Wales defines cynefin as ‘the place where we belong, where the people and landscape around us are familiar, and the sights and sounds are reassuringly recognisable’. My...

Cynefin: A special place within every learner’s heart / Cynefin  – lle arbennig tu fewn i galon pob dysgwr yng Nghymru

In this blog post I explain the struggle to have one word – cynefin – accepted into the Curriculum for Wales. I was lucky enough to be involved in writing the new curriculum and, as a former...

The impact of poverty on education, community and cynefin

Education plays an important role in the Curriculum for Wales, developing the relationship of children and young people to their community, which is captured in the Welsh word ‘cynefin’...

Doing cynefin: Exploring ideas on belonging, connectedness and community in the Curriculum for Wales

Wales is a small country that is distinctive in its landscape, culture and language. This gives the notion of place a particular resonance in Wales and reinforces the significance of local...

Cynefin and the discourse of inspection

Cynefin is a Welsh term that connotes a sense of belonging, of being rooted in a time and space that is nurturing and authentic. As a concept, it has a resonance in any educative endeavour, for we...