Education Research Seminar – Thursday 8 February
The Education Research Centre and School of Education present:
‘The Datafication of Primary and Early Years Education’
With Dr Alice Bradbury and Dr Guy Roberts-Holmes, Senior Lecturers, UCL Institute of Education
Thursday 8 February 2018
Download slides from the talk as a pdf here:
The Datafication of Primary and Early Years Education Presentation
You can also re-watch the presentation:
Dr Alice Bradbury and Dr Guy Roberts-Holmes will examine the growing dominance of data in schools and early childhood education settings. In this seminar they will critique policy priorities which facilitate and demand the use of attainment data, within a neoliberal education system which is already heavily focused on assessment and accountability. They will explore how constant surveillance of data has become an important part of making teachers’ work visible within systems which are both disciplinary and controlling, while often reducing the complexity of children’s learning to single numbers.
Dr Alice Bradbury is a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in the Centre for Sociology of Education and Equity at UCL Institute of Education. She has a background in primary education and specialises in research in early years and primary schools, with a particular focus on issues of assessment and the impact on classroom practices and social inequalities. Her book Understanding Early Years Inequality (2013) explored the impact of the EYFS Profile on teachers and pupils, and she has also researched the introduction of Phonics Screening Check and the introduction of Baseline Assessment, working with the ATL and NUT in a BERA Award-winning project.
Dr Guy Roberts-Holmes is a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in the Centre for Early Years and Primary Education Pedagogy at UCL Institute of Education. His recent research has focused upon the pedagogical effects of the datafication, surveillance and hyper-governance of early years and primary assessments. He has researched the introduction of the revised EYFS (DfE, 2012), the Introduction of the Reception Baseline Assessment (NUT and ATL, 2015) which won the BERA Impact Award (2016). He has recently researched Ability Labelling in the Early Years and KS1 (NEU, 2017). He is currently researching the impacts of School’s MHFA (Mental Health First Aid) teacher training (MHFA, 2017-2018).