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International Quality Icons: The Case of Mickey Mouse
Mickey Mouse has been an international cultural icon for over ninety years. His image has been the trademark of the Disney Corporation since 1928 and the translation of his name is an global byword for fun ( Микки Маус, 米老鼠 , ميكي ماوس ). Inexplicably, since the nineteen seventies, “Mickey Mouse” has also been a…
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Trends in Education, Effectiveness and Internationalization
It was snowing when we arrived. Thank goodness. Mid-February can be grey in Moscow and a fresh layer of snow refreshes both the Soviet-era apartment blocks and adds sparkle to the Orthodox domes above the Kremlin. You don’t want to travel to Russia without finding icicles, fur hats and clouds of condensed breath mixed with…
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Postgraduate Research Culture at SIoE: What does it look like?
There are more than a few debates about what precisely constitutes a ‘positive research culture’. PGR students Arwa Omar and Ruth Squire, 2nd and 1st year PHD students in SIoE respectively and student representatives for the Institutes PhD students, looked at the importance of research culture at SHU for postgraduates following discussions in their regular PG…
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Tackling the teacher recruitment crisis: Retention as recruitment
There is a crisis in teaching. The equation is fairly simple: Not enough people are coming into the profession to meet the growing number of pupils – and too many are leaving. The Department for Education’s (DfE) new Recruitment and Retention Strategy, published today (28 January 2019) faces the issue head on with clear priorities…
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Uniformed or Uninformed?
Before Christmas I watched the short BBC 2 series “School” (https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0brj5df ). Of course TV programmes are made to grab headlines and increase ratings, so it’s not surprising that most of what was shown depicted “problems”, but even so, I was routinely horrified in at least 4 out of the 6 episodes to see the…
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Are you being reasonable?
This Blog entry was inspired by the collaboration between Dave and Luke which resulted in some spectacularly positive student feedback, the majority of which came from autistic students – and much of which was spontaneous from the students themselves. Over coffee Dave and Luke discussed how the use of technology might not only go some…
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N is also for Naming
About a year ago I joined a local choir, and at my first session I was given a badge with my name on it – not just any old badge, but an individually crafted, hand-decorated small work of art. Everyone else had their own badge too. Having something with my name on that had been…
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Evidence-Informed Teacher Professional Development
Ahead of the Improving Standards of Teaching Through Continuing Professional Development forum taking place in London on Wednesday 3rd October, Dr Emily Perry, who will be chairing the event, shares her thoughts on how the ‘evidence-informed’ agenda, present across the education system, can be extended to also influence CPD models. In teaching we have an ongoing move towards…
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The ‘Low Steps’ of Social Mobility
We at Sheffield Hallam University are engaged in some great work with South Yorkshire Futures a region-wide initiative to improve rates of social mobility in the area through educational improvement. But, as both Market and Recruitment Lead for the Department of Education, Childhood and Inclusion, and a lecturer within the sociology of education, I paused to…
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The Real Honour
As a newly announced recipient of an OBE for ‘Services to Higher Education’ I am experiencing a strange mix of emotions and questions. The biggest emotion other than embarrassment is sadness that my mum died last year and won’t get to be there when I pick it up. The biggest question is to wonder why…
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