Blogs are invited from anyone across the LSRN network. They enable more extensive information and points of view to be expressed than is possible in the Newsletter although a link to your blog will be shared in the newsletter. Maximum length, around 750 words. It may be an opinion piece, case study, emerging thinking, a piece stemming from research being undertaken, a piece about being a researcher or practitioner researcher or PhD student, a book review, an event review, an article to offer practical ideas to other researchers.
Here are simple guidelines for submitting a blog.
November 2025
Driving to Success: Why Industry Collaboration Matters in Agricultural Education
Katie Court, a Lecturer in Agriculture at Coleg Sir Gâr in South West Wales explores the role of industry collaboration in curriculum design to find out from local farmers, employers and agri-business professionals what skills they’re looking for in new recruits.
September 2025
The sky is the Limit: Exploring Mature Students’ Perceptions of Growth Mindset
Nicky Abraham, College Sir Gâr, South Wales
As lecturer and Programme Lead for a foundation degree in Children, Young People and Society at an FE college (affiliated by UWTSD) in Wales, Nicky Abraham taught mature students returning to education. The study explored mature learners’ perceptions of growth mindset with a view to informing practice and potentially improving learning experiences
May 2025
Revealing the ‘hidden’ educators: findings from a recent study of the lives and work of FE-based teacher educators
Former LSRN convenor, Rachel Terry of the University of Huddersfield, summarises the main findings of a study she was involved in on teacher educators, funded by Gatsby. Read the blog.
LSRN National Conference 2025 Sparks Innovation in Further Education.
Joyce Chen, Chair of LSRN Convenors’ Gorup and Kerry Heathcote Deputy CEO of West Anglia College reflect on the LSRN conference held at their college in April. Reflections on the LSRN conference 2025
March 2025
Former LSRN convenor Rachel Terry, of the University of Huddersfield, was recently part of a study funded by the Gatsby Foundation to uncover the lives and work of FE-based teacher educators, with a view to better supporting them in their roles. This blog summarises the main findings, before concluding with some personal reflections.
September 2024
ARPCE conference report 2024
Eddie Playfair, Senior Policy Manager at the Association of Colleges, reflects on the 2024 conference of the Association for Research in Post-Compulsory Education. Read here.
March 2024
Boosting Well-Being Using Positive Psychology
Bryony Shaw from Richard Huish College explains how Positive Psychology Interventions, based on the scientific study of what make us thrive, can be embedded in education curriculums to boost student well-being and improve resilience. Read here.
January 2024
3rd LSRN Black Country Colleges Annual Conference – November 2023: A Celebration
Dr Adam Dwight (Lecturer in Education Studies & Professional Development and Learning Innovator) and Ray Truby (English Language Teacher & Learning Innovator). City of Wolverhampton College
This blog by participants in Black Country LSRN disucsses the experience of running a number of conferences and looks forwrd to the fourth one. Read here 3rd LSRN Black Country Colleges Annual Conference – November 2023: A Celebration
January 2024
Action is the Spark: my first week as Luminate’s Group Research Practitioner
Laura Kayes sets out the prospect and the priorities for her new role as Group Research Practitioner. She summarises her first week of navigation, hoping it will not only excite herself and Luminate, but also hold promise for the wider further education sector, where research has historically been lacking in the wider education landscape.
Read here: Action is the spark
November 2023
Participatory ESOL Taking Stock (PETS) report and podcast series
By Amy Jowett and Becky Winstanley
Thia blog is about a research project by English for Action (EFA) – a London based ESOL charity with a particular interest in developing Participatory ESOL in the UK. Three core researchers and long-time EFA collaborators were Dermot Bryers, Melanie Cooke (also Kings College London) and Becky Winstanley (also Tower Hamlets College). Read here: Participatory ESOL Taking Stock (PETS) report and podcast series /
September 2023
Using lesson observation in a high-stakes accountability system as part of the quality assurance and staff development process.
Who am I, and why do I care?
Chris Morris, FE lecturer, trade union representative and action researcher, takes you through his thoughts about why we carry out lesson observations and what we hope to achieve by them. I’m writing as an FE lecturer with over seven years of teaching and IT experience and someone who discovered a year ago that their active interest in improving the use of lesson observations was a piece of action research. Read online Using lesson observation
Archive
Click to see archive of blogs dating back to 2019
Learning and Skills Research Network 
