Rebecca Morris

Durham University | DU · School of Education

Teacher shortages are influenced by a complicated interaction of factors. Most prior research does not consider such complexities, resulting in misleading interpretations of the problem and ineffective solutions. Findings from our multi-pronged research approach suggests that there is no shortage of people wanting to teach in England. Therefore, wi...

Understanding people’s perceptions of teaching as an occupation, and their motivation or otherwise to teach, can help identify which initiatives/policies are most promising in improving teacher recruitment. Previous studies have often sought only the views of teachers/teacher trainees to understand why people choose teaching as a career. Recruitmen...

Teacher shortages have long been a policy concern for many countries worldwide. Despite wide-ranging policy initiatives and billions of pounds spent addressing the issue, shortages are still being reported, especially in the secondary sector and for some subjects. This recurrent teacher supply “crisis” is complex, and has no one simple cause or set...

This paper describes an independently evaluated randomised controlled trial of a self-affirmation intervention, replicating earlier studies, mostly conducted in the US with ethnic minority students. Self-affirmation theory suggests that some stigmatised groups, such as those from ethnic minority or poor families, face stereotype threats which under...

This Special Issue of Education Sciences on the theme of Education Matters was commissioned in recognition of the important role that teachers play in the development of students’ learning and wider outcomes [...]

This paper presents the results of a large-scale survey of undergraduates in England, concerning their envisaged career choices and how they made them. This gives a more complete account of those who do and do not want to be teachers than usual in the existing literature based primarily on prospective/existing teacher accounts. The paper looks at t...

This paper presents an evaluation of “Literacy for Life” (LfL) – a whole-school literacy programme, implemented in five secondary schools in England. The aims of LfL were to improve literacy attainment and to promote positive attitudes to reading and writing. However, when compared to other schools, there is little or no evidence that being in a Lf...

Background: A raft of initiatives and reforms have been introduced in many countries to attract and recruit school teachers, many of which do not have a clear evidence base, so their effectiveness remains unclear. Prior research has been largely correlational in design. This paper describes a rigorous and comprehensive review of international evide...

This paper describes a systematic review of international research evidence identifying the most promising approaches to attracting and retaining teachers in hard-to-staff areas. Only empirical studies that employed a causal or suitable comparative design and had robust measurements of recruitment and retention outcomes were considered. Studies wer...

This paper presents the findings of a 1-year efficacy trial of Maths Counts (MC), an intensive, individualised programme delivered by trained teaching assistants. The programme was delivered 3 times a week over 10 weeks. The sample included 291 Year 3 to Year 6 pupils (age 7 to 11) from 35 primary schools in England. Pupils were individually random...

The aims of the report are to : ● Establish the ‘reach’ of the Principia education programme, in terms of the number of schools and number of young people who have taken part in the projects. ● Identify, as far as possible, patterns of participation in terms of phase of schooling, type of educational establishment and level of student disadvantage,...

This is a wide-ranging review of the evidence on effective teaching approaches for primary age children. It evaluates the evidence carefully, leading to summaries of what is known to work, what is not known to work, and what is known to be harmful. The book answers the questions: What are currently the most effective approaches for teaching primary...

In October 2015 the Department for Education (DfE) permitted a grammar school in Tonbridge, Kent, to open up an annexe in Sevenoaks, 10 miles away. Amidst claims that the annexe was essentially a new grammar school, the decision reignited an old debate about the value of academically-selective “grammar” schools in England. The intensity of feeling...

The Free Schools policy in England has led to the opening of a number of new autonomous state-funded schools. This article uses data from the Annual Schools Census to present the proportions of socioeconomically disadvantaged children attending the first three waves of these schools. It updates and builds on previous work that focused on the studen...

This paper presents the results of an analysis of the admissions criteria used by the first two waves of secondary Free Schools in England. The type of criteria and their ranked order is explored and their potential impact on the school composition is considered. The findings demonstrate the diversity of criteria being used by this new type of scho...