Free hard copy publications

Looking for thought provoking input to a conference or event?

Due to limited storage space in our offices we wish to make available a number of hard copy publications. These can be ordered for free by This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it . Please include your name and full postal address, together with the titles of the publications you wish to order in the email.

Please note that these publications are available on a first come, first served basis and the minimum order for each publication you wish to receive is 10. This offer applies to deliveries to UK addresses only.

The following publications are available via this route;

A D&R System for Education

Written by former Demos Director, Tom Bentley together with Sarah Gillinson, 'A D&R System for Education' makes a number of recommendations for the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) and the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS) and also for the government's new National Council for Educational Excellence, which the Prime Minister himself will be chairing.

This publication draws on what we know about innovation and research within education and in sectors like healthcare, information technology and pharmaceuticals. It also examines what we are learning about the importance of users and collaborative development in generating and spreading innovation in other sectors from manufacturing to social care. In effect, this signals a shift from Research and Development (R&D) to Development and Research (D&R) and the publication calls for greater support for the involvement of teachers and school leaders in this process.

You can view an electronic copy here prior to ordering.

Systems Thinkers in Action: moving beyond the standards plateau

Michael Fullan puts foward an argument for system-wide change. His argument is simple: if a system is striving for both 'high equity and excellence' then policy and practice have to focus on system improvement. This means that a school head has to be almost as concerned about the success of other schools as he or she is about their own school. Sustained improvement of schools is not possible unless the whole system is moving forward. And even more than that: they need to make sense not just of their own reality and work, but to reconceive the system at the same time. .

You can view an electronic copy here prior to ordering.

Real decision making? School councils in action

The Innovation Unit funded a project to produce materials for primary schools to set up and run school councils. This project was part of The Innovation Unit's programme of work on personalising learning. Following the take-up of these materials Professor Geoff Whitty and his team at the Institute of Education to undertake a general research project about school councils in both primary and secondary schools to inform the updating of the guidance for schools on pupil participation in decision making.

You can view an electronic copy here prior to ordering.

Harnessing knowledge to practice: accessing and using evidence from research

This Innovation Unit publication addresses a key challenge for education in the future - how to ensure that the workforce who are teaching pupils have access to the latest knowledge about pedagogy and can apply it in practice for the benefit of children's learning.

With a few notable exceptions, there has often been a gap between education research and educational practice. In Harnessing knowledge to practice, the team from the Centre for the Use of Research and Evidence in Education (CUREE) outline the barriers that exist and look at attempts that the system has made to overcome them. They examine some of the recent investment into putting research to work in classrooms and what different educational agencies are doing to support this process. Finally, they ask what is next for evidence-informed practice.

You can view an electronic copy here prior to ordering.

Perceptions of the role of neuroscience in education

What's the brain got to do with education? Quite a lot - according to teachers in a survey commissioned The Innovation Unit and carried out by researchers at the University of Bristol. Although current teacher training programmes generally omit the science of how we learn, an overwhelming number of the teachers surveyed felt neuroscience could make an important contribution in key educational areas. The research was undertaken to inform a series of seminars between educationalists and neuroscientists organised by the Teaching and Learning Research Programme (TLRP) and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).

You can view an electronic copy here prior to ordering.

School Improvement - Lessons from Research

This booklet contains two essays by Professor David Reynolds and Professor John Gray, which are based on presentations by the two authors at a joint seminar for officials and academics convened by the DCSF.

The purpose of the event was to consider what insights the research evidence on schools might offer into the development of two new major policies announced by the Department earlier: the 'New Relationship with Schools' (NRwS) and 'Personalised Learning' (PL).

The first essay, entitled "How Can Recent Research In School Effectiveness, Teacher Effectiveness and School Improvement Inform Our Thinking About Educational Policies?", is by Professor David Reynolds from the School of Education & Lifelong Learning at the University of Exeter.

The second essay, entitled "Three Tough Issues for (Long-term) School Improvement", is by Professor John Gray from the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge.

You can view an electronic copy here prior to ordering.

Working Laterally: how innovation networks make an education epidemic

Everyone involved in education wants to help students to learn more effectively - but how can this achieved? In "Working Laterally" Professor David Hargreaves looks at how ideas for helping students to learn more effectively might spread around the schools system in order to transform education. He argues that knowledge about good teaching practice will only spread around the system quickly by schools and teachers linking together into "innovation networks" - run by teachers for teachers as a shared professional resource over which all have ownership.

You can view an electronic copy here prior to ordering.

Ground Breakers

8 page glossy colour supplement published by The Innovation Unit in the Guardian which includes in depth views of innovative practice taking place in schools as part of The Innovation Unit's Next Practice in Education Programme.