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Academisation of schooling in England is a significant development with consequences for the disavowal of the role of community and democracy in education at the local level and wider resonance for geo-policy jurisdictions where neoliberal education reforms play out. This study analyses the operation of power and control of Multi Academy Trust (MAT) boards and the apparent diminution of local oversight and accountability, the bedrock of an inclusive, democratic polity. The explanatory and conceptual contribution made to understandings of the phenomenon of MATs is seen in the problematising of academisation and MAT formation as a technology for the operation of power, foreclosing democratic community engagement with their local schools. This has implications for the vitality of a democratic polity. Yet, more optimistically, generative possibilities of a renaissance of schools’ relations with their communities and reinvigoration of the public realm are envisioned as restorative of local democratic engagement in school governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examining the entanglement of democracy and social justice in education and the relationship to social mobility, this paper critiques the individualising nature of social mobility in policy discourse as inimical to human flourishing and education as a public good. The rhetoric of social mobility which responsibilises individuals for their success, without due regard to the systemic changes needed to enable this and the societal barriers to social mobility experienced disproportionately by some groups in society, is detrimental to social justice. A conception of education as a pathway to social mobility must be located in a wider vision of civic engagement in a more inclusive and fairer society. Yet civic engagement in education at the local level has been eroded, as illustrated in this paper by the example of an evolving model of school governance in England. As a corporatist, market driven reform, this model exemplifies how local democratic ties between schools and engagement with their communities can be undermined. Social mobility to enable opportunities, access and participation in democratic civic society becomes a fantasy when society is riven with systemic inequalities, lacks the necessary conditions to enable human flourishing and links to community engagement in education for democratic renewal are downplayed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on a study exploring the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on secondary school children's mental health and well-being in the North of England. It explores three research questions: to what extent has the Covid-19 pandemic affected secondary school children’s mental health and wellbeing in England? What did students value most for their mental health and wellbeing in a secondary school context during the Covid-19 pandemic? What are the implications for the post-pandemic future? A qualitative multi-method research design was used consisting of an online questionnaire survey (n = 605) and follow-up focus group interviews (n = 16). The findings of the study show that the pandemic and associated restrictions had a detrimental effect on the lives of a very large proportion of the young people in our study, with greater impact on girls than boys. From the analysis the resilience and ability of the participants to “bounce back” from the upheavals caused by the restrictions was apparent. However, for a significant minority the adverse impacts on their mental health and wellbeing continue to affect their lives. The idea of returning to “normal” following a period of crisis and turmoil such as the Covid-19 pandemic, emerges as an unhelpful concept because of the implied associated expectation of a smooth return to the routines prior to the pandemic crisis. This assumption is problematic as this study’s findings demonstrate. The “new” normal is experienced differently by students, especially girls, to what was “normal” experience before the pandemic and this has significant implications for schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]