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This paper recounts the experiences of 24 primary and secondary teachers from a number of minoritised groups in the education system in England, using interview data collected for a project exploring the retention of minority teachers. The teachers’ experi ences of racism are discussed alongside other intersectional aspects of their identities – including gender, class, accent, and the subject they taught – to emphasise the variety of racisms experienced by these teachers. The stories of teachers, both early in their careers and with decades of teaching experience, provide powerful evi dence of the cumulative effects of racism experienced by teachers and the continued power of race with the education system in England. The Leverhulme Trust

Ataxia telangiectasia and Rad-3 related kinase (ATR) signals DNA lesions and replication stress (RS) to the S and G2/M checkpoints and DNA repair pathways making it a promising target to exploit the dysregulated DNA damage response in cancer. ATR inhibitors (ATRi) are under clinical investigation as monotherapy and in combination with other anticancer agents. Molecular determinants of sensitivity to ATRi are common in ovarian cancer, suggesting the therapeutic potential of ATRi. We investigated the cytotoxicity of the ATRi, VE-821, in a panel of human ovarian cancer cell lines. High grade serous (HGS) cell lines were significantly more sensitive to VE-821 than non-HGS (p ≤ 0.0001) but previously identified determinants of sensitivity (TP53, ATM and BRCA1) were not predictive. Only low RAD51 (p = 0.041), TopBP1 (p = 0.026) and APOBEC3B (p = 0.015) protein expression were associated with increased VE-821 sensitivity. HGS cells had increased levels of RS (pRPASer4/8 and γH2AX nuclear immunofluorescence), and elevated RS predicted sensitivity to VE-821 independently of the cell line subtype. These data suggest that functional assessment of RS biomarkers may be a better predictive biomarker of ATRi response than any single aberrant gene in ovarian cancer and potentially other cancers.

© 2021 The Author(s). The nearly 400 maintained nursery schools in England are schools for children aged 2–4 years. They hold a unique position in offering state-funded provision for this age group, outside of a primary school environment, and are disproportionately located in areas of disadvantage [EE. 2020. Briefing Note: The Comprehensive Spending Review and Funding for Maintained Nursery Schools. Accessed 13 October 2020. https://early-education.org.uk/sites/default/files/Briefing%20note%20-%20CSR%20and%20maintained%20nursery%20schools%27%20funding.pdf]. While there have been policy-based attempts to reduce the impact of social deprivation on educational outcomes, we argue that education policy has created a hostile environment for nursery schools. This arises from the national strategies on funding, ‘free hours’ for parents, and staff qualifications, alongside social policy. Based on interview data with staff and leaders in four nursery schools, the paper explores the views of these teachers and discusses them as policy actors within a precarious environment, faced with possible closure. We explore their agency as they navigate this hostile terrain and their ways of maintaining their sense of professional pride and commitment to social justice. Brunel University London.

This paper explores the practices of division in operation in primary schools in England in response to the pressures of high stakes tests at age 10/11, known as SATs. Using data from interviews wi...

This article explores how parents choose childcare settings for their pre-school children within a context of complex policy on eligibility for free provision and a developing market. Using data from interviews with 17 mainly middle-class parents in England, we explore in detail how parents go about choosing a childcare setting and the different phases of this process. This adds further nuance to the existing literature on choosing practices and the dysfunction and inequalities of a neoliberal childcare market, and also updates the discussion to include recent policy developments such as the provision of ‘30 hours free childcare’ for 3 and 4-year-olds. We conclude that parental choosing involves a series of decisions in two or three phases, which start from practical considerations, followed by quality comparison and then back to practical constraints if a decision has not been made. The options open to parents are split between not only those able to accommodate shorter ‘free’ provision and those that require longer periods of childcare to work, but also between those with children under three and above. Contrary to previous findings in this area, this split may work to the disadvantage of some middle-class families, whose children attend lower-quality settings as a result.

This article aims to look at the intersection of policy and lived experience at the level of the individual child by dissecting how primary education policy in England demands and expects a particu...

This paper explores how early years teachers respond to policy, using the case of Baseline Assessment, a new statutory assessment introduced to Reception classes (age 4–5) in England in 201...

This paper combines tools from policy sociology with those from Critical Race Theory (CRT) to build a framework for a CRT-based education policy analysis, based on a set of questions about the rela...

This chapter focuses on inequalities, and how the idea of ‘ability’ relates to their maintenance and reproduction. It begins with an outline of current educational inequalities in England, from early years to secondary education, and the most prominent debates in the field of race and class in education. Then, data from a research project on grouping and other research are used to examine how ability interacts with inequalities, at all levels of the schooling system. Then the resurgence of ideas which link intelligence levels with different social groups, known as the ‘new eugenics’ are considered, along with the challenges posed by epigenetics to deterministic accounts of merit. Finally, the chapter explores how debates about inequalities in education have shifted and continue to change during the COVID-19 crisis.

The final chapter brings together this discussion of the two educational developments by considering their commonalities and points of difference, and how they coalesce in ways which allow for discourses of ability as fixed and measurable to be reinvigorated. The multiple conceptions of ability are discussed, and it is argued that the slippages between them do not preclude their combined impact of maintaining inequalities. The chapter considers who the ‘winners’ are in the game of meritocracy, which is based on these discourses of ability, and the barriers to thinking differently about individuals. The chapter concludes by considering the future of ability and a post-pandemic hope for the alteration of priorities and practices, despite the continuation of the neoliberal ideology that underpins education policy, and the hope that the idea of ability as fixed and measurable – and the inequalities that result - can be disrupted.

This introductory chapter sets out a rationale for exploring the concept of ‘ability’ and how it relates to educational inequalities. It considers merit and ability in recent political debate, and concludes that ideas about individual ‘talents’ are common across the political spectrum. The theoretical framing for the book is then set out, including discussion of disciplinary and regulatory power from Foucault, and ideas from Critical Race Theory and DisCrit on inequalities. The two educational developments which are the focus of later chapters – neuroscience and datafication – are then introduced, before the research study which motivated this book is described. The chapter ends with an outline of the rest of the book.

Chapter 5 discusses datafication, defined as an increase in the prominence and importance of data in schools, with an impact on practice, values and subjectivities. The different elements are described here as the Five Ps of datafication: relating to pedagogy, practices, priorities, people and power. It is argued that one result of datafication is that much of what teachers do is geared towards producing the right data, particularly in relation to demonstrating progress. The chapter explains how this has been fed by policy which reifies progress measures and an inspection regime which relies on data analysis. The chapter goes on to explore data-based ability practices – the use of data to label and classify children into different levels or stages, which are then taken to be indicative of levels of ‘ability’. Research data on the significance of progress measures as systems which reduce children to data are explained. It is argued that data have a disciplinary function and that data and ability as discursive formations are co-reliant: data shows ability, and different abilities produce the data. They are also both based on principle of objective measurement as the best means to understand the child as learner.

The Covid-19 pandemic closed schools, but this hiatus provides an opportunity to rethink the fundamental principles of our education system. This book examines how, before the pandemic, the education system assumed that ability is measurable and innate, and how this myth of meritocracy reinforced educational inequalities. Since the Covid crisis began, educational inequality has become a central issue. Inspired by a project on grouping practices based on ‘ability’, the book analyses how the recent educational developments of datafication and neuroscience have reinvigorated ideas about how we classify and label children, with unequal effects. It sets out a post-pandemic hope that we can rethink the idea of innate and measurable intelligence, and thus disrupt the inequalities that result from this idea.

This chapter attempts to answer two questions ‘Why examine ability?’, and ‘How is ‘ability’ used in schools?’. It provides a more detailed explanation of the logic of focusing on one key concept and considering its operation at a particular historical time. This then leads onto an overview of the historical context for concepts of ‘merit’ and ‘ability’. Drawing on research data drawn from a survey of over 1000 teachers, the chapter also discusses what is particular about the current use of ability. It is argued that the very ambiguity of the term adds to its power as an organising concept which disadvantages some groups of students. Two key conceptions of ability emerge – ability as innate, and ability as positional. Finally, the last section focuses on research data on how the terms are used in schools as justification for pedagogical practices such as ability grouping. Here I set out the findings from my own research on primary education to emphasise the importance of ability in the organisation of students in classrooms. It is argued that ability works powerfully to justify systems of grouping and labelling pupils which limit expectation and attainment, often in inequitable ways.

Chapter 4 focuses on the first of the two developments under consideration, the influence of neuroscience. Using ideas from critical neuroscience, it explores how scientific developments have been presented as dramatic revolutionary alternations in how we understand human nature and potential, and how in turn these ‘insights’ have been translated into education. The turn to neuroscience in education has produced particular discourses about children, including an emphasis on the first three years as a vital period of development. The chapter considers the doubts and dangers of neuroscience and the critique from researchers in Early Childhood Education especially, before considering the attractiveness of the field, and the power of the image of the brain scan. These developments are related to discourses of ability and inequalities in education through discussion of how a focus on the brain facilitates a conception of ability as biological, and how discourses of damaged brains present in policy re-inscribe conceptions of the brain as determined by background. It is argued that neuroscience as culturally constructed serves as a biopolitical frame for understanding different children’s abilities and usefulness.

Lessons learned from one hospital's COVID-19 experience.

The study reported on here had two main objectives:- To investigate patterns of minority ethnic teachers’ employment across English schools.- To explore the reasons behind low rates of minority teacher retention through the perspectives of teachers from different demographics and professional backgrounds. The study used the 2018 School Workforce Census and related administrative school census datasets to model the distribution of non-White British teachers across English schools. We also conducted 24 narrative interviews with teachers from different ethnic and professional backgrounds working in urban disadvantaged schools to explore factors shaping their decisions to stay in or leave teaching. This report presents the key findings of the research, its implications and our recommendations. Overall, our findings question the idea that the education system is ‘making progress’ in terms of race equality in the case of teachers from minority ethnic groups.

The number of students in England registered as speaking the languages of Eastern, and Central Europe has grown significantly in the past decade, but these migrants’ educational experiences...

This paper examines processes of datafication in early childhood education (ECE) settings for children from birth-five years in England and how this relates to increased formalisation. Unusually, ECE in England includes a standardised curriculum and formative and statutory assessments; thus it has been described as subject to both datafication and ‘schoolification’, a term used to describe the adoption of school-like practices and values in ECE. Using interview data from ECE settings over the last decade and a theoretical framework drawing on Foucault and Deleuze, the paper sets out the ways in which settings in schools and nurseries are subject to the demands of data, and how this produces data-driven subjectivities for both teacher and child. These developments are then linked to aspects of ‘schoolification’ including more formal teaching, a focus on literacy and mathematics, and use of ‘ability’ grouping.

This article examines the impact of a statutory assessment in England, the Phonics Screening Check (PSC), on classroom practices of grouping children by ‘ability’. Bearing in mind the argument that assessment is the rudder that steers the otherwise slow‐moving battleship of educational practice, it is argued that the PSC has altered how teachers organise their classes and curriculum in both the affected year group (Year 1, children aged 5–6) and in earlier and later years. Using data from a nationwide survey of teachers (n = 1,373), focus groups and in‐depth interviews with teachers, the article examines how this relatively new phonics assessment forms part of a ‘policy storm’ of pressures relating to accountability, which encourage teachers to place children in groups on the basis of ability, even when they have doubts about this practice and there is little evidence to suggest grouping improves attainment. Practices include grouping children within classes, across year groups or even across several year groups, by phase of phonics learning, guided by advice from bought‐in private phonics schemes. There is also evidence of ‘educational triage’, where borderline children become the focus, and increased use of interventions which involve withdrawing children. Overall, the article uses the PSC to demonstrate how, in times of multiple policy pressures, assessment can rapidly alter practice, in this case making grouping a ‘necessary evil’, as one teacher respondent argued.

Data is big business right now, it is everywhere and can seem all-consuming. Over the last few years we have seen the growth of the use of data to judge schools' performance, including in the early years, with assessments taking place in reception.

Reading the title of this book, you might be forgiven for thinking this was a text which argued against those who think we should take ‘race’ and class seriously in accounts of schooling, and in tu...

Primary school reception baseline assessment was designed to produce a single ‘baseline’ data figure on the basis of which young children's progress across primary school could be measured and accounted for. This paper suggests that within the context of punitive performativity, head teachers might be considered ‘irresponsible’ if not engaging with the new accountability measure in its voluntary year. Using DfE-accredited baseline assessment providers blurred the distinctions between not-for-profit social enterprises, digital policy innovation labs, edu-business, and the state. It is argued that through a process of networked governance, these cross-sectoral organisations successfully enticed some primary schools with the ‘moral economy’ of using baseline assessment. It is argued that baseline's simplistic reductionism allowed for the economisation of early years education assessment and for its commercialisation of comparison. This paper reports on a sample of five head teachers, taken from a much larger study that used a mixed-methods approach involving a nationwide survey (n=1131) and in-depth interviews with reception staff and head teachers in five geographically disparate primary schools. Baseline assessment was ‘withdrawn’ by the DfE in April 2016, quite possibly because of campaigns by early years organisations, the government's own report showing that the three separate baseline datasets were incompatible, and national research funded by the teachers’ unions, a small part of which is reported upon here.

Copyright © The Author(s) 2021.Nursery Schools in the UK have been described as the ‘jewel in the crown’ of early years provision because of the quality of education and a wide range of other support services that they provide, particularly for children from socio-economically disadvantaged families and those with complex special educational needs (SEN). In this paper, we explore the role of Nursery Schools in the local community, arguing that they have been re/constructed as a frontline service in the context of austerity policies enacted in England over the past decade. The data presented in support of this argument arise from detailed interviews with 17 staff based in four Nursery Schools. Our data lead us to argue that, in the current context of austerity and cuts to a range of local services, Nursery Schools are filling welfare gaps for families by providing clothing, trips and food voucher advice to families. They are also supporting increasing numbers of SEN children and are described as a first point of contact with state-run services by many, especially minority ethnic and working-class families. We conclude by arguing that Nursery Schools’ funding must be protected so that they can continue to provide support to some of the most vulnerable children and their families in England. Brunel University London

This paper explores the growing importance of measures of progress in judgements of schools’ effectiveness in England, with a focus on the role of the early years (settings for children aged 2–5) in providing data for these measures. Qualitative data from a research project involving three diverse school-based and pre-compulsory early years settings are used to explore how teachers and school leaders prioritise the collection of data in their every-day practice, in order to show how children make continual progress. The need for a narrative of progress as children move up through the primary school, an ‘Ofsted story’ for the school inspection service, is discussed alongside recent policy which requires a ‘baseline’ assessment at age four. We argue that there is a reification of progress in schools and early years settings, and that this changes the status of early years within the sector.

This article gives an account of the use of knowledges from emerging scientific fields in education and youth policy making under the Coalition government (2010–15) in the UK. We identify a common process of ‘translation’ and offer three illustrations of policy-making in the UK that utilise diverse knowledges produced in academic fields (neuroscience, network theory and well-being). This production of ‘new knowledges’ in policy contexts allows for the identification of sites of policy intervention. This process of translation underlies a series of diverse revisions of the rational subject of policy. Collectively, these revisions amount to a change in policy-making and the emergence of a different subject of neoliberal policy. This subject is not an excluded alterity to an included rational subject of neoliberalism, but a ‘plastic subject’ characterised by its multiplicity. The plastic subject does not contradict the rational subject as central to neoliberal policy-making, but diversifies it.

This article raises important questions about whether the increasing control of early years education through performance data is genuinely a means for school improvement. This composite article, examines the pervasiveness of attainment data in early years education professional activity, its impact on early years teachers’ consciousness and identity and the narrowing and instrumentalisation of early years pedagogy. The authors argue that, rather than improving quality, the current obsession with performance data and its stretch down the age range has the potential to undermine the foundations for children’s personal development and learning. The article also points to the ways in which a triage effect has led to the neglect of some children in order to push targeted children over specific performativity hurdles. The discussion applies Foucault to the early education sector in England and builds upon other early childhood researchers such as Moss.

Simple Summary Several chemotherapy drugs are approved for ovarian cancer treatment in the neo-adjuvant/adjuvant setting as well as following relapse. These include carboplatin, paclitaxel, doxorubicin, topotecan, PARP inhibitors (PARPi), and gemcitabine. However, except for PAPRi, there are no predictive biomarkers to guide the choice of drug. The majority of chemotherapeutic drugs function by inducing DNA damage or inhibiting its repair. However, the association of DNA damage repair (DDR) pathway alterations with therapy response remain unclear. In this study, using a panel of 14 ovarian cancer cell lines, 10 patient ascites-derived primary cultures and bioinformatic analysis of The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) ovarian cancer dataset, we identified the role of genomic/transcriptomic and/or functional alterations in DDR pathways as determinants of therapy response. Abstract Defective DNA damage response (DDR) pathways are enabling characteristics of cancers that not only can be exploited to specifically target cancer cells but also can predict chemotherapy response. Defective Homologous Recombination Repair (HRR) function, e.g., due to BRCA1/2 loss, is a determinant of response to platinum agents and PARP inhibitors in ovarian cancers. Most chemotherapies function by either inducing DNA damage or impacting on its repair but are generally used in the clinic unselectively. The significance of HRR and other DDR pathways in determining response to several other chemotherapy drugs is not well understood. In this study, the genomic, transcriptomic and functional analysis of DDR pathways in a panel of 14 ovarian cancer cell lines identified that defects in DDR pathways could determine response to several chemotherapy drugs. Carboplatin, rucaparib, and topotecan sensitivity were associated with functional loss of HRR (validated in 10 patient-derived primary cultures) and mismatch repair. Two DDR gene expression clusters correlating with treatment response were identified, with PARP10 identified as a novel marker of platinum response, which was confirmed in The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) ovarian cancer cohort. Reduced non-homologous end-joining function correlated with increased sensitivity to doxorubicin, while cells with high intrinsic oxidative stress showed sensitivity to gemcitabine. In this era of personalised medicine, molecular/functional characterisation of DDR pathways could guide chemotherapy choices in the clinic allowing specific targeting of ovarian cancers.

Introduction: ATR is a key kinase in the DNA damage response (DDR) that signals replication stress to the S and G2/M checkpoints. Loss of G1 checkpoint control is almost ubiquitous in cancer cells, which, coupled with frequent activation of oncogenes makes them more reliant on their S and G2/M checkpoints. Therefore, ATR is an attractive anti-cancer target. Several determinants of sensitivity to ATR inhibitors (ATRi) have been identified in the literature, such as ATM, TP53, cyclin E and ARID1A. In high grade serous ovarian cancer, almost 100% of all tumours have lost TP53 function, around 20% have activation of cyclin E, and ARID1A mutations are found in nearly 50% of all clear cell ovarian cancers. Therefore, ATR inhibition may be a successful treatment strategy in ovarian cancer. Experimental Procedures: ATRi, VE-821, the preclinical candidate of VX-970 now known as M6620, was used throughout these experiments. The inhibition of ATR activity and the cytotoxicity of VE-821 was assessed in 13 ovarian cancer cell lines and related to the protein and mRNA expression of DDR proteins, oncogenes and other known determinants of sensitivity to ATRi. Growth inhibition by VE-821 was determined in patient derived primary cultures of malignant ovarian cancer ascites cells. Results: Ovarian cancer cell lines and patient samples display a range of sensitivities to VE-821. UWB1.289 cells lacking BRCA1 were the most sensitive to VE-821 (LC50 0.64 µM ± 0.06) and 1.5 times more sensitive than its BRCA1 corrected derivative, confirming previous reports of BRCA1 determining sensitivity to ATRi. NIH-OVCAR3 cells were the least sensitive to VE-821 (LC50 17.87 ± 1.86 µM) and CAOV3 were the second most sensitive to VE-821 (LC50 0.78 ± 0.55 µM), which did not correlate with ATR inhibition or expression of DDR proteins, oncogenes or other known determinants of sensitivity. There was a range of sensitivities to VE-821 in the 7 patient samples analysed to date, with the GI50 ranging from 0.78 µM to 29.08 µM, with no correlation between the growth rates of the sample to its sensitivity. Conclusions: These data show that determinants of sensitivity to ATRi, identified in isogenic cell line pairs, may not translate to the more complex molecular pathology of cancer cells where several determinants of sensitivity and resistance may be present simultaneously. More complex pathway analysis or functional readouts e.g. of replication stress, may be needed as predictive biomarkers for ATRi sensitivity. Citation Format: Alice Mary Bradbury, Frank T. Zenke, Yvette Drew, Nicola J. Curtin. Investigating determinants of sensitivity to ATR inhibition, as predictive biomarkers to single agent ATR inhibitor, VE-821, in ovarian cancer [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research 2020; 2020 Apr 27-28 and Jun 22-24. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2020;80(16 Suppl):Abstract nr 4125.

In order to be effective models to identify biomarkers of chemotherapy response, cancer cell lines require thorough characterization. In this study, we characterised the widely used high grade serous ovarian cancer (HGSOC) cell line NIH-OVCAR3 using bioinformatics, cytotoxicity assays and molecular/functional analyses of DNA damage response (DDR) pathways in comparison to an ovarian cancer cell line panel. Bioinformatic analysis confirmed the HGSOC-like features of NIH-OVCAR3, including low mutation frequency, TP53 loss and high copy number alteration frequency similar to 201 HGSOCs analysed (TCGA). Cytotoxicity assays were performed for the standard of care chemotherapy, carboplatin, and DDR targeting drugs: rucaparib (a PARP inhibitor) and VE-821 (an ATR inhibitor). Interestingly, NIH-OVCAR3 cells showed sensitivity to carboplatin and rucaparib which was explained by functional loss of homologous recombination repair (HRR) identified by plasmid re-joining assay, despite the ability to form RAD51 foci and absence of mutations in HRR genes. NIH-OVCAR3 cells also showed high non-homologous end joining activity, which may contribute to HRR loss and along with genomic amplification in ATR and TOPBP1, could explain the resistance to VE-821. In summary, NIH-OVCAR3 cells highlight the complexity of HGSOCs and that genomic or functional characterization alone might not be enough to predict/explain chemotherapy response.

International audience; Alteration in the DNA replication, repair or recombination processes is a highly relevant mechanism of genomic instability. Despite genomic aberrations manifested in hematologic malignancies, such a defect as a source of biomarkers has been underexplored. Here, we investigated the prognostic value of expression of 82 genes involved in DNA replication-repair-recombination in a series of 99 patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia without detectable 17p deletion or TP53 mutation. We found that expression of the POLN gene, encoding the specialized DNA polymerase ν (Pol ν) correlates with time to relapse after first-line therapy with fludarabine. Moreover, we found that POLN was the only gene up-regulated in primary patients’ lymphocytes when exposed in vitro to proliferative and pro-survival stimuli. By using two cell lines that were sequentially established from the same patient during the course of the disease and Pol ν knockout mouse embryonic fibroblasts, we reveal that high relative POLN expression is important for DNA synthesis and cell survival upon fludarabine treatment. These findings suggest that Pol ν could influence therapeutic resistance in chronic lymphocytic leukemia. (Patients’ samples were obtained from the CLL 2007 FMP clinical trial registered at: clinicaltrials.gov identifer: 00564512).