Ben Burbank - Doctoral Researcher and Associate Lecturer

Ben's ethnographic doctoral research uses first-person video in combination with photo-elicitation to explore young children’s museum experiences in three contrasting museum spaces.

Jane Fletcher - Senior Lecturer in Primary Humanities & Early Years Education

Jane Fletcher is Course Coordinator for the BA initial teacher training programme. She is Module Leader for Curriculum Design and Thematic Learning and Enquiring in the Humanities, two modules that explore learning beyond the classroom and using environments and venues to enhance the learning experience for pupils through exploratory and enquiry based learning. Jane is currently a doctoral student researching the figured worlds of the primary mathematics classroom.

Sarah Frodsham - Post-doctoral Research Associate and Senior Lecturer

Sarah is a Senior Lecturer, ethics officer and research convenor for the School of Education at Oxford Brookes University. She is also an Associate Researcher on three externally funded projects. These, funded by the Primary Science Teaching Trust (PSTT) focus on: ‘examining and exemplifying Creativity in science’, ‘Science through story-telling’ and ‘Using Ipads in primary science classrooms’. Her PhD research, entitled Developing creativity within primary science teaching (and considering how assessment strategies can augment this process)' was also partly funded by the PSTT. More recently she has become the principal investigator for an internally funded research project which involves ascertaining to what extent the use of stories augment STEM education and is also currently collaborating on a project which explores the students experience of learning during a global pandemic.

Wendy James - Architect; Partner at Garbers & James

Wendy James co-founded Garbers & James (GJ) with partner Thore Garbers, at the beginning of 2006. GJ specialise in public cultural and community sectors and Wendy’s own developing passion has been for museums, galleries, community and education.

During her lengthy career as an architect involved in the education sector, she has been responsible for the design and delivery of Primary Schools through to University faculty buildings.

Over a number of years Wendy brooded over the potential opportunity to forge more formal links between Primary and Early Years children’s Learning with the incredibly rich treasure houses that our museums, galleries, botanic gardens or natural heritage settings offer.

Her first Vision of My Primary School is at the Museum (MPSM) was finally articulated in 2013. It took until 2015 to seek and garner support from the Cultural Institute at King’s College London to structure and run the first associated pilot schemes.

Five years later, Wendy continues to actively champion the development of the project which has expanded, now not only in the UK, but also to other European countries. She is delighted to be able to work in association with the School of Education at Oxford Brookes in order to establish and further action research projects running alongside MPSM principles.

Tracey Martin-Millward - Post-doctoral Research Associate and Associate Lecturer

Tracey's recent doctoral thesis explored the nature of verbal interactions between adults and children within the context of Forest School. Her current research interests concern how the unique nature of informal spaces contribute to learning, and how adults' pedagogical processes support children's agency and thinking. These foci stem from a career firstly as a science teacher, and then science advisor for a local authority, working with learners across primary and secondary phases.

Deb McGregor - Professor in Education

Deb McGregor is a Professor in Education (Oxford Brookes School of Education). Prof McGregor convenes the STEAM research group and has expertise in science education with a focus on innovative pedagogy in both formal and informal settings. As a former primary and secondary teacher and now researcher her educational experiences inform the multiple ways that she considers, examines and articulates pedagogical enactments and the relational nature of teaching and learning. She is particularly interested in researching the various ways that learning tasks can be framed so that pupils are afforded differentiated opportunities to engage in meaningful activity (including thinking, talking and action) about the matter in hand.

Rachel Payne - Principal Lecturer Student Experience

Rachel Payne teaches and researches visual methods, arts-based continuing professional development, art education policy and arts-based pedagogy in education. Rachel has extensive experience of museum and gallery education, having completed her doctoral thesis examining how children learn when working in a gallery with an artist. Rachel ran an art/design secondary PGCE programme for 8 years and embedded learning with cultural institutions at the heart of the course. She is currently the subject coordinator for the Artist Teacher Practice MA in Education, a programme which supports professionals working in visual arts education to examine their dual artist-teacher identity through participating in a community, and reposition their professional practices as a result. This is run in partnership with the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, and combines theory, research and practice.