Associate Lecturer in Education
I
work directly with teachers and teacher training students to explore ways of teaching for creativity, both in the classroom and in settings other than schools. I am an
Associate Lecturer at Oxford Brookes University and an Associate Consultant for Chris Quigley Education Ltd. Additionally, I am
a member of the Learning and Engagement Steering Panel for the charity Art UK.
I was t
rained as an Art and Design teacher, before
becoming Head of Department in a secondary school in Hampshire. Following this I
went on to lead the schools programme at the National Gallery, London, where I
managed projects such as the long-running primary school nationwide Take One Picture scheme, and Articulate, a literacy project for secondary schools that was
developed with well-known writers, including Malorie Blackman and Jacqueline Wilson.
Whilst at the National Gallery I
set up a cultural placement programme for Initial Teacher Education students from five universities, including many students from Oxford Brookes. In 2020, during the Covid-19 period of national Lockdown, I
co-curated the Oxford Brookes Learning Beyond the Classroom website with Sarah Frodsham (link). This archive resource marked 17 years of cultural placements for Oxford Brookes students and celebrates the 16 partnerships the university has built with regional cultural venues. I
made a presentation about the aims and legacy of the cultural placements at the Oxford Brookes School of Education conference in May 2020 (link).
At Oxford Brookes I teach on the BA(Hons), PGCE and School Direct Primary Education courses. I am actively looking for opportunities to extend my teaching for creativity research interests. My doctoral research at Oxford University is available to view on the Oxford University Research Archive (https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:967de150-d0d2-4093-8563-ea0c734142e9). The study focuses on exploring why and how five primary schools operationalised a project using a painting as a central stimulus for cross-curricular teaching and learning and uses Dewey's (1938) experiential continuum framework as an analytical lens.