My first BERA blog post 'Teacher identity in a performative age: Coming to research through autoethnography' was published this week. In this piece I reflect on the themes of my recent MRes which explored the experiences of my teaching career using a personal, reflective research method - autoethnography. The main question is how can teachers promote creativity - which thrives on risk - in a competitive education that prioritises performance. The feedback to this post has been really positive. Please access my blog post here: https://www.bera.ac.uk/blog/teacher-identity-in-a-performative-age-coming-to-research-through-autoethnography

  Last month, I submitted my Masters by Research thesis at Leeds Beckett University. My topic was teacher identity and creativity and on Tuesday, I was delighted to be invited to speak on it at the University of the Western Cape. It was lovely to meet the staff from the Faculty of Education and I thank them for going easy on me with the questions! It was my first academic talk and I am glad it was in my home-from-home of Cape Town. I'll spare you the full 15,000 words, but the research was into my identity as a teacher and how growing accountability is reshaping not only the role of teachers but also how they see themselves as trusted professionals. Although this autoethnographic research was into my own story as a teacher, exploring the experiences of others is something I am following up through my Facebook blog Teacher Talking Time .  The key aspect of this research was in the area of creativity in primary education. If the process of learning and wor...

It has been a while since I last posted on this blog but it does not mean that I have not been busy. Since January 2018, I have been studying for a Masters by Research at Leeds Beckett University - I handed it in last month (fingers crossed for a good mark!). The research was a critical reflection on my transition from a full-time primary school teacher to independent teaching consultant in July 2014. It looks at how that transition has changed the way I feel about being a teacher.  I’ll spare you the full 15,000 words, but it is enough to say that this study helped me, for the first time, to begin to untangle some of the complex and difficult feelings I have about my time as a full-time teacher. For a long time I have tried to present that transition as a choice, as a promotion almost whereby I put aside my work to follow a specialist interest in creative writing. A noble cause. While there are elements of truth in this, it is far from the whole story. If I am honest, I fo...