York, England, United Kingdom
I am a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Education and Theology at York St John University, in a department responsible for the delivery of Foundation Degree, Undergraduate and Postgraduate Degree programmes designed to address the needs of people who work, or aspire to work, in education, the wider children’s workforce and the youth and community sector. Before studying Theology and training to be a teacher at St John’s College, York in the 196Os, my childhood and adolescent years were spent in an area of West Yorkshire once noted for being at the heart of the Heavy Woollen industry. My father, grandfather and great-grandfather were employed as Carding Engineers and ‘Over-lookers’ in Mills, and, for a time during in school holidays, I also worked in Mills. From the late 1960s through to the mid-1980s, I taught in several High Schools in West Yorkshire and in a school near Oldham in Lancashire. Then, from 1985 until 1987, I was jointly seconded to research new approaches to assessment for the Yorkshire & Humberside Regional Examinations Board and the Counselling and Career Development Unit at the University of Leeds. It was during this time that I decided to embark on a career, lasting 17 years, in educational consultancy. Nowadays, it is a source of pleasure to me that I work in the institution, now a University, where I first trained to be a teacher. As well as being a teacher, I am an active researcher and a writer. My current research is on connected learning communities, and graduate employment and employability. My wife, Nina, is employed as a teacher for young people who have long-term health issues and require home tuition. Our children, Richard and Hannah, work in fields of Internet Security and Hypnotherapy respectively. Outside my work and family life, my interests lie in choral music, gardening and photography, and, I am always up for a round of golf – so long as it isn’t raining!
Senior Lecturer in Education