Professional Dialogues in the Early Years / Critical Guides for Teacher Educators (ePub)

mathematics education, leadership, assessment and mentoring and coaching. She has worked in a wide range of settings including children's homes, special, primary school and universities.



Catharine Gilson is senior lecturer in early childhood education at Oxford Brookes University. She has experience of teaching across a range of courses including the early years strand of the PGCE and the early childhood studies degree. She has previously worked as a teacher and as a local authority early years advisory teacher.  Her doctorate focussed on the learning and teaching relationship between adults and 3-5 year-old children and other research interests include children's rights and children's voice, and observational methods.



Dr Gillian Lake was a primary teacher in Ireland for many years before first undertaking an MSc in child development & education, and then being awarded the Talbot Scholarship to read a doctorate of philosophy in education at the University of Oxford, focusing on the early years. Her research comprised the design, development and evaluation of an oral language intervention targeting vocabulary and narrative development, of children aged three to four years.  The results have been promising and she hopes to further investigate the possibility of introducing this intervention as a professional development tool for early years' practitioners. She has an ongoing research interest in early childhood education, oral language interventions, narrative development, pretend play and emerging literacy.  She leads child development 1 & 2 on early childhood studies and child development & learning on BA ITE.



Helena Mitchell is currently a visiting fellow at Oxford Brookes University. She is vice chair (research and knowledge exchange) and treasurer for the early childhood studies degrees network, a voluntary organisation which brings together institutions across the UK.which run degrees in early childhood studies. Prior to taking on this role she was Head of the school of education at Oxford Brookes University, having previously been head of the department of early childhood and primary education. She led the primary PGCE programme and also the early childhood studies degree when it was introduced at Oxford Brookes in 2000. She has extensive experience as a classroom teacher. She is a member of BERA, TACTYC and the SRHE, and a Trustee of Peeple, a charity which supports parents and children learning together. Her most recent research has focused on graduates from early childhood studies degrees and their transition to professional status as teachers and leaders in early years' settings. She is also currently involved in a research project on values and beliefs in primary education, a collaborative partnership with primary teachers.



Nick Swarbrick is programme lead for the undergraduate degrees in the school of education, teaching on the undergraduate degree in early childhood studies and the primary PGCE, principally around early years pedagogy. He has a research and teaching role in children's literature and how young children explore the outdoors environment. Nick holds an Associate Teaching Fellowship at the University and is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Prior to joining Oxford Brookes he was headteacher of a lively, multi-cultural nursery school in Oxford city which pioneered the Forest School project in Oxfordshire and supported a school-based initial teacher training scheme.