Lovely day to be at Old Trafford (the good one!) for the Tes SEND Show North - thanks for the invitation to talk about one of my favourite subjects!

An utterly shameless plug for this recent publication with @bloomsburyaced.bsky.social, aimed at teachers, school leaders, students and parents. We’ve already had really brilliant feedback about it being useful and practical - exactly our aim! www.bloomsbury.com/uk/supportin...

New article published today in the BERJ with @educationuom.bsky.social colleagues Mark Innes & Louisa Dawes, arguing that NPQs don’t provide teachers and leaders with opportunities to develop the intellectual dimension of their practice: bera-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Latest collaborative publication from members of the Teacher Education and Professional Learning research and scholarship group, on the valuable contribution that RSGs can make by acting as catalysts for academic growth in university-led pre-service teacher education. www.ucet.ac.uk/blog/17240/b...

Do please join us for this fabulous event next week (Wed 3rd Dec). Prof Jean Murray is such an important champion for teacher educators, and always brings a productively critical eye to the ITE landscape. Plus, light refreshments available beforehand! All welcome 😊

Fantastic first meeting of MIE’s Qualitative Research Network for this academic year, discussing creative methodologies with children and young people. Lots of brilliant research going on! @rshargreaves.bsky.social @educationuom.bsky.social

More proposed changes to the post-16 sector announced on Monday, including new “V-levels” that are intended to replace BTECs. What do we think? Is this the answer? Will BTECs leave a huge gap? Will a change of government mean all of this comes to nothing anyway?🤷‍♀️ theconversation.com/what-are-v-l...

The calm before the storm… It was wonderful to see so many new and returning students on campus yesterday - looking forward to round 2 today! 😎

Looking forward to seeing my book (on supporting educational transitions from ages 3-19) on this display next year!

Had a fantastic time in Brighton this week for #BERA2025 - thanks to @murtaghlisa.bsky.social for the photos of our symposium on teacher professional development 🙌

Had a fabulous time in Vienna last week for the BSA Bourdieu Study Group Mid-Term International Conference - a beautiful city and a great selection of presentations and keynotes #Bourdieu25

Looking forward to the inaugural International Conference on Education and Life Transition (ICELT) later this week - it’s been a pleasure to work with such a brilliant team to put together a programme which is truly international, featuring presentations from a range of disciplines 🙌 #ICELT2025

Nice to be back on campus, particularly to meet with colleagues for lunch - and @kro-bar.bsky.social’s idea of a mezze platter for one is very much in keeping with my own. 🍽️

What’s that? You’d like an out-of-focus shot of the ice cream I was given at the @uomseed.bsky.social summer social today? I’m your girl!

MIE’s Professor of Higher Education @profstevenjones.bsky.social addressing @manchester.ac.uk’s annual Teaching and Learning Conference - great keynote questioning what excellence looks like in teaching in HE. Thanks too to the brilliant student panel!

Great keynote lecture by @markrpriestley.bsky.social at today’s LJMU Teacher Agency conference, problematising conceptualisations of teacher agency. One of those talks that genuinely makes you want to do some reading and thinking on the train home (I’ll probably nap when it comes to it, but still).

Absolutely loving the newly-opened Ellen Wilkinson Commons in our building at @educationuom.bsky.social - lots of areas for communal working and for socialising with colleagues. Not completely sure about the carpets but looking forward to getting my book on that shelf!

What a fantastic few days in Paris last week for the #IAFOR Education Conference - fabulous range of presentations and a great opportunity to chat with educators and researchers from around the world.

Thanks to @kirsty-finn-mcr.bsky.social and team for a really interesting lunchtime webinar outlining the findings of their Young Women’s Working Lives research: ‘Earning while Learning: student employment’ - great project that I’d like to know more about!

Delighted to have my say in the special issue of BERA’s Research Intelligence published today on (re)shaping the future of research in further education. I loved teaching and researching in FE but it’s definitely not without its challenges. www.bera.ac.uk/publication/...

This is brilliant news - well done to @esmeward.bsky.social and team 🙌

What a fantastic event to close the working day - looking at maps in the Map Room (who knew there was a Map Room!) at @manchester.ac.uk. Always fascinating to see different perspectives of the globe, plus I’ll never look at Stockport quite the same way again after seeing this amazing Emotion Map 🗺️

Wonderful to hear from our students this morning at our MIE Away Day - some really constructive feedback on what we do well and what we can do even better!

Glorious day in Manchester today 😎 @uniofmanchester.bsky.social

Congratulations to Mr Sporty Spider Crab at Manchester Museum @uniofmanchester.bsky.social for (apparently) completing yesterday’s marathon! 🦀🏃 #mcrmuseum #manchestermuseum

Lovely couple of days at @gladlib.bsky.social with the Teacher Education & Professional Learning RSG - got to work on several exciting projects in beautiful surroundings (and with its own honesty bar) 🙌

Lovely to hear Helen and her co-panelists talk about the book today! 📖🥂

In other conference news, I’m excited to be off to Paris, Brighton and Vienna this summer - a far cry from last year, when I went to…Manchester. ✈️ 🚇 🧳 😎

Very productive planning meeting this morning with the #TCELT gang, working on August’s inaugural International Conference on Educational & Life Transitions Conference. Still time to submit an abstract before March 31st! www.dundee.ac.uk/events/inter...

Tonight’s TEPL reading group is @iancushing.bsky.social’s chapter on language policing in ITE. As a former teacher of GCSE/A-Level English, I’m particularly interested to think about how deficit models of language (eg word gaps) relate to wider debates around how subjects are taught and assessed.

I’ve never noticed this jaunty drawing on one of the walls at @official-uom.bsky.social before - makes me want to immediately visit all these places (whilst being careful to avoid the giant pigeon on Quay Street, obviously 🐦).

There’s really nothing quite like working on a book index to make you question your basic knowledge of the alphabet 🤷‍♀️🔡🔠

Do you work with international students in higher education in any capacity? Would you have 10 minutes to spare to tell @jlmittelmeier.bsky.social and I about any training (or lack) you received? Here's the link: www.qualtrics.manchester.ac.uk/jfe/form/SV_... Please repost and share, thanks!

Got a really interesting reading group later today - @drgarethbates.bsky.social has kindly agreed to join our Teacher Education & Professional Learning research and scholarship group to discuss his recent paper on retrieval practice ⬇️ uobrep.openrepository.com/bitstream/ha...

Braved the storm to come along to this fantastic roundtable event on Primary to Secondary transitions at Whitworth Art Gallery @official-uom.bsky.social (although the excellent straight fringe I did this morning lasted approx 15 seconds) 🌬️

Great to present at this morning’s research and scholarship forum @official-uom.bsky.social and to hear about really brilliant projects both within and outside the department 🙌

Interesting first morning on the @advancehe.bsky.social Aurora Leadership Programme - always good to meet other women doing interesting things in academia! Many thanks to @official-uom.bsky.social for sponsoring me to attend #AuroraHE

Had some vague notion that my first post on here should be something hard hitting, pithy and meaningful, but Vogue has just arrived so I’ve had to immediately turn to the bit where Hugh interviews Renée 💅