I am a professional. What does that mean? I am an educator, a teacher, a leader.  I am a researcher. As I embark on my doctorate journey, I hope to be able to articulate what it means to be a professional in the field of education and how I can influence the education system.

I've been a teacher for 33 years - in the London boroughs of Hillingdon, Croydon, Sutton, and now in Surrey. I've been a head teacher since 2001 and a National Leader of Education since 2012. I've led a Teaching School, believing that we can influence our education system through supporting teachers.

We have a fragmented education system that is heavily criticised by the media and constantly meddled with by politicians. Our schools are challenged by underfunding and external pressures within a framework of accountability (quite rightly - it's public money) that does not work for every school.

My initial proposal for a research question is: What are effective governance structures that support school improvement in a multi-academy trust? This will inevitably change over the next few years as I embark on my research.

I am proud to be a research student at the Institute of Education (IoE) at University College London (UCL). The Education EdD is a research degree for experienced professionals from education. It is a part-time degree, normally 5 - 7 years. There is an assessed taught element, an Institution Focused Study (unique to the UCL IoE EdD programme) and a thesis, making a distinct contribution to the knowledge in the field of study.

 

My Mastodon feed

Loading Mastodon feed...

MY MASTODON FEED

Loading Mastodon feed...

My Twitter feed

Twitter feed is not available at the moment.

RSS Feed from Pat Thomson’s blog – patter

  • Key word – claim 11th March 2024
    Claim is a difficult word. Dictionaries offer Meaning One –  claims are assertions that something is true, that something is a fact, but there is no proof or evidence. We just have to take the claim at face value and as … Continue reading →

RSS Feed from The Thesis Whisperer

  • What do neurodivergent PhD students need? 2nd March 2024
    In May 2023, Eirini Tzouma asked me participate in a panel on Neurodiversity at the Durham Centre for Academic Development post graduate research conference. Sadly, I had prior commitments, but we did arrange to meet afterwards so Eirini could share what happened with me. I don’t publish guest posts regularly anymore, but after this discussion […]