“We are immensely proud of Ed Collyer, who was awarded the Terry Furlong award for newcomer to research. He was one of BGU’s very finest PGCE English trainees and has thrived in the classroom since qualifying back in 2018. I have been happy to co-publish with him on several papers and thoroughly enjoy being his PhD supervisor as he investigates English Teacher Identity and how this evolves through the PGCE and ECT years. He richly deserves this award, and we are delighted that he has received this recognition.
For me, the Joan Goody Award for Diversity and Inclusion brings together the two elements of my professional life. On one hand, as the subject lead for the English secondary PGCE I work with English teachers and within subject English education. On the other, my research interest is to investigate and articulate the lived experience of autistic people to support the development of more effective educational support for autistic students, at whatever level. The real joy for me is where these two interests overlap. I have been privileged to collaborate with autistic English teachers and trainee teachers, and it is a constant delight to appreciate the originality of approach and unusual perspective that this can bring. I also relish the use of the vehicles of our subject, for example shared reading of literature, creative writing and exploration of metaphor and figurative language, to explore autistic lived experience and have enjoyed developing what is an innovative approach in autistic research using these methodologies.
Throughout, NATE has been in the background supporting, encouraging, and reassuring me that our subject is so much more than a mere set of GCSE criteria. Rather, English is the fundamental core of all our endeavours in exploration, articulation, and communication; I am proud to have been given this award and hope that I will justify NATE’s faith in me with my continued work in this field for many years to come.”
