Contact
Biography
Victoria is an experienced history and humanities teacher who has been working as a teacher educator with the University of Nottingham since 2013. She is subject lead and admissions tutor for the Secondary History PGCE. She has also worked on other ITE routes.
As a teacher, Victoria worked in secondary schools in the East Midlands as a humanities teacher with history specialism at Key Stage 4 and Key Stage 5. She also developed and taught an A Level course in Ethics as part of her second subject interest in Religious Education and Theology. She gained experience as Deputy Head of Sixth Form in a large joint school sixth form provision and later as Head of Sixth Form at a large secondary school, developing a particular interest in the Key Stage 5 curriculum. She also mentored beginning teachers and acted as a Teaching and Learning Coach with the LA.
She believes that developing inspiring History teachers who will enthuse and excite young people about the past and the study of history is key to making History a vital, relevant and accessible subject for students. Having previously been involved in a DfES National Strategies project considering the attainment of more advanced learners of English as an additional language, she maintains this interest in her own work with partnership schools.
She is also interested in approaches to teacher education and mentoring and works closely with school-based mentors supporting beginning teachers in schools. She is co-author of Mentoring History Teachers in the Secondary School, and writes a blog to support mentors of beginning teachers. She works works closely with the Historical Association to promote history-specific mentoring and practices in Initial Teacher Education.
Victoria works closely with colleagues in the School of Humanities in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Nottingham to develop programmes to support teaching colleagues in their subject knowledge enhancement and understanding of history pedagogy. More recently she supported academic colleagues working on the Nottingham's Legacies of Slavery Project to make connections with local teachers as they developed Education resources for the project. She is also involved in the Ways to Study History project, exploring how to support and encourage A Level students into the study of history and history related disciplines at undergraduate level. She is currently advising on ITE-HEI partnerships with History UK.
Awards
In 2024 was conferred a CollectivEd Fellowship
In 2023 was conferred an Honorary Fellowship by the Historical Association.
In 2022 as part of the ITE team Victoria was awarded the University of Nottingham's Lord Dearing Award for Teaching and Learning for outstanding contribution to the enhancement of the student experience.
External Roles
Victoria is Co-Chair of the History Teacher Educators Network (HTEN-UK), the professional representative network which represents those who work with and have responsibility for the professional education, development and training of beginning and serving history teachers, those who are currently undertaking an Initial Teacher Education (ITE) course and those who are newly and recently qualified teachers (ECTs).
She is an Honorary Fellow and member of the Historical Association.
She is a Fellow of CollectivEd.
Victoria is the External Examiner for History ITE at University of Roehampton, London.
Writing
Victoria is co-author of 'Mentoring History Teachers in the Secondary School: A Practical Guide' (Routledge, 2023)
She blogs about mentoring in Initial Teacher Education and the development of beginning history teachers at https://wordpress.com/view/uonhistoryteachertraining.school.blog
Teaching Summary
Victoria is a member of the ITE history team.
Victoria is the subject lead for the secondary PGCE history course.
Victoria is the admissions tutor for the secondary PGCE history course.
Research Summary
Victoria is currently engaged in a research project with colleagues from the University of York and the University of East Anglia examining the relationship between university-based and school-based… read more
Recent Publications