Sarah spent the majority of her teaching career in primary schools in central London. Additional to her class teacher responsibilities she also had the role of subject leader for English and has specialised in this area of the curriculum for over 10 years. Sarah has also held Senior Leadership positions within school and had specific responsibility for developing a creative curriculum where good quality children’s literature provided the starting point for meaningful cross-curricular learning.
Upon leaving classroom teaching Sarah worked as an Advisory Teacher for the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education where she led professional development courses for teachers, teaching assistants and parents. A common theme running through the courses was on using creative teaching approaches alongside rich children’s literature to develop engaging learning experiences in English.
After CLPE, Sarah started in Initial Teacher Education and has held Senior Lecturer roles at Oxford Brookes University, Birmingham City University and now Staffordshire University where she taught on primary English modules on the undergraduate Primary Education with QTS degree and PGCE courses. Areas that are of particular interest to Sarah are children’s literature, using Lego to support storytelling and talk for spelling.