Sian Ephgrave

Having been a secondary school teacher for about ten years, I am interested in finding ways to meaningfully involve teachers in educational research. My work explores the connection between sustainability, wellbeing and participatory approaches to research. I believe teacher wellbeing is an important area of investigation in and of itself and not only because its cultivation has been linked to improved exam results. I aim to work with and develop methodologies that allow for the meaningful inclusion of stakeholders at each level of the research process. My most recent work involved the use of poetic inquiry

This research will critique the notion of teacher wellbeing in order to yield insights into how teachers can be well in ways that are meaningful to them. It will collaboratively explore, with a small number of teachers of English in England, our conceptualisations of teacher wellbeing, based on our lived experiences. The project will be partly conducted in collaboration with the National Writing Project, through writing workshops with NWP groups, as well as with individual teachers. This is an arts-based inquiry that recognises the importance of teachers’ experiential knowledge.