Mr William Quirke

Teaching Fellow

Strathclyde Institute of Education

Contact

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Personal statement

Will joined the University of Strathclyde’s Institute of Education as a Teaching Fellow in 2021. Previously, he worked in Falkirk Council as a teacher of Geography and Rural Skills and held the position of Faculty Head for Social Subjects and RMPS. During this time Will developed a keen interest in Learning for Sustainability and understanding barriers to its implementation. Tracking, monitoring and moderation in the Broad General Education phase was also an area of interest. 

Since joining the Institute of Education, Will's work and knowledge exchange activity has specialised in the fields of Sustainability Education, Geography Education and Practitioner Enquiry. He is also active in a number of national and international working groups and professional networks relating to these areas. 

Will is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA), a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and a member of the Scottish Association of Geography Teachers.  

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Area of Expertise

Will offers CPD/CLPL in People, Place and Environment to primary and lower secondary practitioners. Will also offers CPD/CLPL in Learning for Sustainability and Education for Sustainable Development for both primary and secondary settings.

Information on the sessions Will delivers can be found in the Institute of Education CLPL catalogue: https://www.strath.ac.uk/humanities/education/career-longprofessionallearning/ 

Will leads the Strathclyde Institute of Education Sustainable Development Group.

As an active member of the StrathCAN network, Will is an experienced Climate Fresk facilitator and specialises in delivering interdisciplinary climate education experiences. 

Prize And Awards

Fulbright Global Challenges Teaching Award: Climate Change
Recipient
1/8/2024

More prizes and awards

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Teaching

Module Leadership:

  • Course Tutor for PGDE Geography
  • Module Leader for the MEd module X3969 - Learning for Sustainability
  • Co-Module leader for the PGDE module X9674 - Professional Learning through Enquiry
  • Module Leader for the BA module X2204 - Learning for Sustainability: Theory and Practice 
  • Member of the PGDE Course Management Team

 

Tutor/Lecturer:

  • X3969 – Learning for Sustainability (MEd)
  • X9574 – Professional Learning through Enquiry (PGDE)
  • X9573 – Education Studies, Professional Values (PGDE)
  • X9577 – Curriculum and Pedagogy: Geography (PGDE)
  • X7460 – Professional Skills: Professional Practice (PGDE)
  • X7331 – Teaching Social Studies Creatively (BA)
  • X9284 – Learning for Sustainability: Theory and Practice (Interdisciplinary Module)
  • X7334 - Social Research Methods (BA)
  • X9651 - Practitioner Enquiry for Professional Learning
  • Masters dissertation supervision (MEd/MSc)
  • Undergraduate dissertation supervision
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Research Interests

In 2024 Will was awarded the Global Challenges Teaching Award (Climate Change) by the US-UK Fulbright Commission. In partnership with The Division of Science of Brandeis University, Massachusetts, Will and colleagues are co-creating a Virtual Exchange/Collaborative Online International Learning initiative. https://fulbright.org.uk/our-community/meet-our-fulbrighters/ 

Will represented the Strathclyde Institute of Education in the Erasmus+ Island Schools (iSHRINK) project. This project saw Will working collaboratively with colleagues in institutions in The Netherlands, Greece, Iceland and Spain to bring schools from across Europe’s islands together around sustainability challenges. Further information can be found on the projects website https://www.islandschools.eu/  

Will has been interviewed about his work and research on the Institute of Education podcast. You can listen through the following link https://tinyurl.com/585t8zkj  

Will is a co-convener of the Strathclyde Children and Young People Sustainability Network which supports research, teaching and knowledge exchange activities that promote children and young people’s participation in realising the Sustainable Development Goals

Will is currently a Doctoral student on the University of Strathclyde’s EdD programme. His doctoral research explores the distribution of public open spaces in urban areas and its influence on the wellbeing of adolescents.

Professional Activities

An Introduction to Mixed Methods Research
Speaker
21/1/2026
What knowledges for what sort of geography education in Scotland?
Organiser
20/11/2025
SERA Conference
Participant
19/11/2025
Colleen Hitchcock
Host
29/10/2025
HaSS Faculty Learning Enhancement Committee working group: ESD Learning Outcomes (Event)
Member
10/2025
Learning for Sustainability Professional Learning for Forth Environment Link (FEL)
Consultant
6/8/2025

More professional activities

Projects

Do we develop thriving rural teachers? An analysis of the General Teaching Council for Scotland’s Standards for Provisional Registration.
Quirke, William (Principal Investigator) McCrorie, Kathryn (Co-investigator)
Using a framework that specifies the characteristics and attributes of thriving rural teachers, the researchers are conducting an audit of the GTCS Standards for Provisional Registration and assessing the extent to which urban-based Initial Teacher Education supports the development of thriving rural early career teachers.
03-Jan-2025
Virtual Exchange/ Collaborative Online International Learning Project
Quirke, William (Principal Investigator) Hitchcock, Colleen (Principal Investigator)
The delivery of a VE/COIL project between undergraduate students at the University of Strathclyde and Brandeis University based on the topic of the Climate Crisis. This project is supported by the US-UK Fulbright Commission Global Challenges Teaching Award.
01-Jan-2025 - 19-Jan-2025
Curricula constructions of citizenship: How are geography’s relationships with citizenship conceptualised in, and understood through, education policy in England and Scotland?
Quirke, William (Co-investigator) Hammond, Lauren (Principal Investigator)
This project seeks to examine how geography’s relationships with citizenship are conceptualised in, and understood through, education policy in
England and Scotland. It is intended as pump-priming project which intersects with Hammond’s other work in children’s rights in England and
Scotland (Hammond, in review), a small grant in development focussing on children’s lived citizenship in Scotland (Hammond et al., in preparation),
and collaborative work between Quirke and Hammond which aims to build a community of geography (teacher) educators in Scotland and actively
contribute to the relatively small literature base in the field in Scotland (Hammond et al., in review). Through a literature review and analysis of what
Priestley and Sinnema (2014) term policy intentions and the operational level of working documents, the research aims to gain insight into how
citizenship is conceptualised in education policy and the guidance given to geography educators about what, how and why it should be taught. By
engaging with a focus group of geography teacher educators in England and Scotland, the research will examine how citizenship is conceptualised
by those who teach beginning teachers and gain a sense of how education policy is engaged with, explored, and contested. Ultimately, the project
aims provide insight into education policy and into how policy is understood and negotiated. This insight will be used to inform the development of,
and a case for, a larger bid – provisionally an ESRC New Investigator grant – examining the relationships between children’s diverse experiences of
lived citizenship in the UK and their experiences of citizenship in, and of, education spaces.
01-Jan-2024
Teaching Social Studies: Exploring the Impact of a Transdisciplinary Approach towards Initial Teacher Education in Scotland.
Quirke, William (Principal Investigator) McCrorie, Kathryn (Co-investigator) Proctor, Sarah (Co-investigator)
This project researches the impact of a transdisciplinary approach towards the delivery of social studies Initial Teacher Education (ITE) in Scotland. The influence of this approach on the confidence level of students is explored in addition to its impact on their first school placement experience in a Scottish secondary school.
08-Jan-2024 - 05-Jan-2024
Climate Action Workshop
Quirke, William (Principal Investigator) McCrorie, Kathryn (Principal Investigator) Proctor, Sarah (Principal Investigator)
A Climate Freak Climate Action Workshop held for PGDE Geography, History and Modern Studies students
18-Jan-2023 - 18-Jan-2023
Climate Action Workshop
McCrorie, Kathryn (Co-investigator) Quirke, William (Co-investigator) Proctor, Sarah (Co-investigator)
Developing the Climate Fresk training to use with BA Primary teaching students and then to develop further with PGDE social studies students.
10-Jan-2022

More projects

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Contact

Mr William Quirke
Teaching Fellow
Strathclyde Institute of Education

Email: w.quirke@strath.ac.uk
Tel: Unlisted