Personal statement

I am the Head of the Strathclyde Institute of Education, and proud to be so. I took my post at Strathclyde in January 2025. I have had a long career in education. It began as a primary teacher working for the Inner London Education Authority. I have also worked in the City of Nottingham and Nottinghamshire as a class teacher, Special Educational Needs Co-Ordinator (SENCO), and Deputy Headteacher. In my career as a teacher, my subject specialisms were literacy and art and I taught children from P2 to P7. I have also worked in Higher Education at Nottingham Trent University, the University of Nottingham and the University of Derby, teaching on UG and PG programmes in teacher education and education studies. I have been a course leader for postgraduate programmes, and the head of the Institute of Education (more latterly the Centre for Research and Innovation in Education). Immediately prior to joining Strathclyde, I was a research professor with a cross university research role, leading the academic theme Public Services. I have a long lasting interest in inclusive education, and my publications and research interests reflect this. One of my most recent publications (Robinson, 2024), critiques teacher education policy in England with a particular focus on the inclusion of children with disabilities and learning difficulties, and proposes principles for teacher education curriculum design which are based on my empirical research. Recent commissioned research has included studies for the Department for Education (England) focussed on parental experiences of the Special Educational Needs (SEN) system, and statutory assessment; for the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (Ireland) focussed on the implementation and impact of the Access and Inclusion Model (AIM), ; for the National Council of Education (Ireland) focussed on services users' perceptions of frontline services.