Leading a Culture of Enquiry and Research in Early Years Settings / Schools

Webinar 26.01.2023 6.30pm-8.00pm – register here

Dr. Elizabeth Carruthers presents an autoethnographic case study about the place of teacher/practitioner research and enquiry in early years settings and schools. Stenhouse (1979) put forward the importance of developing a base of critical analysis (in schools) where everybody can be involved. Dewey (1895) wrote that, ‘the teacher should understand and be able to criticise, the general principles on which the whole educational system is formed and administered…he/she must be an intelligent medium of action’.

Elizabeth was Head Teacher of a Maintained Nursery School and Children’s Centre for 12 years and there, with her colleagues, she established a research culture where research was the vehicle that drove the vision. In her presentation she will outline the critical pathway that enabled teachers and practitioners to move to a self-empowerment model of pedagogy that uncovered children’s thinking and ways of knowing.

Dr. Elizabeth Carruthers is a researcher and writer who has taught for many years in schools and early years’ settings, and she has also worked for local authorities as an advisor for early years and mathematics. She has researched and published widely on children’s early mathematics, focusing on pedagogy and children’s mathematical graphics. Elizabeth is a strong advocate for the empowerment of teachers as experts in their own classrooms.