Dr Anne-Marie Wright

Head of CPD Programmes

I am head of department for Continuing Professional Development in the Faculty of Education and Children's Services and have been at Chester since January 2007.

Overview

My current job is to oversee the provision of high quality professional learning experiences linked to postgraduate qualifications for teachers and more increasingly, others, in the Children's workforce. I lead a very busy and highly professional team of colleagues.

On a person level, I have two adult sons and have recently become interested in mindfulness as a technique to keep a perspective and work life balance. I have completed a basic training course in mindfulness meditation and have been on several retreats. My plan is be calmer!!!

I have also begun to travel and make up for being too serious in my youth and have been very adventurous of late. You can ask me if you meet me!

Teaching

I teach Masters modules on managing children's emotions and behaviour. I am passionate about helping professionals to understand how education is experienced by those marginalised children and young people who are always at risk of being failed by our system. I am committed to providing teachers with the skills, empathy and attitude that they need to teach those children who challenge and disturb us.

I am currently interested in how multi-professional discourses will impact on schools, in response to the Every Child Matters agenda.

Research

My research interests have always been focussed on the needs and experiences of children and young people with learning and behavioural difficulties. Before I moved to Higher Education ten years ago, I had taught in special schools for over twenty years.

My doctoral thesis was about discourses of disability; how professionals and parents think and talk about young people whose own voices are often not heard. My recent research has combined feminist methodology with a Faucouldian understanding of discourse. For me, this means, those whose views are commonly not given primacy, for example, people who are marginalised, are given an equal status in any narrative.