Dr Carol Smith

Bicentennial Education Fellow

Biography

Background

My background is in Primary Education. After graduating in 1984 with a BEd in Primary Education, I spent 24 years undertaking a variety of teaching and management roles in Scottish primary schools, focusing on Nursery to P7. In 2008 I was seconded to work as part of a new initiative to support Probationer teachers throughout their Induction year. Then, in 2010, I moved to Stirling University to work as part of the tutor team on the new ITE Primary Education programme, the BA in Professional Education, and where I latterly took responsibility for students wishing to specialise in early years education. In 2012 I took up the post of Bicentennial Education Fellow at Moray House School of Education and Sport, University of Edinburgh,  where I currently spend my time working across undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in primary education.

My main areas of educational interest are early years education, active and play-based approaches to learning, the use and design of school spaces, children's agency and choice, peer friendships, and professional practices.  I recently completed my Doctoral Studies at Moray House School of Education and Sport, University of Edinburgh. My research, entitled ' You can't know, you're not 5': Exploring children's views of what it is like to be in Primary 1',  explores the time when children begin compulsory education in a Scottish primary school context. Throught the adoption of an ethnographic approach, it set out to gain an in-depth, contextually grounded understanding of children's everyday, lived experiences of being in Primary 1, based principally on how the children themselves talked of this time. 

Qualifications

 

Qualifications

Doctor of Education, University of Edinburgh, 2023

Postgraduate Diploma in Educational Research, Stirling University, 2012

Masters in Education (MEd): Professional Enquiry in Education, Stirling University, 2005

Postgraduate Certificate in Early Years Education, Northern College, 1997

Bachelor of Education, Moray House School of Education, Edinburgh, 1984

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