Personal statement

Eleanor West is a senior lecturer on the BA Education with QTS. She is an experienced Primary school teacher who has taught children from 4-11 in a range of settings here and abroad for 25 years. She is the co-module lead for English on the QTS programme and teaches on other modules across the undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. 

As a primary school teacher she developed a specialism in English. Through this role, she was able to share with the children her lifelong enjoyment of literature and notably stories and poetry, and noticed that the leap of imagination, which stories prompt, and which children make so readily, could be used to engage them in cross-curricular learning.

She also noticed that children write most effectively about subjects they have experienced and which matter to them. She was particularly interested in finding ways to encourage empower children’s authentic voice and help them to develop a love of reading by introducing them to the wonderful literature for children, and empower them to communicate real experience and genuine feeling in their own writing.

The motivation to support confidence to communicate and be heard is a theme which she has taken into Higher Education and developed through her work with Undergraduate Students.  She has shared with students her love of children's literature and the invitations they offer through her module ‘Childhood, Reading and Children’s Literature, and more recently as part of the English team on the BA Education with QTS Programme.

Academic qualifications

  • PGCE Primary
  • Masters degree in Psychology and Education
  • FHEA.

External roles

  • Parent Governor Ashton Park Secondary School.

Teaching specialism

  • Primary teaching
  • Early Years to upper KS2
  • Language and Literacy in Primary education
  • Attachment awareness and emotion coaching.

Research projects

Eleanor has also been involved in research projects focusing on children’s emotional health and well-being such as The Attachment Aware Schools Programme and the Somerset Emotion Coaching Project.

On this project, Eleanor was involved in training practitioners across Somerset and collecting data for the final report, commissioned by Somerset County Council.

Recently she has been collaborating with colleagues to design assessments across the undergraduate programme which are meaningful to student learners and allow creative expression of authentic ideas. 

Areas of research supervision

Eleanor is interested in supervising students who have a passion for children’s literature, or those who wish to explore the way in which children learn to understand themselves and the world around them through reading and writing – and through opportunities to tell their own stories.