Rachel Fossey

Courses taught:

• Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) without QTS (Postgraduate)

Rachel has had a varied career in Education including being an Educational Consultant delivering training and support to trainee teachers on a number of SCITT programmes and an Assistant Head in a Secondary School. She is now part of the undergraduate and postgraduate teaching team at ARU and Course Leader for the BEd Primary Education with QTS in Chelmsford as part of our newly accredited provision to award Qualified Teacher Status.

In 2023 Rachel received a PG Cert Learning & Teaching Excellence in Practice Award, a new scheme which aims to recognise and celebrate the practice of PG Cert students as leaders of emerging excellent practice.

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Background

Rachel started her career in 1998 as an English and Drama teacher in a Secondary School in Leicestershire where she became Head of Drama and then Head of Performing Arts. She moved to Essex in 2008 and spent two years as a Teaching and Learning Consultant working in schools across the county. She returned to teaching as an Assistant Headteacher in a large Secondary School where her responsibilities were Quality of Teaching and Whole School Assessment.

Following a short career break when she had her two children, she became a freelance Educational Consultant working mainly in Initial Teacher Training. She has led training courses on Assessment for Learning, Adaptive Teaching, Physical Theatre, Developing Middle Leaders, and Outstanding Drama Teaching as well as supporting many trainee teachers on their journey through to QTS Assessment as an External Pathway Tutor and English Subject Tutor. She has been teaching at ARU since September 2022 and began her role as BEd Course Lead in September 2023.

She is also Chair of Governors at a primary school.

Research interests

• Initial Teacher Training
• Teacher Development
• Emotional responses to teaching and developing educational practice
• Training evaluation
• Online, Distance, Blended and face-to-face learning modes
• Simulation-based learning in initial teaching training

MA Post Graduate Major Project: ‘How do trainee teachers perceive the modes of study for key theoretical aspects of the Core Content Framework?’. An evaluation of one face-to-face and one online self-study training session delivered to trainee teachers as part of the Core Content Framework curriculum offer.

Areas of research supervision

• Arts/Performing Arts/Drama curriculum, benefits and barriers
• Special Needs provision in Primary Schools – especially dyslexia as well as the implications of dyslexia on the child
• Outdoor Learning
• Teacher Training

Teaching

Rachel currently teaches on the following modules:

• The Reflective Practitioner (PGCE)
• Professional Enquiry (PGCE)
• Subject Knowledge for Teaching: Arts Based Approaches to Environmental Sustainability

Qualifications

• MA – Anglia Ruskin University. Education.
• PGCert – Kings College London. Education and Professional Studies.
• PGCE – Exeter University. Secondary English and Drama.
• BA (Hons) – University of Plymouth. Theatre Arts and Performance Studies with English.