Dr Jake Halford

I am a lecturer of education. I joined the school of education in 2022 teaching on the Secondary History PGCE. I am also the academic lead for School Centred Initial Teacher Training and leading mentor development and training for the PGCE course.

Before joining the school of Education in 2022 I was a Head of Department at a school in Leicester. I studied a Masters in philosophy at Lancaster University and a PhD in history at the University of Warwick before training as a teacher at the University of Leicester. Before entering the teaching profession I have also worked as a researcher at the Centre for the Study of Economic and Social Aspects Genetics and research fellow at the Folger Shakespeare Library.

My main areas of research are on diversity, cultural representation, inclusivity and identity in history teaching. I am particularly interested in the impact of cultural representation and diversity in history on student's engagement and their identity.

I am currently researching play as a pedagogical approach using LEGO Serious Play in teacher education and higher education and looking to explore the utility of LEGO Serious Play as a research instrument to look at teacher’s beliefs and values around diversity in history curriculums.

Previous research has been on digital humanities and using corpus linguistics, databases, and digital tools to track linguistic changes in historical discourse and literary genres, in particular educational dialogues, in the seventeenth century. 

I have expertise in the following areas and would be happy to supervise in the following areas:

History teaching

• Curriculum
• Decolonisation and antiracism
• Diversity and cultural representation
• Links between school and academic history

Pedagogy

• Play as a pedagogical approach in secondary and higher educational
• Pedagogy of Discomfort
• EdTech and Artificial Intelligence

Teacher development

• Lesson Study
• Professional Identity
• Developing teacher subject knowledge
• Agency and Autonomy

The majority of my teaching is for the Secondary PGCE where I lead the sessions for History and RE PGCE students. In addition I contribute to the Professional and Academic Sessions on EDI, data, and professional identity. As Academic Lead for School Centred Initial Teacher Training I also teach academic skills. 

I have also taught on the Masters of Education where I have done sessions on positionality, theoretical frameworks, and identity as a teacher-researcher.