Declan Dowkes

Declan joined the University of Brighton in September 2024 as a Lecturer in Early Years and Education Studies having previously taught on various full and part time undergraduate and postgraduate Early Years and Education degree courses at the University of Huddersfield. His teaching responsibilities are varied and currently include teaching and module leading on the full-time degree courses: Early Childhood Education and Care BA (Hons) and Education BA (Hons), and the part-time course: Professional Practice in Education BA (Hons). In addition to his teaching responsibilities, Declan supervises final year undergraduate students with their research.

His teaching career first began back in October 2022 at the age of just 23 as a part-time hourly-paid lecturer at the University of Huddersfield teaching on the part-time Early Years BA (Hons) degree. During his time as a part-time hourly-paid lecturer, Declan was working full-time in early years practice as an Early Years Practitioner in a charity-run day nursery in South Yorkshire where he was the room leader of the pre-school room. Declan has also previously held various other Early Years roles spanning across both public and private Early Years practice across South Yorkshire from 2016. Namely, a relief Teaching Assistant (TA) based in the EYFS and KS1 unit of a primary school and a holiday cover EYP working with children aged 3-11 years.

Upon leaving full-time Early Years practice in February 2023, Declan worked in a Further Education (FE) college in South Yorkshire as both an FE Teacher and a HE Teaching Associate in Childcare and Education. During this time, he taught and held course leadership responsibilities for the distanced learning CACHE Level 3 Children and Young People’s Workforce (CYPW) course which was delivered in evenings in partnership with Wakefield Council to large cohorts of mature students. Alongside this leadership position, he also taught on the full-time Level 3 T-Level in Education course, Level 3 Access to Higher Education: Childhood Studies, and the Foundation Degree in Supporting Children, Families and Communities.

Declan subsequently earnt himself a full-time lecturing post at the University of Huddersfield in September 2023 at the age of 24. During his time at the University of Huddersfield, Declan went on to teach at both undergraduate and postgraduate level and hold interim course leadership responsibilities for three undergraduate degree courses (the Early Childhood and Education BA (Hons) Top-up, Education BA (Hons), and Education with Psychology BA (Hons) degrees). In addition, he effectively led the school’s organisation, planning and delivery of the Undergraduate Framework Conference for 80 final-year students from across the whole of the undergraduate education framework, taught on a 'train the trainers' programme to a group of early years teacher training students in China, as well as successfully supervising 12 undergraduate students and 6 master’s degree students with their research projects to completion.

Declan is research active and, alongside his doctorate which is exploring practitioners’ experiences of ‘Professional Love’ loss in private day nursery settings, writing for publication, and being the Chief Trainer at Nappies and Sick Training and Consultancy, he is currently the research assistant for a study led by one of his former colleagues Dr Dimi Kaneva entitled: Listening through play-based methods (LIME): Young children’s experiences of family life in the aftermath of a global pandemic. All of which informs his teaching.