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.

Declan was awarded Fellowship status (FHEA) of Advance HE (formally the Higher Education Academy) in October 2024 in recognition of him evidencing widespread excellence within his teaching and learning practice and is currently working towards obtaining Senior Fellowship status (SFHEA). 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), Education BA (Hons), and Primary Education with QTS (3-7) BA (Hons) as well as the part-time course: Professional Practice in Education BA (Hons). In addition to his teaching responsibilities, Declan is the year lead for Year 1 and 2 students on the part-time Professional Practice in Education BA (Hons) degree with overall responsibility for their pastoral and academic support, as well as supervising 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 Education (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 at Barnsley College as a FE Teacher and 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 work-based 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 Initial Teacher Training (EYITT) students in China alongside an interpreter, 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 Education PhD doctoral study which is exploring practitioners’ experiences and consciousness of ‘Professional Love’ loss in English private day nursery settings (supervised by: Dr Jools Page and second supervised by: Dr Jodi Roffey-Barentsen), 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.

Heavily influenced by his time teaching in an FE college as well as, among others, encountering the scholarly work of Alison James into the value of facilitating gamified learning environments for HE learners (James, 2021), Declan favours andragogic approaches to teaching and learning that are of an interactive, exploratory, research-informed and game-based nature. Examples of how this manifests within his practice include:  

• Educational escape room activities.
• TikTok group activities.
• Round robin table activities.
• QR coded activity posters.
• Case study and role play-based activities.

Moreover, Declan has a strong commitment to student-centredness and inclusivity. In keeping with this, he regularly requests and receives anonymous feedback from his students via the Padlet: Student feedback on teaching and learning experience (padlet.com) which he uses to improve their teaching and learning experience and he has developed what he terms his "inclusive table boxes" which he makes accessible to all of his students during seminars. Contained in these table boxes, students can find (and discreetly use): fidget toys, noise reducing ear buds, a range of coloured overlays and pens. Student and colleague feedback concerning Declan's table boxes has consistently highlighted that they believe these resources can be credited for fostering an enabling learning environment whereby all of his students are able to access his teaching fully.

• Professional Love loss