The Directors

Prof Teresa Cremin

Teresa is Professor of Education (Literacy) at the OU. An ex-primary school teacher, then staff development co-ordinator and for 18 years an ITE tutor, Teresa now undertakes teaching, research and consultancy in the UK and abroad. A Fellow of the English Association, the Academy of Social Sciences, and the Royal Society of the Arts, Teresa is a member of the DfE English Hubs Council and the DfE Reading for Pleasure sub-committee. She is a co-editor of the journal Thinking Skills and Creativity and series editor of Learning to Teach Creatively in the Primary School (Routledge).  Teresa is also chair of the Advisory Group of the Paul Hamlyn Foundation Teacher Development Fund, a member of the ESRC Peer Review College, of the IBE-UNESCO network of Early Literacy Experts, a Trustee of the UK Literacy Association and was previously convenor of BERA Special interest Group on creativity. 

Her research focuses mainly on young people’s volitional reading and writing and the relationship between this and their teachers’ literate identities and classroom practices. Teresa is also keen to understand creative pedagogies that offer teachers and younger learners the chance to be imaginatively engaged as learners, exerting their agency and working collaboratively. 

Dr Helen Hendry

Helen is a Senior Lecturer in Education at the OU and part of the Education Studies (primary) undergraduate team. She is Deputy Chair of the ‘Comparative and International Studies in Primary Education’ module and Module Team Chair for a new edition of ‘Learning and Teaching in the Primary Years’. Her career in higher education has included leading the masters module ‘Educational Leadership: exploring strategy’ at the OU, and leading the Education Studies Undergraduate Programme at Bishop Grosseteste University (BGU). She was also responsible for English in primary Initial Teacher Education (ITE) at BGU for seven years. Helen draws on her previous professional experience as a senior leader in schools and an educational advisor for inclusion from birth to five. Her research centres around early reading, ITE and international early childhood development. Helen’s doctoral study charted the experience of trainee teachers learning to teach early reading through a longitudinal collective case study approach. This included consideration of the impact of community and collaboration on the practices of the student teachers and how they created rich reading experiences for pupils. Helen has researched and implemented initiatives designed to enhance pupils’ love of literature including developing a Mercers’ Company funded ‘Reading and Writing for pleasure framework for practice’ based on an extensive review of research and data collection with 6 charitable programmes in London. She also worked with the National Foundation for Educational Research to develop ‘Poetry Train’ with ITE students and poets in collaboration with the Poetry Society. Helen leads the OU and UKLA student teacher reading for pleasure scheme with 20 UK Higher Education institutions. She mentors English leaders on the OU Reading Schools programme.

Prof Natalia Kucirkova

Professor of Early Childhood Education and Development at the University of Stavanger, Norway and Professor of Reading and Children’s Development at The Open University, UK. Natalia’s research concerns innovative ways of supporting children’s book reading, digital literacy, and exploring the role of personalisation in the early years. Her research takes place collaboratively across academia, commercial and third sectors. She co-edits the Bloomsbury Book Series Children’s Reading and Writing on Screen and the journal Literacy published by Wiley. She has co-developed an award-winning MOOC “Childhood in the Digital Age”, an app for children’s story-making “Our Story” and professional development course for teachers “Children’s Reading on Screen”. She is author of Digital Personalization in Early Childhood (Bloomsbury) and How and Why to Read and Create Children's Digital Books (UCL Press) and currently blogs for Huffington Post and Psychology Today.