Dr Ben Screech

Biography

I joined University of Gloucestershire in 2017, having previously taught in various schools in Bristol. In addition to mainstream teaching, I have also worked in SEND settings and as a youth worker for a children’s charity. I teach across various modules in Education and ITE and am also course leader for the PgCert in Research Methods.

My main area of interest in terms of my current teaching and research is children’s and young-adult literature – also the focus of my PhD. I am particularly interested in literature’s ability to prompt awareness among young people of key issues facing humanity (such as climate change) and how teachers can draw on high-quality texts in the classroom to facilitate this.

I have also recently completed a three-year ERASMUS+ project, during which I worked with a team of educators in Italy, Romania and Lithuania. We devised a curriculum that coupled disciplinary literacy and social and emotional learning approaches to raise student achievement in three European settings of literacy disadvantage.

Qualifications

• PgCert: Academic Practice, University of Gloucestershire, 2020.
• PhD: Reading Otherness in British Fiction for Young People, 2001 – 2012, University of the West of England, 2018
• PGCE: Primary Education, University of the West of England, 2010
• MA: English, University of the West of England, 2009
• BA (Hons): English, University of the West of England, 2008

Awards

• 2023 – Funded visiting fellowship – International Youth Library, Munich
• 2020 – Fellow of the HEA
• 2018 – ‘Best Paper in Section’ Award – CEA annual conference, St Petersburg, Florida
• 2015 – Santander Travel Award