Grace Healy is an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Oxford and Education Director (Secondary) at the David Ross Education Trust.
In her role as Education Director (Secondary), Grace holds strategic oversight of the Trust’s secondary curriculum and teacher development work, which includes leading a team of Trust-wide subject leads in their stewardship of Trust-wide subject communities that serve and nurture all subject teachers. She works closely with Principals to sustain a model for evaluating impact and continuously renewing all aspects of curriculum, to build capacity in senior curriculum leadership, and to ensure a culture of subject-sensitivity and disciplinary rigour pervades all work on teacher development. She has held various leadership roles with a focus on curriculum and teacher development and initial teacher education (ITE), including Curriculum Director, Director of a Teaching School Hub, Secondary Phase Lead of ITE and Trust-wide Subject Leader for Geography. Prior to becoming a geography teacher, Grace assisted with research on professional development interventions in leadership and literacy at the Woolf Fisher Research Centre (University of Auckland), which ignited her passion for education research and interest in the professional learning and development of teachers. Her research interests have since been shaped by the leadership roles she has held, and the potential she sees for examining the relationships between subject teacher development at scale, the co-construction of subject specialist curriculum knowledge, and the development of research capacity across subject education communities.
Grace holds a Master of Education from the University of Cambridge and is due to complete her PhD at the Institute of Education, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society. She has completed her National Professional Qualification in Executive Leadership. Grace is a Fellow and a Chartered Geographer (Teacher) of the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) and has recently served a three-year term as Trustee and Honorary Secretary (Education) on the RGS’s Council.
Grace is committed to productive participation within communities of geography educators and education researchers and holds positions such as Treasurer for the Geography Education Research Collective (GEReCo), and member of British Educational Research Association (BERA)’s Publications Committee. She serves on the editorial boards of The Curriculum Journal, the London Review of Education and Teaching Geography. Since 2013, Grace has sustained service on numerous Geographical Association phase committees and SIGs, which has culminated in acting as Chair of the Teacher Education Phase Committee and Chair of the Geography Education Research SIG. She also serves as an External Examiner for the Secondary Geography PGDE at the University of Sheffield.
With funding from RGS and AHRC grants, Grace has worked with geographers from the University of St Andrews (Dr Jess Hope and Professor Nina Laurie) to reorientate geographical research undertaken in Bolivia and Peru for school geography. Grace holds an interest in continuing to explore the synergies between teaching and research across the school subject and academic discipline of geography.
Grace’s most recent co-edited books are Geography Education in the Digital World (Routledge, 2021) and Mentoring Geography Teachers in the Secondary School (Routledge, 2022). Her principal research interests are in curriculum theory, senior curriculum leadership, the subject-specific mentoring and professional development of teachers, geography teachers’ curricular theorising, and knowledge-exchange across schools and universities in the domains of geography and education.
Website: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8398-1390
Publications
EDITED SPECIAL ISSUES
Taylor, B. and Healy, G. (Eds.). (forthcoming, 2023). Rising to the challenge of teacher education to prepare teachers for today’s world, London Review of Education.
EDITED BOOKS
Healy, G., Hammond, L., Puttick, S. and Walshe, N. (Eds.). (2022). Mentoring Geography Teachers in the Secondary School. Abingdon: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003157120
Walshe, N. and Healy, G. (Eds.). (2021). Geography Education in the Digital World: Linking Theory and Practice. Abingdon: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429274909
JOURNAL ARTICLES
Healy, G., Bell, I., Calle, O., Carmen, M., Cornejo, S, Puescas, C., Laurie, N. and Valdez, A. (forthcoming). Co-producing geographical knowledge through school curricula and communities: Lessons from Peru on the opportunities of the El Niño phenomenon in the context of climate change.
Hammond, L. and Healy, G. (2022). Engaging with undergraduate students’ perspectives on the value of geography to a person’s education. Geography, 7(3), 137-144. https://doi.org/10.1080/00167487.2022.2114164
Fotheringham, P., Harriot, T., Healy, G., Arenge, G. and Wilson, E. (2022). Pressures and influences on school leaders navigating policy development during the COVID-19 pandemic. British Educational Research Journal, 48(2), 201-227. https://doi.org/10.1002/berj.3760
Finn, M., Hammond, L., Healy, G., Todd, J., Marvell, A., McKendrick, J. and Yorke, L. (2022). Looking ahead to the future of GeogEd: creating spaces of exchange between communities of practice. Area, 54(1), 41-51. https://rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/area.12701
Healy, G., Walshe, N. and Dunphy, A. (2020). How is geography rendered visible as an object of concern in written lesson observation feedback? The Curriculum Journal, 31(1), 7-26. https://doi.org/10.1002/curj.1
Healy, G. and Walshe, N. (2020). Real-world geographers and geography students using GIS: relevance, everyday applications and the development of geographical knowledge. International Research in Geographical and Environmental Education, 29(2), 179-196. https://doi.org/10.1080/10382046.2019.1661125
BOOK CHAPTERS
Taylor, L. and Healy, G. (2023, forthcoming). Case Study Methodology. In N. Clifford, M. Cope, T. Gillespie & S. French. (Eds.). Key Methods in Geography. 4th Edition. London: SAGE.
Hammond, L and Healy, G. (2023, forthcoming). Student voice, democratic education, and geography: Reflecting on the findings of a survey of undergraduate geography students. In L. Hammond, M. Biddulph, S. Catling & J.H. McKendrick (Eds.). Children, Education and Geography: Rethinking Intersections. Abingdon: Routledge.
Healy, G. (2022). Geography and geography education scholarship as a mechanism for developing and sustaining mentors’ and beginning teachers’ subject knowledge and curriculum thinking. In G. Healy, L. Hammond, S. Puttick & N. Walshe. (Eds.). Mentoring Geography Teachers in the Secondary School. Abingdon: Routledge, pp.187-207.
Healy, G. and Walshe, N. (2022). Navigating the policy landscape: conceptualising subject-specialist mentoring within and beyond policy. In G. Healy, L. Hammond, S. Puttick & N. Walshe. (Eds.). Mentoring Geography Teachers in the Secondary School. Abingdon: Routledge, pp.13-30.
Hammond, L., Puttick, S., Walshe, N. and Healy, G. (2022). Mentoring matters: contributing to a more just tomorrow in geography education. In G. Healy, L. Hammond, S. Puttick & N. Walshe. (Eds.). Mentoring Geography Teachers in the Secondary School. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 243-251.
Walshe, N., Healy, G., Puttick, S. and Hammond, L. (2022). Introduction: Mentoring matters in and for geography education. In G. Healy, L. Hammond, S. Puttick & N. Walshe. (Eds.). Mentoring Geography Teachers in the Secondary School. Abingdon: Routledge, pp.1-10.
Healy, G. (2021). A call to view disciplinary knowledge through the lens of geography teachers’ professional practice. In M. Fargher, D. Mitchell & E. Till. (Eds.). Recontextualising Geography in Education. Cham, Switzerland: Springer, pp.71-88.
Healy, G. and Walshe, N. (2021). From the digital world to the post-digital world: the future generation of geographers. In N. Walshe & G. Healy. (Eds.). Geography Education in the Digital World: Linking Theory and Practice. Abingdon: Routledge, pp.181-185.
Fargher, M. and Healy, G. (2021). Empowering geography teachers and students with geographical knowledge: epistemic access through GIS. In N. Walshe & G. Healy. (Eds.). Geography Education in the Digital World: Linking Theory and Practice. Abingdon Routledge, pp.102-116.
Healy, G. (2021). Insights from professional discourse on GIS: a case for recognising geography teachers’ repertoire of experience. In N. Walshe & G. Healy. (Eds.). Geography Education in the Digital World: Linking Theory and Practice. Abingdon: Routledge, pp.89-101.
Walshe, N. and Healy, G. (2021). Introduction: Navigating the digital world as geographers and geography educators. In N. Walshe & G. Healy. (Eds.). Geography Education in the Digital World: Linking Theory and Practice. Abingdon: Routledge, pp.1-4.
SELECTED PROFESSIONAL PUBLICATIONS
Healy, G. (2020). Placing the geography curriculum at the heart of assessment practice. Teaching Geography, 45(1), 30-33.
Healy, G. (2020). What does effective professional learning – for teachers and school leaders – look like in the 21st century? Education Exchange.
Healy, G. (2019). Subject scholarship as a mechanism for developing trainees’ reflective practice and teachers’ curricular thinking. Impact: Journal of the Chartered College of Teaching, 6, 52-54.
Healy, G. and Walshe, N. (2019). School students’ perceptions of the nature and value of GIS: implications for curriculum development and pedagogical practice. Impact: Journal of the Chartered College of Teaching. January 2019, 74-77.
Healy, G. and Walshe, N. (2019). Leveraging real-world geographers and GIS: relevance, inspiration and developing geographical knowledge. Teaching Geography, 44 (2), 52-55.
Healy, G. (2019). Should we access general or subject-specific curriculum theory? Times Education Supplement (Curriculum Special), 5352, 32.
Healy, G. (2018). Using local organisations and geographical scholarship to support A- level place studies. Teaching Geography, 43(1), 13–15
