By Students, For Students - An opportunity to attend the conference, to present a paper, and to encourage other students who are giving papers for the first time.

Saturday 4th July 2009, 10:00 am – 5:25 pm

Keynote Speaker: Professor John Furlong (University of Oxford)

The postgraduate Student Conference in the School of Education University of Birmingham has been taking place for the last eight years.  Its origins were somewhat speculative and attendance rather small but since its first humble beginnings the conference has grown not only in number but also in academic excellence.  This is demonstrated academically through the quality of the speakers and also administratively through the ability of our doctoral researchers to take on much of the behind the scenes support that is so important in a conference such as this. 

Despite the growing maturity of the conference, what has never been lost is its ability to provide a secure environment for the ‘new’ researcher and presenter.  This philosophy of collegiality underpins the conference and is reflected in the way that sessions support not only new presenters but also people who might be chairing a conference session for the first time.  This in itself can be a difficult and stressful experience as anyone who has ever tried to keep delegates running to time will agree!

Each year the conference not only grows in stature but also demonstrates the diversity of our research interests.  I never fail to be astonished by the breadth of curiosity demonstrated by students and colleagues alike.  Education research is not simply researching classroom practice; it questions the ‘how’ ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘where’ and ‘why’ of people and of teaching in a plethora of situations and contexts.

Our keynote speaker this year, Professor John Furlong gave us all a generous insight into his research in a relaxed and informative way that prepared the ground for the remaining presenters. 

The day concluded with a plenary session that was well supported by delegates and gave a final opportunity for everyone to reflect on what they had achieved and of course a last opportunity to network with friends and colleagues.

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A small catering fee of £12.00 per person was necessary to cover the provision of lunch, drinks throughout the day and to provide a copy of the proceedings.

Workshop on Chairing Presentation Sessions

For students chairing a Paper Presentation Session, there was a workshop on this topic delivered by Dr. Chris Corcoran on Thursday 25 June from 12pm to 1.00pm.