Dr Colin Forster began his teaching career in primary schools in areas of deprivation in South London, before working as a deputy headteacher and interim headteacher in Gloucestershire.
He has worked as a Senior/Principal Lecturer in Primary Initial Teacher Education since joining the University of Gloucestershire in 2005 and seeks to inspire the next generation of teachers to embrace the opportunities provided in primary science to develop children’s ability to think critically and creatively. His teaching is routinely evaluated as being outstanding and inspirational, as he seeks to engage student teachers in rich subject and pedagogical learning.
Colin was a leader in the University of Gloucestershire’s Initial Teacher Education team for almost a decade. He was relentless in his drive for course improvement through detailed analysis of available data about outcomes for students and played a pivotal role in moving the programmes from Ofsted Satisfactory to Ofsted Outstanding grading.
Colin engaged in innovative and bold solutions to address the challenges around retention of men on the primary Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) course. Nationally, men are twice as likely as women to fail to complete the PGCE programme. Colin’s response was to invite the male students to explore why this might be and suggest their own solutions to the challenges that might arise and this had a significant and positive impact on male retention.
Colin completed his Doctorate in Education in 2011, in which he researched the endlessly fraught topic of homework in primary schools. In addition to his work in Initial Teacher Education, Colin has supported dozens of teachers to complete their Master of Arts (MA) in Education and is currently supervising eight PhD candidates. Colin is committed to developing his students’ teaching through the adoption of action research methodology and has led several successful projects to support student teachers to analyse the detail of their practice and become better teachers as a result.
Colin has published books related to action research and teaching the primary curriculum. He loves to work collaboratively with colleagues to undertake research into teaching and learning, to present at national conferences and to disseminate learning through books and articles.