Dr Helen Fiona Day

National Teaching Fellow 2013 Dr Helen Day's academic identity has been influenced by a varied career that includes employability and English Literature, learning on the language-literature border, writing for children, pedagogic research and research-informed teaching, educational evaluation and staff development. Helen was senior researcher and evaluator for the Centre of Employability through Humanities (CETH), one of the National CETLs. She is most proud of developing and disseminating the UCLan Employability Framework, a toolkit of 14 employability skills buttons with accompanying assessment criteria. It has been used within her own and other institutions for curriculum development, validation, assessment, strategic development and CPD. Val Butcher, the HEAs former Senior Adviser on Employability writes of "my tireless work to disseminate Helen's very good practice." Helen was an extremely active member of the English Subject Centre, running a number of conferences. Former Manager Jane Gawthrope describes Helen as "the Subject Centre's expert on work-related learning" and commissioned her to write Work-related learning in English Studies: a good practice guide. She was also funded to examine methods for integrating language and literature within final year modules and develop a Card Sort to enable users to consider their subject, generic and employability skills in a meaningful way. Helen runs the innovative MA Writing for Children, the first of its kind to have employability embedded throughout the programme. She is committed to ensuring that each of the modules on writing, literature and publishing enable students to blend their existing knowledge, skills and experiences with the new. As a result they produce exciting and distinctive outputs that can be used to promote their careers and develop their personal and professional identities. One student said: "Helen gives all her students the tools to create their own futures and careers; but she also somehow knows when to step back and let us build it for ourselves." Helen's approach to learning and teaching is to share her successes and seek improvement through reflective practice, pursuing a Masters in Professional Education, delivering conference papers and producing pedagogic and subject-related research articles.