Professor Ian Barron

Research and Practice Hub

The Faculty of Education, working in partnership with Martenscroft Nursery School and Children’s Centre, Hulme, is seeking to establish the Manchester Early Years Research and Practice Hub as an exemplar of research and practice excellence of international acclaim.

There has been a long history of partnership between Martenscroft and the Manchester Met Faculty of Education, with the provision of placements for Manchester Met students and non-graduate Martenscroft staff studying part-time and successfully completing the faculty’s BA(Hons) Early Years and Childhood Studies degree. There has also been a tradition of joint research and publications over many years. The intention is to build on the robust partnership between Martenscroft and the Manchester Met Faculty of Education, which combines the above early years’ provision with research and enterprise activities in a new income-generating architect designed urban space of national and international significance. The Centre will also seek to address significant regeneration, transformation and sustainability targets for Hulme, Moss Side, Ardwick and East and Central Manchester.

The Manchester Early Years Research and Practice Hub aims to become a national centre of excellence for research, initial education and training for early childhood practitioners and teachers, other early years training and CPD. Early Years Apprenticeships will be included to provide progression routes from lower level Early Years Apprenticeships to Higher Level Apprenticeships, funded through the Employers and Skills Funding Agency.

Early Years Professional / Teacher Status

I successfully led a Faculty of Education bid in 2006 to become one of the 13 pilot organisations providing Early Years Professional Status as part of a government project from 2006.  Following a futher bidding process, we went on to offer other routes to EYPS from 2007. Subsequently I led a further bid to offer an additional EYPS route as one of four pilot organisations from 2008.  I played a central role in securing and then overseeing a final EYPS project from 2011 onwards, which resulted in Manchester Met leading a consortium of 10 HEIs (the Early Years Professonal Northern Alliance) offering Early Years Professional Status training in the North-West, Yorkshire, North-East and East Midlands

Postgraduate teaching

I contribute to the taught part of the Doctorate in Education.

I have seen three doctoral students through to successful completion.

I am currently supervising four PhD and EdDoc students, of whom I am the Director of Studies for one.

Past and present research areas supervised include:

• Professional identities in higher education;
• Teacher emotion in inclusive education;
• Break-time peer group activities and their effect on teachers’ pedagogical decision-making;
• Research-based practice in early years pedagogy;
• Male primary school teacher identities within the figured world of the primary school;
• Ethical professional practice and identities in the nursery school;
• Agency and structure amongst educational leaders.

My doctoral research was concerned with the interconnectedness of ethnicity, family and community in children’s sense of identity.

My research interests are in early childhood generally and in the children’s workforce.  I am particularly interested in children’s early lives, beings and development and the relationship with practice in early childhood settings. In theoretical terms, I am interested in socio-cultural, post-structural and post-humanist theory.