Dr Jo McNulty

I am a Senior Lecturer in BA (Hons) Early Years and Childhood Studies at Manchester Metropolitan University (2013 to date). I have had experience of the Year Leader role for Levels 4, 5 & 6, Admissions and Assessment Co-ordination and was Programme Leader from September 2016 to June 2020.

I have also taught in higher education at undergraduate and post graduate level on Primary Teaching courses offering a specialism in the area of early years education. I started my career in Manchester as a primary school teacher and have experience of teaching in the foundation stage, key stage 1 and key stage 2.

I have a Master’s degree from the University of Manchester (2000) and a Doctorate in Education from Manchester Metropolitan University (2017).

It was from my time as a primary teacher that my particular interest in children’s learning and development grew and I have continued to extend my understanding of this area through research and leading and teaching on units which focus on children’s learning and development.

My doctoral research pursued the elusiveness of transition to unsettle and question more conventional, linear interpretations. My aim was not to dismiss or reject other conceptualisations, but to build an augmented understanding. In doing so, I turned to a postmodern analytic autoethnographic methodology. By employing a type of analytic autoethnography that included participants other than self, I was able to take data, entangle it into stories and conceptualisations of transition so that new ways of thinking could be interpreted.