Dr Agnieszka Bates

Personal statement

Agnieszka Bates is Head of the School of Education. She began her career in education as a primary school teacher in London for twelve years before going on to teach in three university Schools of Education, in a variety of internal and external facing roles.

Agnieszka has a wide range of experience in the design, delivery and programme leadership of Undergraduate, Master’s and Doctoral programmes as well as supervising students at all levels. Her approach to teaching and learning aims to be innovative, interdisciplinary and research-informed to enhance professional practice.

Agnieszka’s first book ‘Transforming Education: Meanings, myths and complexity’ was based on empirical research with teachers and school leaders that built on her consultancy work implementing school improvement strategies. More recently (May 2021), she has written a book on character education in which she critiques mainstream pedagogy and offers an alternative approach.

As Postgraduate Research Director at the University of East Anglia, she was responsible for leading a team of supervisors and overseeing a large cohort of doctoral students. Agnieszka is a strong believer in openness and collegiality as essential ingredients for successful professional teamwork and consequently, an excellent student experience.

Academic qualifications

• Doctor of Education (EdD), Froebel College, University of Roehampton, with a focus on strategic leadership and school improvement
• MA in English Language and Literature, King’s College London
• BA and MA in English and Linguistics, University of Warsaw, Poland.

Professional memberships

• Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (HEA)
• British Educational Research Association (BERA)
• British Educational Leadership, Management and Administration Society (BELMAS)
• Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain (PESGB).

Other external roles

• Editorial board member of International Studies in Sociology of Education
• External Examiner, MA Childhood and Development in Diverse Societies, School of Health and Education, Middlesex University London
• Co-Convener of the Emerging Researchers’ Conference (2014-2017) under the auspices of the European Educational Research Association (EERA).

Areas of expertise

• Education policy, leadership and management
• Social and Emotional Learning
• Wellbeing and character education
• Sociology of education
• Complexity theory
• Discourse analysis.

Research supervision

Agnieszka welcomes applications from doctoral candidates interested in researching education policy and leadership and management for organisational improvement.

Conference presentations and wider engagement

Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain (PESGB) 2021: ‘Neither first nor second’: Merleau-Ponty’s perspective on adolescence and its implications for Relationships and Sex Education. 

Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain (PESGB) 2018: Character education and the priority of recognition.

'Complexity and Education' symposium (Institute of Physics, Philosophy of Education SIG, BERA and Institute of Education, University College London) 2017: Assessment policy, 'readiness for school' and a complexity view of time.

European Educational Research Association (ECER) 2017: Lessons in happiness and ‘grit’: character education in policy and practice.

European Educational Research Association (ECER) 2016: Education policy and leadership research: a view from the ‘third window’.

British Educational Leadership, Management & Administration Society (BELMAS) 2016: The self-improving system: a complexity approach to unlocking improvement in the local primary school.

Inaugural Meeting of the British Educational Leadership, Management & Administration Society (BELMAS) Research Student Community 2015: A complexity perspective on ‘evidence-based’ approaches to school improvement in England, keynote, University of Leicester.

European Educational Research Association (ECER) 2015: Complex knowledge and the politics of complexity reduction in ‘evidence-based’ school improvement in England.

British Educational Research Association (BERA) 2015: Beyond educational excellence: leadership ‘styles’, the child and the priority of recognition.

International Sociology of Education Conference 2014: The management of ‘emotional labour’ and the spread of corporate imagination in English schools.

British Educational Research Association (BERA) 2014: Articulating the reflexive self: reflexivity in postgraduate curriculum.

Centre for Educational Research in Equalities, Policy and Pedagogy: 2014: When improvement becomes a ‘cult value’: the emergence of manipulative relations in the primary classroom and staffroom, University of Roehampton, London.

Faculty of Pedagogy, University of Warsaw, Poland, 2013: On reflection and epistemology.