{"id":5061,"date":"2026-05-27T23:49:39","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T22:49:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/education\/?p=5061"},"modified":"2026-05-27T23:49:39","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T22:49:39","slug":"dr-gemma-pawson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/education\/2026\/05\/27\/dr-gemma-pawson\/","title":{"rendered":"Dr. Gemma Pawson"},"content":{"rendered":"

Year of graduation:<\/strong> 2022<\/p>\n

Supervisors:<\/strong> Dr Geoff Taggart<\/a> & Prof Helen Bilton<\/a><\/p>\n

Research focus: <\/strong>My research was conducted within the Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) sector. It examined the supervision experiences of ten Nursery Managers. Supervision is a relatively new practice to the sector and was made a statutory requirement of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) (DfE,\u00a02012).\u00a0Following the completion of my Masters degree, I was keen to continue with my studies. The EdD stood out as it has been specifically designed for professionals in the field of education.\u00a0At the time, I had several friends who were studying for an EdD and were excited about their studies. They managed to balance work and study. If they could do it \u2013 so could I!<\/p>\n

Reasons for choosing to do the EdD degree at the University of Reading:<\/strong> Further and higher education has literally changed my life and enabled social mobility. It was, therefore, appropriate to continue my studies via a course that had been designed to enable accessibility for working professionals. I was keen to link theory with practice and contribute to research within the early years sector.<\/p>\n

Career since graduation: <\/strong>As Education and Academy Director, I oversee children\u2019s pedagogy and the andragogy of adults. I advocate for lifelong learning and believe it is important to lead by example. Gaining my doctorate sets an educational standard within the organisation. I hope to publish my research and make it accessible to the early years workforce.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thesis title: Supervision in the Early Years: A case study of ten nurseries in the private sector<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1182,"featured_media":4103,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"__cvm_playback_settings":[],"__cvm_video_id":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-edd-alumni"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"yoast_head":"\nDr. Gemma Pawson · Education Research<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" 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