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Lorna Wardle

Lorna Wardle

Principal Lecturer

School of Social Sciences

Role

Lorna is a Principal Lecturer at the Nottingham Institute of Education, where she leads a diverse educational portfolio. She holds both strategic and operational responsibility for courses in Education, Special Educational Needs, Disability and Inclusion (SENDI), Early Years Apprenticeships, Further Education and Skills, as well as MA Education.

Career overview

Prior to joining NTU, Lorna developed leadership and management experience within the early years sector, working across a range of roles in diverse educational settings. Through this work, she gained expertise in team leadership, staff development, and the delivery of high quality provision, alongside building strong partnerships with families and external agencies. This informs her academic practice, particularly her focus on leadership, practice based learning, and improving outcomes for learners across all phases of education.

Since joining NTU in 2012, she has undertaken a number of leadership roles, including Strand Leader and Course Leader, and now as Principal Lecturer in Education. In this role, she holds responsibility for a complex, multi-disciplinary portfolio of undergraduate and postgraduate provision. She leads on curriculum innovation, including the design and development of degree programmes aligned with national criteria, and contributes to wider institutional course development and enhancement.

Research areas

Lorna’s research and scholarly interests focus on workforce development for professionals working in education and with children, young people, and families. She has a particular interest in innovative pedagogies that effectively bridge policy, theory, and practice, and the role of reflective practice in driving quality improvement and enhancing learner outcomes. Her work also promotes inclusive educational practice across all phases of education and contributes to the wider social mobility agenda.

External activity

Lorna has successfully jointly organised a range of conferences and professional workshops at Nottingham Trent University, working in partnership with internal teams and external organisations. These include the Nottingham Institute of Education and Nottinghamshire County Council Virtual School Doing What Matters annual conference, designed for school leaders, headteachers, designated teachers, and safeguarding leads.

Conference Papers & Presentations:

Friend, K and Wardle, L. (2021) Experiential learning in the pandemic: lessons learned from alternative placements in Education'. Presented at Society for Research in Higher Education

Friend, K and Wardle, L (2021) International collaborative exchange project: stories from first-year university students during the Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic'. Presented at Society for Research in Higher Education, 2021.

Publications

Wardle, L and Vesty, S. (2016) Children as Consumers of health. In Hawkins, C. (ed) Children as Consumers. London: Routledge.

Wardle, L and Manterfield, T. (2016) Early Years and Equality: What do undergraduate students think? Race Equality Teaching. Volume 33, Number 3, April 2016, pp. 36-40, DOI: 10.18546/RET.33.3.08

Wardle, L. and Vesty, S. (2015) Exploring Children’s Well-being and Motivations. In: Woods, A. (ed) The Characteristics of Effective Learning: Creating and Capturing the possibilities in the Early Years. London: Routledge.

Woods, A. and Wardle, L. (2013) Leading Possibilities. In: Woods, A. (ed) Child-Initiated Play and Learning: Planning for Possibilities on the Early Years. London: Routledge.

Course(s) I teach on