About

Hi! I’m Alexander.

I’m a Doctoral Researcher in Education at the University of Strathclyde’s Institute of Education, researching the extent to which target grades act as an extrinsic motivational tool for Key Stage 4 (age 14-16) students, and I’m looking to make my way into a role where I get to use data to make insightful inferences to improve processes and outcomes, and to make predictions.

In 2017 I graduated from the University of Leeds with a BSc in Theoretical Physics, and trained as a secondary school teacher, teaching for six years. During this time I taught primarily Physics, with one year of Maths and two years of A-level Sociology, focusing on the Education topic. I have also held numerous middle leadership positions including Deputy Head of Science, Deputy Head of Year 13, Physics Subject Lead (for the Multi-Academy Trust), and running a Collaborative Learning Group as part of the school’s CPD model.

In 2020, I successfully completed my MA Education degree at UCL, writing a dissertation (with distinction) on the gender attainment gap at GCSE. At the end of the MA, I decided that I wanted to continue with my research, so on top of teaching I began work as a part-time student on the Doctor of Education (EdD) course at the Strathclyde Institute of Education. As of August 2024, I am working on this full-time.

I started this blog in April 2021 for a few reasons. Primarily, it helps me to refine my writing so that I can make my thinking and explanations clear to others, whilst sharing some of the research I conduct, or read about. Whilst in my teaching roles, I wrote about how to apply my research classroom practice. More recently, its use will continue to communicate my research, but also to showcase some additional personal projects I have been working on.