Michael Amess

Michael Amess

School of Education
Assistant Professor of Secondary Teacher Education

Contact details

Address
School of Education
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Michael Amess is Assistant Professor of Secondary Teacher Education: English and is the lead tutor on the PGCE (QTS) Secondary English course in the School of Education. 

Michael is a qualified English teacher with experience of working in state secondary schools in London, Oxfordshire and Birmingham. He has held a range of responsibilities in school prior to joining the University of Birmingham. Within the field of English, Michael is interested in what English ‘does’ and what it is good for. He is interested in the political, pedagogical and policy landscapes of English teaching and how they form what happens in classrooms.

He is currently undertaking doctoral research at the University of Birmingham which is focused on the sociological analysis of schooling and poverty in the lives of young people. Central to his work is a concern with social justice and inequality in education, and the role schooling can play in working towards inclusion and equality. Conceptually, Michael is interested in processes of subjectivity and engages with post-structural theory.

Qualifications

  • MSc in Learning and Teaching, University of Oxford, 2018
  • PGCE (English), University of Oxford, 2015.
  • MA in Literature, Culture and Modernity: Victorian and Modernist, University of Birmingham, 2013.
  • BA (hons) in English Literary Studies, University of Worcester, 2011.

Biography

After completing English degrees at the University of Worcester and the University of Birmingham, Michael went on to qualify as a secondary English teacher from the University of Oxford. He started his teaching career as an English teacher working at an inner-city London comprehensive school before taking up a Deputy Head of English position in Oxfordshire. While working full-time he completed a MSc in Learning and Teaching, before moving to teach in Birmingham.

More recently, Michael has helped develop the UoB Capita Early Career Framework programme, designing content to support the delivery of the ECF. This is a programme which has gone on to be delivered nationally. Michael started his doctoral research part-time at the University of Birmingham in 2018 focusing on the relationship between poverty, schooling and young people. He is supervised by Professor Deborah Youdell and Dr Ian McGimpsey.

Teaching

  • PGCE Secondary English
  • MA Teaching Studies