Anne-Marie Poynor has trained and supported teachers of LLW Citizenship, a statutory requirement of the NI Curriculum since 2002, and devised curriculum materials for Citizenship. She has devised and delivered extensive training programmes for schools on the implementation of the DE Community Relations, Equality & Diversity policy. She has written classroom materials for Years 8 & 9, ‘Promoting Reconciliation through a Shared Curriculum Experience’, with a particular focus on the controversial issue of sectarianism. She has worked regionally and cross-border on approaches to tackling controversial issues in the classroom. Strong links with the south has led to the production of guidance on the student voice, ‘Enabling Student Voice in the Classroom.’ She is joint Five Nations Network Country Lead for Northern Ireland. She is a teacher tutor for QUB and an Assessor and Trainer for UNICEF’s Rights Respecting Schools. As a freelance consultant she continues to work closely with organisations such as Children in Crossfire.

Alan was previously a teacher and has worked as an Education Manager with CCEA since 2005. He is responsible for supporting and developing Learning for Life and Work and Citizenship and Thinking Skills and Personal Capabilities in the curriculum. He has written teacher guidance on teaching citizenship and controversial issues. Alan’s doctoral dissertation explored the role of NGOs in contributing to Local and Global Citizenship and building social capital. He was part of the DE Community Relations policy review group and contributed to Community Relations Equality and Diversity (CRED) policy development and guidance. Alan has written academic papers on citizenship education and given presentations on the International Thinking Skills Conference and the People’s Friendship University of Moscow. He is currently working on the Shared Education Programme and developing training and support for teachers including Citizenship. 

I have a long-standing interest in human strengths and work as a Research Fellow at the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues, University of Birmingham. I undertook my doctorate, a critical interdisciplinary evaluation of positive psychological approaches to strengths and virtues, at Queens’ College, Cambridge (2011). 

The current focus of my interest is the conceptual and empirical relationships between the virtues of gratitude, generosity, forgiveness, humility and compassion. For my empirical research, I designed two five-week interventions to promote compassion and gratitude in UK secondary schools. Since joining the Jubilee Centre in 2012, my conceptual and empirical work has been published in a range of journals across academic disciplines. 

I have given a number of invited presentations internationally to both academic and lay audiences. I am passionate about communicating research in an accessible and engaging way to a wide and popular audience.