Staff Profiles

As well as teaching on modules on outdoor learning, Nick contributes to current debates around spirituality on a variety of modules within the School of Education at Undergraduate and Postgraduate level. 

In 2006, Nick completed an evaluation of Foundation Degree mentoring funded by AimHigher.

In 2008, Nick presented a paper on children's literature and the outdoors to the International Board on Books for Children and Young People (IBBY). 

In 2009 Nick worked with practitioner colleagues in Early Years settings in Oxfordshire who were researching how young children learn in the outdoors. He has also presented papers to internal audiences on werewolves in children's literature (2008), on how Early Childhood Studies students explore issues around spirituality (2009), on images of the outdoors in children's literature (2010, 2011) and the iconography of Christmas.  Nick's work on representations of death in young children's picture books, entitled How Dead are the Skeletons in Funnybones? was an internal paper and, more recently, a public lecture at the Story Museum.   

He continues to look at young children's literature and the outdoor environment. In July 2011, he presented a paper at the International Research Society for Children's Literature (IRSCL) on images of the outdoors in the work of Janet and Allan Ahlberg.  His current work centres on how visual methodologies can be used to explore aspects of childhood, and he is working on two projects with Mat Tobin, one on the sentient landscape (exploring the work of Alan Garner), and one on fatherhood in picturebooks.

Further information

• https://nicktomjoestory.news.blog/
• http://oxfordbrookes.academia.edu/NickSwarbrick

Journal articles

• Hutchison A, Musgrave J, Rea T, Swarbrick N, 'Transformative learning and visiting The Gambia: ongoing project'
  Brookes eJournal of Learning and Teaching 8 (1-2) (2016)
  ISSN: 1744-7747
  Website 

Other publications

• Swarbrick N, Tobin M, 'From Generation to Generation: An Exploration of Myth and Landscape in the Work of Alan Garner'
  (2017) Abstract Reading between the lines of landscape, and drinking in a sense of place from the unpicking of a collective memory, be it literary, anthropological, geographical, or our own sensory experiences, is something that has been toyed with for decades. The emotional and spiritual dimension of being in place, in the work of Alan Garner, powerfully reminds us of our connection to, and relationship with, the land and the memories/stories attached to it.Website 

Other experience

Prior to joining Oxford Brookes in 2002 he was headteacher of a lively, multi-cultural Nursery School in Oxford City which pioneered the Forest School project in Oxfordshire and supported a school-based Initial Teacher Training Scheme.

Further information

Nick is a Governor of an affiliated Nursery School in Oxford.   He has acted as External Examiner at Worcester and at Bucks New Universities, and as External on validation panels in various other institutions. He has recently completed a term of office as one of the External Examiners for Early Childhood Studies at the University of Chichester.

Further information

Nick tweets as @nickswarb.