• Subject coordinator of MA in Education: Artist Teacher Practice (2006-present)
• Co-subject coordinator of MA in Education: Open Route (2016-present)
• Internal mentor for the Art and Design Foundation programme, School of Arts, Oxford Brookes University (2016-present)
• Widening participation coordinator for School of Education (2018-present)
• Undergraduate module leader for U71705: Education, Childhood and Youth in Popular Culture (Level 4, 2014-present), and U71730: Culture and Arts-Based Learning (Level 5, 2015-present)

Modules taught

Undergraduate

• BA in Education Studies, U71705 Education, Childhood and Youth Culture: Film and Literature
• BA in Education Studies, U71730 Cultural and Arts-Based Learning

 

Postgraduate

ED50: MA in Education Artist Teacher Practice

• P70654 Integrating Contemporary Practice into the Classroom
• P70655 Developing Personal Artistic Practice
• P70006 Major Project

ED50:MA in Education

• P70011 Action Research (co-taught)
• P70001 Researching Education, Childhood and Language (visual methods only)

Supervision

• Doctorate in Education dissertation supervisor (2018-present)
• MA in Education dissertation supervisor (2008-present)
• Undergraduate dissertation supervisor (2014-present)

Research interests

Key research interests revolve around the arts and culture in education and policy including:

• Project managing research into the impact of subject specific art/design continuing professional development for primary educators (2015-present).
• Project managing two research associates who are examining why the artist teacher programme facilitates transformative learning for its participants.  
• An ethnographic study exploring how young people negotiate meaning when working with an artist in a contemporary gallery space (doctoral thesis).
• The National Society of Education in Art and Design (NSEAD) survey into how Coalition government policy (2010-2015) has impacted on art educators' professional practice (2013-14 and 2014-15 surveys).   This has also lead to an analysis of the survey findings in light of educational policy reform. 
• Impact of secondary art/design PGCE closures on wider partnerships.
• Autoethnographic analysis of the development of visual perception through photography, and the impact this has on curriculum design in secondary education. 
• A sociocultural analysis about how student teachers learn with a craft expert during a teacher training programme.
• National reports into evaluations of Creative Partnerships CPD opportunities, 2005, 2008-2010.

Wider University research activity includes:

• Project manage the Students as Researchers initiative which supports the design and dissemination of research as academic posters.  After establishing the pilot (2017-18) Rachel successfully bid for internal funding to develop workshops run by MA artist teachers and delivered to staff and students across the University (2018-present).
• Project managin a pilot study examining the strenghts, limitations and feasibility of developing sexual consent workshops for first year undergraduates (2018-present). 

 

Research group membership

A member of the Humanistics Perspectives on Education research group, School of Education. 

A member of the steering committee for the Get Published! Project which facilitates a University-wide academic poster conference for undergraduate and postgraducate students to disseminate research projects (2016-present). 

 

Research grants and awards

2018-19: Awarded internal funding from the Humanities and Social Sciences Faculty Promoting Pedagogies scheme to develop the Students as Researchers academic poster workshops. 

2017-18: Awarded internal funding from the Humanities and Social Sciences Faculty to conduct a small-scale impact case study examining how an artist CPD session with teachers and pupils from a Multi-Academy Trust raises the profile of the visual arts across the curriculum. 

2015: Brookes Union Teaching Award for Most Effective Feedback.

Research projects

2017-present: Examining why the artist teacher programme facilitates transformative learning in a higher educational setting.

2015-present: Examining how ongoing subject specific CPD impacts teacher confidence, curriculum design and learning opportunities in primary school settings.

Research impact

Project managing two research associates who are examining why the artist teacher programme facilitates transformative learning for its participants. Impact data will contribute to an education REF impact study (2017-present).

Further information

2017: 2013 small scale research examining the impact of the closure of the Secondary Art and Design PGCE programme at Oxford Brookes University (2012) was cited by Earl Clancarty, Vice-Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Art, Craft and Design Education, during a debate in the Lords Chamber, 28 November 2017.  The focus was on Teacher Education: Arts, Crafts and Design; Arts and the Government.

2017: One of eight academics profiled on the new  Research Impact at the UK Parliament, which provides comprehensive information for researchers and universities on how they can engage with Parliament.

2017: Beyond Surface, an art exhibition at The Glass Tank Gallery celebrating ten years of the Artist Teacher Scheme MA in Education. 

2017: Presentation at a Modern Art Oxford event Creative Conversation: She Who Writes Her-story Rewrites History.  The talk Drawing Professional Worlds examines how the Artist Teacher Scheme supports educators to positively address neoliberal agendas in their professional settings through using art as a visual research method.  Rachel drew on Beyond Surface exhibitors’ artworks, artist statements and rationales to support this as well as literature from her doctoral thesis.

2016: Dissemination of the International Journal of Art and Design Education conference presentation on the Humanistic Perspectives on Education Research Group blog.

Payne, R (2016) EBacc and primary testing pushing arts out of the curriculum, Schools Week online.

2016: NSEAD Survey findings report, 2015-16 

 

Journal articles

• Payne R, '11.30am on a Sunday Morning: Making meanings with Mary'
  International Journal of Art and Design Education 37 (4) (2018) pp.560-573
  ISSN: 1476-8062 eISSN: 1476-8070
  Abstract Marginalisation of the visual arts resulting from the marketisation of education impacts young people’s access to and interaction with culture on a global stage. In England this educational disruption is characterised by inconsistent access to arts-based curricula and democratic pedagogies, where those from lower socio-economic backgrounds are at risk of neglect. Influenced by this political malaise I conducted micro- ethnographic research examining how artist workshops shape cultural interactions of children aged 11 and 12. The research aimed to provide new opportunities for participants living and studying in an area of deprivation in a South of England city with uneven access to broad cultural experiences. Situated in a contemporary art gallery over a two week period the study interrogates how environmental factors affect children’s development from a sociocultural perspective. By analysing conversations and art production, children’s meaning-making formations are revealed. Findings indicate that values underpinning the research partnership and performed by the artist are paramount in shaping development. In turn participants perceive themselves as becoming artists where the reproduction of social practices generates new knowledge and identities. Environmental factors disrupt participants’ experiences of pedagogy exposing power and control at the heart of the English education system. However, with new found agency emerges a redistribution of power performed through dialogue between participants and the cultural environment.Website 
• Payne R, Hall E, 'The NSEAD Survey Report 2015-16: Political Reflections from Two Art and Design Educators'
  International Journal of Art and Design Education 37 (2) (2018) pp.167-176
  ISSN: 1476-8062 eISSN: 1476-8070
  Abstract In 2015 the (UK) National Society for Education in Art and Design [NSEAD] conducted their biggest and most comprehensive survey to date with art and design educators.  1191 teachers and lecturers employed in early years to further education settings across England and Wales responded to the survey, which aimed to capture how government policy since 2010 has affected art and design education. Four key areas were examined: curriculum provision; value given to the subject within the school community; professional development opportunities; and well-being and workload.  The results are troubling, indicating a systemic marginalisation of art and design across all sectors, evident in a reduction in choice, provision and curriculum time, and evidence of falling standards in student attainment at primary to secondary transfer.  We supported the NSEAD with constructing the survey and writing the report and in this paper we utilise the Survey Report to fuel a broader discussion about our concerns regarding the demise of art and design education.  Value is identified as an essential theme and we posit that our subject, largely due to neoliberalist policy agendas, is currently perceived as a ‘bimbo’: attractive, but unintelligent and frivolous.  In this article we pay particular attention to the value of art and design education from a political perspective, challenging narrow government agendas.
  Website 
• Payne R, 'Seen, Unseen Or Overlooked? How Can Visual Perception Develop Through a Multimodal Enquiry?'
  International Journal of Art and Design Education 31 (2012) pp.245-255
  ISSN: 1476-8062
  Abstract This article outlines an exploration into the development of visual perception through analysing the process of taking photographs of the mundane as small-scale research. A preoccupation with social construction of the visual lies at the heart of the investigation by correlating the perceptive process to Mitchell's (2002) counter thesis for visual study and Sontag's (1979) analysis of the function of photography in society. Why visual perception is a fundamental human activity is considered and so positioned as a vital component of art education. Pedagogical implications for teaching visual perception and expertise to others are subsequently revealed, including the appropriate selection of media to construct and communicate meaning through an exploration of subject-matter, and the need to consider symbiotic processes which enable the construction and refinement of perception and meaning for maker and audience. How this contributes to a debate about the purpose of an art education is tentatively examined in the light of current educational policy and ideology.Website 

Book chapters

• Taylor S, Payne R, 'Skills in the Making' in Felcey H, Kettle A, Ravetz A (ed.), Collaborations in Craft, Bloomsbury Academic (2013)
  ISBN: 9780857853912
  

Other publications

• Payne R, 'Beyond Surface'
  Exhibition summary:
  The Artist Teacher Scheme is a national programme of long term continuing professional development for art educators working in a range of settings.  Beyond Surface celebrates ten years of the Artist Teacher Scheme MA in Education at Oxford Brookes University, a programme that supports artist teachers to engage with making practices to enhance their teaching, learning and research approaches. It provides a unique opportunity for artist teachers to be immersed in their own art, craft and design practice and explore its possibilities. This is achieved through ongoing enquiry into the professional artist teacher identity, balancing tensions inherent in the dual nature of teaching and making.  Beyond Surface provides a platform for past and present artist teacher researchers to disseminate their individual visual enquiries to the University, external partners and the local community. Making as research and learning within the artist teacher community are core values predicated on the belief that fluid identity construction and thinking through making engender new knowledge and professional practices.  As a result our aim is to showcase a diverse range of making practices that communicate these shifting professional identities. 
  (2017)
• National Society for Education in Art and Design, 'The National Society for Education in Art and Design Survey Report 2015-16'
  In 2015 the (UK) National Society for Education in Art and Design [NSEAD] conducted their biggest and most comprehensive survey to date with art and design educators. 1191 teachers and lecturers from early years, primary, middle, secondary and further education settings across England and Wales responded to the survey, which aimed to capture how government policy since 2010 has affected art and design education. Four key areas were examined: curriculum provision; value given to the subject within the school community; professional development opportunities; and well-being and workload. A survey was distributed electronically with open and closed questions. I was one of four people who helped design, interpret and disseminate the report, and my contribution is acknowledged on page 4 of the report, although I am not exclusively named as an author. (2016)

 

Payne, R (forthcoming) Observing beginning Art and Design teachers’ lessons, chapter 14 in P. Gregory (ed.) A practical guide to mentoring Art and Design teachers.  Abingdon: Routledge (submitted to the editor in March 2019).

Payne, R (forthcoming) Drawing social worlds: how the adaptation of a constructionist coding framework supports an imaginative reading of meaning formation in children’s artwork (submitted to Qualitative Research, pending feedback).

Payne, R (2018) 11.30am on a Sunday Morning: Making Meanings with Mary.  International Journal of Art and Design Education, Vol. 37 (4), 560-573.

Payne R, Hall E (2018), ‘The NSEAD Survey Report 2015-16: Political Reflections from Two Art and Design Educators’, International Journal of Art and Design Education, Vol. 37 (2), 167 – 175.

Payne R (2017), Beyond Surface, artist teacher exhibition in The Glass Tank Gallery.

National Society for Education in Art and Design (2016), The National Society for Education in Art and Design Survey Report 2015-16.

Payne, R (2016) A Modern Magna Carta Challenge. AD: The National Society for Education in Art and Design magazine, January 2016 publication.

Taylor, S & Payne, R (2013) Skills in the Making, in H. Felcey; A Kettle & A. Ravetz (eds.) Collaborations in Craft.  Bloomberg.

Adams, H; Jones, P & Payne, R (2013) Skills in the Making: Craft-Based Teacher Training and Continuing Professional Development.  engage 33: Critical Craft.  London: engage, The National Association for Gallery Education.

Areas of expertise

• Artist teacher pedagogies; creative pedagogies and curriculum design
• Teacher training and continuing professional development
• Visual methods and methodologies
• Arts and cultural policy, pedagogy and curriculum

Membership of professional bodies

• January 2019 – 21: President, National Society for Education in Art and Design (NSEAD).
• January 2018-19: President Elect, NSEAD.
• January 2016-2017: Vice President, NSEAD.
• May 2015: core member of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) Art, Craft and Design Education, organising the re-configured APPG in light of the general election.
• March 2014-ongoing: Council member of NSEAD.
• 2013-14: Chair of Oxford Art Teach (OAT), a voluntary art education group constructed to support local CPD in subject pedagogy.
• 2012: Co-creator of OAT.
• 2008: The Higher Education Academy Fellow status.

Consultancy

2019: Art and design in the primary curriculum; planning, delivering and assessing the impact of a series of training events aimed to support Newly Qualified Teachers, Early Career Teachers and Arts-Coordinators in primary education. 

2011: Oxfordshire Art Teachers’ group: delivery of CPD to 25 secondary art teachers exploring current developments in art education and how to develop enquiry-based pedagogy in the art classroom.

2007-10: Arts Council England: annual audit of CPD within Creative Partnerships (CP) over three years.   Responsibilities include liaising with colleagues, visiting and analysing data through interviews, observations and scrutiny of documentation; dissemination of analysis. 

2008: Museums Libraries and Archives (MLA): delivery of CPD on Teaching Outside the Classroom at an inset training day for teachers and education officers working in museums and galleries.

2008: engage: delivery of CPD on research methodology and analysis when working with young people with education gallery staff from Modern Art Oxford and MK Gallery, and art teachers from partnership schools.

2008: NSEAD: collaboration in writing group for NSEAD website; changes in 14-19 education in art/design.

2007-8: Stephen Lawrence Trust: contributed to identifying a profile of high ability in visual-spacial applications; use of MA dissertation research of high ability in visual arts in schools; contribution to writing and conducting research with primary and secondary schools with vocational excellence.

2007: Bourton Meadow Primary: delivery of whole school CPD to develop 3d practical skill and theoretical knowledge with the aim to extend creativity across the curriculum.

Conferences

• June 2019: Presidential address, National Society for Education in Art and Design conference.
• June 2019: Building the arts back into the curriculum, The Oxfordshire Deputy Head Teachers’ Conference.
• February 2019: Developing curriculum in partnership: embedding the visual arts, The Oxfordshire Head Teachers’ Conference.
• November 2018: Misrepresentations of art and design in Initial Teacher Education, All-Party Parliamentary Group for Art, Craft and Design Education, House of Commons.
• June 2018: The Artist Teacher: Practices and Pedagogies, Pitt Rivers Museum.  I organised this event and provided opportunity for five alumni and one current student to present.
• May 2018: Affirming the Arts: Impact of The Big Draw Project in a Multi-Academy Trust, Think Human Festival, co-delivered with primary teacher Ian Jackson.
• January 2018: Drawing Professional Worlds, FHSS Research Conference
• November 2017: Drawing Professional Worlds, International Journal of Art and Design Education conference
• November 2017: 11.30am on a Sunday Morning, NSEAD Presidential address at the International Journal of Art and Design Education conference.
• May 2017: Drawing Professional Worlds, Modern Art Oxford event Creative Conversation: She Who Writes Her-story Rewrites History.
• February 2017: Initial Teacher Education: A secondary perspective, All-Party Parliamentary Group for Art, Craft and Design Education, House of Commons.
• November 2016: Drawing a response to the NSEAD’s Survey Report, International Journal of Art and Design Education conference, co-delivered with Dr E Hall.
• September 2016: Art, Craft and Design in Education in the UK: The Current (Damaged) Picture, International Society of Art and Design Education conference, co-delivered with Dr E Hall.

Other experience

External Examiner roles:

2014-2017: External Examiner for Northampton University BA Primary Education art and design specialism

2009-2012: External Examiner for Colchester Institute Artist Teacher Scheme

2008-2012: External Examiner for Birmingham City University PGCE art, craft and design