Until 2017, Jane was a Senior Teacher and curriculum leader for English, P4C and RE at a primary school in the North of England. Here, she facilitated a weekly P4C session for every class from Reception to Year 6. In 2015 the school was the first school in the North of England to achieve the SAPERE Gold P4C School Award. From 2017, Jane was able to bring her expertise and experience to support and train seven primary schools for three years with the SAPERE Going for Gold P4C programme. This included two schools as part of the Scottish Attainment Challege, two schools as part of the EEF P4C research and three schools as part of the Peter Sowerby Rural Small Schools Project. Jane also worked with three secondary schools on the P4C part of the Voice 21 - North of the Tyne Oracy Project. Please see the training section for schools Jane has worked with. Most recently, Jane worked for two years in an RE department of a large secondary school in North Cumbria teaching KS3 RE.  This was an rewarding opportunity and enabled Jane to reflect on the important area of KS2/KS3 transition in RE.  During this time, Jane took part in the Culham Leadership (Stage) 2 Programme and her research project explored and developed a 'quirky' tool for vocabularly in RE.  This research will be presented at the Strictly RE Conference in January 2024 and within Spring 2024 edition of the Professional Reflection section of the national magazine, RE Today.

Currently, Jane is supporting and training West Cumbrian schools on the SAPERE Going for Gold P4C programme as part of the WELL (Western Excellence in Learning and Leadership) Project.  She also supports Ysgol Panteg -  a Welsh Immersion school in Pontypool who were the first Welsh Immersion school to achieve the SAPERE Bronze Award.  Jane sees huge potential for P4C in language immersion contexts and has also provided training in two Gaelic Immersion contexts on the Isle of Skye, who were the first Gaelic Immersion schools to achieve the SAPERE Bronze P4C Award.  She is the Project Manager for the SAPERE Thinking Together  in Science and RE Project and helped develop the online resource for the SAPERE Welsh Equalities P4C Project in 2023.  Jane is also a co-collaborator on SAPERE Thinking with Nature Project with Gina Parker (Mullarkey).   Jane is especially interested in being involved in projects that adapt and innovate P4C for different contexts whether that be EAL, outdoors or SEND.

Jane is an Associate Trainer for Cumbria Development Education Centre and involved on the Education Team for Anti-Racist Cumbria.  She is also the RE Adviser of her two local SACREs(Standing Agreed Council for Religious Education) supporting schools in Cumberland and Westmorland & Furness.  She manages the 'Virtual Voices in RE' project funded by Culham St Gabriel's Trust.  Jane has recently been appointed as the RE Hubs Lead for the North West. Alongside this role, she has just started supporting two lead schools in Cumbria on an AREIAC Young Ambassadors for Freedom of Religion or Belief project. 

In 2014, Jane was accredited as a  Lead Practitioner for Global Learning and led her primary school as an Expert Centre for the national Global Learning Programme. She has a particular expertise in developing critical global thinking.

In recent years, Jane is increasingly being comissioned to develop and write educational resources. Please see the P4C section and the resources section to see examples of my work.

Jane has a BEd(Hons) with a specialism in Outdoor and Adventurous Activities from Charlotte Mason College in the Lake District.  In 2000, she achieved an MSc in Environmental and Development Education from South Bank University.  She has a strong interest in the outdoors and the environment.  In a previous life, Jane was an Education Officer for the Environment Agency; an outdoor education instructor and expedition leader; and lecturer in Environmental, Outdoor and Geography education at the University of Cumbria.  She is married to fellow adventurer and mountaineer Simon Yates.