Research
Memberships:
· HEA (Fellow)
· British Education Studies Association
Research Interests:
· Cross-curricular pedagogies in the expressive arts
· Attitudes of secondary music teachers towards new trends in curriculum design
Profile
Following a BMus and MA at Cardiff University, studying with the world-renowned Bach scholar Professor Peter Williams, I completed my PGCE at Cardiff Met and then spent 10 years in the classroom teaching secondary music. I also taught music at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and Cardiff University, as well as working for the education programmes at the Open University.
I joined Cardiff Met part time in 2012 and full time in 2015, and now lead the PGCE Secondary Music programme. My other responsibilities include taking a leading role in the clinical practice work stream, designing the school placement experience for PGCE students. In 2020, this involved carrying out important work with university and school colleagues on a very short time-scale to create and disseminate a broader definition of clinical practice to take account of remote working in the Covid-19 pandemic.
I am also currently working on my PhD, A study of Key Stage 3 Music Teachers’ Pedagogical Belief in the Context of a New Curriculum for Wales.
In 2018 my colleague Emma Thayer and I collaborated to create a podcast, Emma and Tom Talk Teaching, which has been downloaded over 15,000 times in 66 countries.
Outside my work in education, I do my best to carry on working as a professional musician specialising in accompaniment and historically-informed performance.
Publications
Publications:
Kneen, J., Breeze, T., Davies-Barnes, S., John, V. and Thayer, E. (2020) 'Curriculum integration: the challenges for primary and secondary schools in developing a new curriculum in the expressive arts', Curriculum Journal, 31(2), pp. 258-275.
Kneen, J., Breeze, T., Thayer, E., John, V. and Davies-Barnes, S. (In press) 'Pioneer teachers: how far can individual teachers achieve agency within curriculum development?', Journal of Educational Change.
Pugh, C., Thayer, E., Breeze, T., Beauchamp, G., Kneen, J., Watkins, S. and Rowlands, B. (2020) 'Perceptions of the New Role of the Research Champion in Developing a New ITE Partnership: Challenges and Opportunities for Schools and Universities', Wales Journal of Education, 22(1), pp. 185-208.
Conference Presentations:
Breeze, T. and Thayer, E. (2020) ‘What do cross-curricular approaches look like in the expressive arts? Which ones work? Insights from a systematic literature review’, ResearchED Cymru, Cardiff, 29 February.
Breeze, T. and Thayer, E. (2019) 'Cross-Curricular Pedagogies in Music and Drama: a Systematic Literature Review and its Impact on Practice', The 15th Annual Conference of the British Education Studies Association (BESA), Swansea, 27-28 June.
Breeze, T., Thayer, E. and Kneen, J. (2018) ‘A Connected Curriculum: using collaboration and peer teaching to support an integrated response to curriculum change in Wales’, The 14th Annual Conference of the British Education Studies Association (BESA), Bolton, 28-29 June
