Dr Thomas Breeze

My two main research interests are:

Music Education

My doctoral study involved the creation of a conceptual model of classroom music teachers’ beliefs about how their pupils learn and the ultimate aims of the subject. I then used the conceptual model to draw together and develop existing theories of learning in music.

How New Teachers Learn

My research around the Cardiff Partnership’s research-informed clinical practice model includes a collaborative project examining how student teachers learn in the context of Wales’s Professional Standards for Teaching and Leadership. I have also participated in a systematic literature review of dialogic mentoring techniques with colleagues from the universities of Oxford and Bangor.

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 & 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. I was awarded my doctorate in 2023. My other responsibilities include membership of the clinical practice requirements team, who are responsible for translating the Cardiff Partnership’s adopted model of research-informed clinical practice into a framework for student teachers’ school placements.

In 2018 my colleague Emma Thayer and I collaborated to create a podcast, Emma and Tom Talk Teaching, which has been downloaded over 85,000 times worldwide and interviewed nearly 100 guests. We also disseminate the highest-quality student teacher research from the Cardiff Partnership for Initial Teacher Education through our bilingual Research Bites strand.

As a musician I specialise in keyboard accompaniment and historically-informed performance.

Peer-Reviewed Articles:

John, V., Beauchamp, G., Davies, D. & Breeze, T. (2024) ‘Musical identity, pedagogy, and creative dispositions: Exploring the experiences of popular musicians during their postgraduate teacher education in a changing Welsh education landscape’, Research Studies in Music Education, DOI: 10.1177/1321103X241241980​

Beauchamp, G. & Breeze, T., (2022) ‘Pedagogy versus performance in primary classroom music teaching: Lessons from a “usable past” in Wales’, Wales Journal of Education, 24(2), pp. 97-122.

Breeze, T., Beauchamp, G., Bolton, N. & McInch, A. (2022) ‘Secondary music teachers: a case study at a time of education reform in Wales’, Music Education Research, 25(1), pp. 49-59.

Breeze, T., & Beauchamp, G. (2021). ‘Barriers and enablers to undergraduate music students undertaking a Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) secondary music programme’, British Journal of Music Education 39(2), pp. 232-244.

Kneen, J., Breeze, T., Thayer, E., John, V. and Davies-Barnes, S. (2021) ‘Pioneer teachers: how far can individual teachers achieve agency within curriculum development?’, Journal of Educational Change, 24, pp. 243-264.

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.

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.​