Declan Dowkes

Having previously taught on various full and part time Early Years and Education degree courses at the University of Huddersfield between October 2022 and September 2024, Declan returned to the University in December 2025 as a Senior Lecturer in Education.

Declan’s teaching career first began back in October 2022 at the age of just 23 as a Part-Time Hourly-Paid (PTHP) Lecturer in Early Years at the University of Huddersfield teaching on the part-time Education (Early Years) BA (Hons) degree. Whilst in this role, Declan was also working full-time in early years practice as an Early Years Practitioner in a charity-run day nursery in South Yorkshire where he was the room leader of the pre-school room. Declan has also previously held various other Early Years roles spanning across both public and private Early Years practice across South Yorkshire from 2016. Namely, a relief Teaching Assistant (TA) based in the EYFS and KS1 unit of a primary school and a holiday cover EYP working with children aged 3-11 years.

Upon leaving full-time Early Years practice in February 2023, Declan worked at Barnsley College as a FE Teacher and HE Teaching Associate in Childcare and Education. During this time, he taught and held course leadership responsibilities for the distanced learning CACHE Level 3 Children and Young People’s Workforce (CYPW) course which was delivered in evenings in partnership with Wakefield Council to large cohorts of work-based mature students. Alongside this leadership position, he also taught on the full-time Level 3 T-Level in Education course, Level 3 Access to Higher Education: Childhood Studies, and the Foundation Degree in Supporting Children, Families and Communities.

Declan subsequently earnt himself a full-time lecturing post as a Lecturer in Early Years at the University of Huddersfield in September 2023 at the age of 24. During his time at the University of Huddersfield, Declan went on to teach at both undergraduate and postgraduate level and hold interim course leadership responsibilities for three undergraduate degree courses (the Early Childhood and Education BA (Hons) Top-up, Education BA (Hons), and Education with Psychology BA (Hons) degrees). In addition, he effectively led the school’s organisation, planning and delivery of the 2024 Undergraduate Framework Conference for 80 final-year students from across the whole of the undergraduate education framework, taught on a 'train the trainers' programme to a group of Early Years Initial Teacher Training (EYITT) students in China alongside an interpreter, delivered a guest lecture on the value of Early Years degrees at the UCAS Exhibition Event at Leeds Becket University, as well as successfully supervising 12 undergraduate students and 6 master’s degree students with their research projects to completion.

Declan later left his role at the University of Huddersfield and relocated down to the South East of England having secured the position of Lecturer in Early Years and Education Studies at the University of Brighton in September 2024, aged 25. At the time that Declan took up this role, education studies courses at the University of Brighton were ranked 2^nd in the UK by The Guardian University Guide 2025. Whilst at the University of Brighton, Declan taught, module led and supervised across various undergraduate education courses including the BA (Hons) Early Childhood Education and Care, BA (Hons) Education and the BA (Hons) Primary Education 3-7 with QTS and towards the latter part of his time at Brighton was appointed deputy course leader and admissions tutor for the part-time BA (Hons) Professional Practice in Education degree, a work-based learning degree for a range of in-service educational professionals. Furthermore, Declan was a Fellowship assessor for the School of Education, Health and Sports Sciences, mentoring and reviewing the applications of colleagues applying for AdvanceHE (formally HEA) Fellowship and, in 2025, he presented his ‘inclusive table boxes’ to colleagues from across the university at the annual Educational Research and Scholarship Symposium Conference. During his time at Brighton, Declan was also offered the role of External Examiner (EE) at Birmingham City University for their BA (Hons) Early Childhood Studies with Graduate Practitioner Competencies degree course.

Following a year and a half of living and teaching in Brighton, Declan was once again headhunted by the University of Huddersfield in December 2025, this time to take up his first Senior Lectureship as a Senior Lecturer in Education, aged 26. His teaching responsibilities are varied and currently include teaching and module leading on the following courses: BA (Hons) Education (Early Years), BA (Hons) Primary and Early Years Education with QTS, Primary and Early Years Education PGCE with QTS, BA (Hons) Primary Education Studies (Non QTS Accelerated Degree) and BA (Hons) Education, Human Resource Development and Training. Declan is also currently the PAT Tutor for 33 Year 2 BA (Hons) Childhood Studies students, and a member of the Huddersfield Centre for Research in Education and Society (HudCRES) Conference Committee. 

Declan is research active, writes papers for publication and contributes towards published academic books (e.g. Grimmer, 2021, pp.168-170 and Carter & Gibson, 2025, pp.165-166) around his research interests of love, loss and grief in early years work. His Education PhD doctoral study, which he is conducting at the University of Brighton (supervised by: Dr Jools Page and second supervised by: Dr Jodi Roffey-Barentsen), is currently exploring how early years practitioners in England experience the loss of close professional attachment relationships with their key children. All of which informs his teaching.

Approach to teaching

Heavily influenced by his time teaching in an FE college as well as, among others, encountering the scholarly work of Alison James into the value of facilitating gamified learning environments for HE learners (James, 2021), Declan favours andragogic approaches to teaching and learning that are of an interactive, exploratory, research-informed and game-based nature. Examples of how this manifests within his practice include:  

• Educational escape room activities.
• TikTok group activities.
• Round robin table activities.
• QR coded activity posters.
• Case study and role play-based activities.

Moreover, Declan has a strong commitment to student-centredness and inclusivity. In keeping with this, he regularly requests and receives anonymous feedback from his students via the Padlet: Student feedback on teaching and learning experience (padlet.com) which he uses to improve their teaching and learning experience and he has developed what he terms his "inclusive table boxes" which he makes accessible to all of his students during seminars. Contained in these table boxes, students can find (and discreetly use): fidget toys, noise reducing ear buds, a range of coloured overlays and pens. Student and colleague feedback concerning Declan's table boxes has consistently highlighted that they believe these resources can be credited for fostering an enabling learning environment whereby all his students are able to access his teaching fully.