Jo Tregenza, President of the United Kingdom Literacy Association, Founding Fellow of the Chartered College of Teacher, SFHEA (Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy). Formerly the Director of Initial Teacher Training after 6 years which saw the course gain the outstanding OFSTEd judgement and the top HEI provider for teacher training in the good teacher guide. She is a Reader in Primary Education and has received several teaching awards, including 2018 Innovative Teaching Award for the whole ITE team, in 2015: USSU Teaching Award 2016 and Outstanding and Innovative Postgraduate teaching award. Jo is a trustee of the United Kingdom Literacy Association and a member of their Executive Committee.

She has been an English consultant for 20 years, presenting at regional and international conferences. Previously she worked as a Primary teacher for 10 years in Brighton and Hove, West Sussex and Oxfordshire. She has organised and led learning networks and has a strong track record for building links with communities and schools. In 2013 Jo co-wrote the highly regarded report on JPD with Professor Judy Sebba that was published by the National College : https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/335729/jpd-what-does-the-evidence-suggest-are-effective-approaches-long.pdf.

Jo wrote the teaching guidance materials for OUP’s reading scheme Project X. She has produced many materials for schools including the West Sussex Sequence for Writing, KS2 Creative Cross-Curricular model, a tool for auditing and developing talk and materials to develop visual literacy and multi-modal learning. She also set up Virtual Learning Environments for advisory teams, schools and networks. More recently she has presented at the UKLA conference with teachers from Cliffdale Primary and Mary Rose Special school about an innovative approach to teaching children to read. Jo published a research project on reading comprehension with Dr. Maureen Lewis called Beyond Comprehension.

Jo is currently studying for her PHD focusing on what the evidence demonstrates are the most effective approaches to teaching reading.