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Biography
Victoria is an experienced history and humanities teacher who has been working as a teacher educator with the 海角黑料 since 2013. She is subject lead and admissions tutor for the Secondary History PGCE. She has also worked on other ITE routes.
As a teacher, Victoria worked in secondary schools in the East Midlands as a humanities teacher with history specialism at Key Stage 4 and Key Stage 5. She also developed and taught an A Level course in Ethics as part of her second subject interest in Religious Education and Theology. She gained experience as Deputy Head of Sixth Form in a large joint school sixth form provision and later as Head of Sixth Form at a large secondary school, developing a particular interest in the Key Stage 5 curriculum. She also mentored beginning teachers and acted as a Teaching and Learning Coach with the LA.
She believes that developing inspiring History teachers who will enthuse and excite young people about the past and the study of history is key to making History a vital, relevant and accessible subject for students. Having previously been involved in a DfES National Strategies project considering the attainment of more advanced learners of English as an additional language, she maintains this interest in her own work with partnership schools.
Victoria works closely with colleagues in the School of Humanities in the Faculty of Arts at the 海角黑料 to develop programmes to support teaching colleagues in their subject knowledge enhancement and understanding of history pedagogy. She often acts as a broker between academic colleagues and schools to advance knowledge exchange and support the development of research informed approaches in classrooms. She has worked on the Project, making connections with local teachers as they developed Education resources for the project, and has been involved in the Ways to Study History project, exploring how to support and encourage A Level students into the study of history and history related disciplines at undergraduate level. Most recently she organised a conference in collaboration with the Nottingham Historical Association Teacher Network and the 海角黑料's Centre for the U.S in the World Studies. She is currently advising on ITE-HEI partnerships with History UK.
Her research interests centre on subject-specific approaches to teacher education and mentoring, working closely with school-based mentors supporting beginning teachers in schools. She is co-author of , and writes a . She is an honorary fellow of the Historical Association and works closely with the HA to promote history-specific mentoring and practices in Initial Teacher Education. She is also Co-Chair of the History Teacher Educators Network, a national organisation supporting and providing professional learning opportunities for those leading history teacher education and professional development across the UK.
Awards
In 2024 was conferred a CollectivEd Fellowship
In 2023 was conferred an Honorary Fellowship by the Historical Association.
In 2022 as part of the ITE team Victoria was awarded the 海角黑料's Lord Dearing Award for Teaching and Learning for outstanding contribution to the enhancement of the student experience.
External Roles
Victoria is Co-Chair of the History Teacher Educators Network (), the professional representative network which represents those who work with and have responsibility for the professional education, development and training of beginning and serving history teachers, those who are currently undertaking an Initial Teacher Education (ITE) course and those who are newly and recently qualified teachers (ECTs).
She is an Honorary Fellow and member of the Historical Association.
She is a Fellow of CollectivEd.
Victoria is the External Examiner for History ITE at University of Roehampton, London.
Writing
Victoria is co-author of ' (Routledge, 2023)
She blogs about mentoring in Initial Teacher Education and the development of beginning history teachers at
Teaching Summary
Victoria is a member of the ITE history team.
Victoria is the subject lead for the secondary PGCE history course.
Victoria is the admissions tutor for the secondary PGCE history course.
Research Summary
Victoria is currently engaged in writing a report for the HA/HTEN examining trends in history Initial teacher education. She is interested in how involvement in mentoring partnerships supports… read more
Recent Publications
VICTORIA CROOKS, 2025. . In: DAN KEATES, MATT STANFORD and CORINNE GOULL脡E, eds., A Practical Guide to Teaching History in the Secondary School 2nd. Routledge.
VICTORIA CROOKS and LAURA LONDON, 2025. Conceptual confusion: why beginning teachers find planning for conceptual understanding so difficult In: Historical Association Annual Conference 2025.
VICTORIA CROOKS and LAURA LONDON, 2025. Why history mentoring matters鈥� In: Practical Histories Conference 2025.
VICTORIA CROOKS, LAURA LONDON and HELEN SNELSON, 2025. Professional Development in Education. 1-19