In 2022, Denise won the Estelle Brisard Memorial Prize. In this piece, she shares her reflections and offers advice for those who will submit in the future…

My name is Denise McGee-Dewar, and I am a teaching fellow in physical education at Moray House, School of Education. When I started as a teaching fellow, I was seconded, but I also became involved in some practitioner inquiry work. There was a research group within the PE faculty. So, I was going to their meetings, so I got quite interested in the practitioner inquiry stuff that was going on. Once I came to the end of my secondment, I was looking to get a permanent job, so at that point, the route into that was getting a Master’s degree. I was lucky, I got a studentship for a master’s in research that was funded by the research group, which was useful. It was a studentship with a particular focus, so they wanted me to look at one of the physical education cohorts, and their journey from teacher education into their early careers in teaching. That is how I kind of got involved in going along to conferences, first of all with practitioner inquiry work and then with my master’s findings as well.

I was a PE teacher in schools and then I took the secondment which was supposed to be for two years and then ended up being five years. But then, of course, it gets to a point where after five years, you can’t extend it anymore. So, then I moved permanently into the teacher education sector instead.

I had been to a few conferences, and I was aware of the Estelle Brisard Memorial Prize. Actually, one of my supervisors from my Master’s was a previous winner. So, I was aware of it: that it was for early career researchers. I had just submitted my final dissertation and was just basking in the glow of having nothing to do. It was one of my supervisors that recommended that I apply for the Prize. It was really good that she did suggest it because, in my mind, it was for PhD students. I hadn’t realised that you could also apply with practitioner inquiry projects as well. So, they encouraged me to do it, which was really helpful because even though I was aware of the Prize, I wouldn’t have thought to do that. I think it’s something that is really important for supervisors to know about and to encourage people to apply for.

It was just my motivation to keep the momentum up because I just finished. It was still fresh in my mind and I had absolutely no dreams of winning it at all. I really didn’t think I had much of a chance to win So, it was a huge surprise when I did. I think it was just really nice that they are open to all different kinds of projects which is something really good about it.

It was quite different in terms of my Master’s. My final dissertation was like 30,000. So, I had to think: what are the key parts that I want to include in here? I think that was really helpful in terms of what came after, like what were the parts that people were interested in? I think it’s really good even if I hadn’t won it. I think it was still something really useful to do, just summarising it and looking at what are the ‘nuggets’ out of all those words. What are the parts people are going to be interested in hearing about?

One of the big things that came from winning was there were lots of opportunities to present my findings. It gave me the confidence, as well, that this is something people are interested in knowing about. I got invited to do an event that was a Scottish Council of Deans and Education Scotland joint event to present some of my findings. Then, I gave a Keynote speech for the students at the university, they do their own conference, and they invited me along. Then also, the Measuring Quality in Teacher Education invited me to one of their final meetings because that project was coming to an end as well. So, it definitely opened up a lot of opportunities I don’t think I maybe would have had if people hadn’t heard about what I had been doing through the Memorial Prize. Then also, because part of the Memorial Prize is getting to go along to the conference the next year, not having to pay for the conference certainly was really useful. I thought, well since I am getting to go this year, I took the opportunity to put in quite a few proposals. I did two oral presentations and was involved in a symposium which was the Early Career Researchers Network. Whereas, in other years, I probably would have only gone for one day. So, it was really helpful in getting more involved with the conference as well. I think that it’s really nice that you get invited along for the next year.

My advice for those submitting a paper to the Estelle Brisard Memorial Prize is, just go for it.  Even the process of writing was so useful. I certainly hadn’t thought any further than that. You do have a lot better chance than you maybe think you do. It is really interesting to get involved in it and I would definitely encourage anyone who is doing practitioner inquiry or postgraduate study to do it. I didn’t think I was going to do as well as I did. I think we all sometimes get a bit of imposter syndrome.

Also, if you are applying, I think that speaking to previous applicants is really useful. One of my supervisors let me see his submission. Obviously, it is completely different research, but in terms of what to include, that really helped me structure it out. It helped me with what I was submitting and to really engage with the judging criteria because that really does steer what you need to include. SERA are really interested in those methodological processes, so, it is really important that you are hitting all those criteria as well.