Prof Anna Lise Gordon

About Research

Email: annalise.gordon@stmarys.ac.uk

Biography

Anna Lise Gordon is Professor of Education in the School of Education at St Mary’s University. As former director of the Institute of Education at the University, she received the Inspirational Leader Award in 2019. Anna Lise now works part-time with a range of postgraduate students, and also on research projects and wider University initiatives.

For example, Anna Lise is currently leading a five-year project (funded by The Mercers’ Company) on whole school approaches to mental health and wellbeing. She was also the University lead for an Office for Students funded project, entitled 'Mind the Gaps! First in Family Students and Students without Family Support: Managing Transitions and Mental Health', a collaborative project between St Mary's University, University of West London, King's College and Maudsley Learning.

Her main research interests centre on wellbeing in schools for both teachers and pupils, including a strong focus on bereavement in education. Recent activities on bereavement include research on the benefits of bereavement awareness for all trainee teachers (supported by a BERA Small Grants Award), a Bereavement in Education Summit with 100+ delegates in June 2024, and, more recently, a research project entitled 'Love and Loss: Children using picture books to learn about bereavement', which provided rich insights from children in five primary schools.

Anna Lise was awarded a prestigious National Teaching Fellowship in 2012 and is also a senior fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Anna Lise was a joint winner of the St Henry Walpole Prize for Teaching and Learning, awarded by St Mary’s, in December 2009 for an innovative approach to cross-curricular learning with PGCE students, and again in 2013 for an initiative to nurture resilience of students across a range of academic programmes.

Anna Lise joined St Mary’s in 1998 as senior lecturer in education for modern languages. She completed her MA in Education (Leading Innovation and Change) in 2008 at the University of Surrey and her research project focused on specialist modern languages support for trainee teachers in primary schools. In 2016, Anna Lise completed a Doctorate in Education programme with Nottingham Trent University, focusing on resilience of early career teachers. She holds a coaching qualification from the Institute of Leadership and Management, and co-leads the University Mentoring Scheme. She has considerable experience as an external examiner for secondary ITT provision at a number of universities.

Previously, Anna Lise taught modern languages in schools in London and Surrey and was a Local Authority Advisory Teacher and Consultant for modern languages for several years. She has also written educational materials for 11-16 year olds learning French and German in schools.

Anna Lise is a Subject Matter Expert for Education for the national bereavement charity, AtALoss, which leads the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Childhood Bereavement.

Anna Lise was president of the Association for Language Learning (ALL) 2016-2018, is co-president of ALL (2025-2026), and continues as a trustee and active member of the professional association. She is also on the executive committee of the University Council for Languages.

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Research

Areas of research supervision

• Teacher resilience and wellbeing
• Professional development for teachers
• Wellbeing of children and young adults
• Character education
• Bereavement in education.

Research profile

Recent presentations include:

• September 2025 - Presentation on Love and Loss: Children using picture books to learn about bereavement, at 'Tackling the Taboo' conference, University of Sussex
• April 2025 - Webinar for the Cicely Saunders Institute - Bereavement in Education
• November 2024 Presentation at the European Grief Conference in Dublin – Bereavement Awareness Training for Early Career Teachers.
• June 2024 Keynote with Jenny Murray at the St Mary’s University Learning and Teaching Festival – Work makes my heart sing – promoting wellbeing through professional reflection.
• April 2024 Presentation at the Association of National Teaching Fellows conference, Nottingham – Mind the Gaps! Students as co-creators of wellbeing initiatives.
• January 2024 Keynote presentation – Wellbeing in Schools: Conditions Count - for St John Southworth Catholic Academy Trust.
• November 2023 Presentation at the Slovakian Educators’ Conference, Bardejov Spa, Slovakia: Inspiring Teachers – the importance of professional development.
• September 2023 BERA Conference presentation: Grief Matters – exploring the impact of bereavement and grief on learning for all. Watch the presentation.
• September 2021 Panel member at Westminster Education Forum policy conference: Priorities for initial teacher training.
• July 2020 British Council Global Education Exchange Webinar: Challenges of remote teaching and teacher resilience (Panel member).
• July 2020 Bishop Grosseteste University mentor conference. Presentation: In changing times, a time to change! Focus on teacher wellbeing.

Publications include:

• Molway, L. and Gordon, A.L. (eds) (2025) Mentoring Languages Teachers in the Secondary School, Routledge
• Gordon, A.L. & Parker, S.G. (2025) Take Up Your Cross? Christian Asceticism and Teacher Well-Being, in Etherington, M. (ed.)Foundations - Contemporary Topics in Christian Education
• Gordon, A.L., Ortega Vega, M., Anghileri, N., Nassar, J., Scott, O., Stegmann, K. & Zunszain, P. (2024) Students' Mental Health: Designing Support Through Co-Creation. Student Success. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5204/ssj.3653 
• Gordon, A.L. (2024) Inspiring teachers: the power of professional learning, ReflectEd Blog.
• Gordon, A.L. (2023) ‘Just say something!’ BERA blog.
• Gordon, A.L., (2023) Early career teaching and resilience. In: Tierney, R.J., Rizvi, F., Erkican, K. (Eds.), International Encyclopedia of Education, vol. 5. Elsevier, pp. 153–160.
• Gordon, A. L. (2023). Grief matters: Exploring the impact of bereavement & grief on learning for All. British Educational Research Association.
• Gordon, A. (2020) Educate – Mentor – Nurture: Improving the Transition from Initial Teacher Training to Qualified Teacher Status and Beyond, Journal of Education for Teachers, Vol. 46(5).
• Gordon, A. (2020) creative approaches to nurturing resilience of trainee teachers, Impact – Journal of The Chartered College of teaching, Issue 9, Summer 2020.
• Gordon, A. (2019) Teachers’ well-being, self-actualisation and job satisfaction: exploring the realities of early career teachers’ experiences through creative writing, in L. Castelli, J. Marcionetti, A. Plata, & A. Ambrosetti (Eds.) Well-being in Education Systems, SUPSI Conference Abstract Book, pp 133 – 137.
• Jones, J. and Gordon, A.L. (2019) Flourishing as a MFL teacher: MFL teachers who choose to stay, Association for Language Learning.
• Lead co-author of ‘The Head of Languages Handbook’ (Association for Language Learning, 2017)
• ‘The resilient MFL team’ chapter in ‘Success Stories for Secondary Foreign Language Classrooms: Models from London School Partnerships with Universites’ (Trentham Books, 2016) ed. Christie, C. and Conlon, C.
• ‘The Mirror in the Suitcase’ chapter in ‘For the Love of Learning’ book (2013) ed. Bilham, T., London: Palgrave Macmillan
• ‘Resilience for early career teachers – does it matter?’ chapter in ‘Rethinking the Curriculum’ book (2013) ed. James, M., Renowden, J. and West-Burnham, J. Brown Dog Books.
• ‘Metaphors for engaging with bricolage’ article in R.Ed (Research in Education), University of Brighton journal, September 2013, Vol. 5 No. 2.
• ‘I’m a subject-specialist – get me out of here!’ article in Professional Development Today journal, Issue 14.2, Sept 2011.
• Equipe Nouvelle 1, 2 and 3 Student's Book (2004) Daniele Bourdais, Sue Finnie, Anna Lise Gordon (Oxford University Press) (+ accompanying resources).

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