Clearing is now open for September 2026 – apply today and start your journey at the UK’s No.1 university for student satisfaction! ✨

Ami Montgomery

Ami Montgomery is Deputy Dean for the Faculty of Education and Head of School for Teacher Education at Lincoln Bishop University, providing strategic leadership across the Faculty’s full portfolio of Education and Professional programmes, including Initial Teacher Education (ITE), postgraduate education, and professional development. She is also Centre Manager for the Bell Foundation Centre of Expertise for EAL, leading national CPD programmes and embedding linguistic inclusion across teacher education and school partnerships. Ami’s work champions equity, innovation, and collaboration, ensuring the Faculty remains at the forefront of inclusive education and teacher development.

Areas of Expertise

  • Inclusive Pedagogy & Linguistic Diversity – Specialist in EAL strategies, intercultural communication, and multilingual classroom practice.
  • Teacher Education Leadership – Strategic oversight of ITE and postgraduate programmes, curriculum design, and policy alignment.
  • Research & Knowledge Exchange – Ethnographic and multimodal approaches to inclusion; advancing REF impact case studies.
  • Internationalisation & Global Partnerships – Leading projects on teacher education and sustainable development in ASEAN and beyond.
  • Threshold Concepts in Education – Researching conceptual foundations for transformative teacher education curricula.
Contact Ami Montgomery

Ami currently teaches across UG and PG ITE programmes and wider Education routes, specialising in EDI, inclusive pedagogy and EAL. A former Primary teacher and EAL Coordinator in Manchester, she brings extensive classroom experience into her teacher education practice. She also teaches externally and internationally through her work as Centre Manager for the Bell Foundation Centre of Expertise for EAL and supervises research projects at UG, PG and Master’s level.
 
Ami also has extensive experience in online and blended learning, contributing to digital pedagogy and online module development within the Faculty of Education. She also teaches internationally, delivering guest lectures, workshops, and webinars in countries including China, Thailand, Kyrgyzstan, Nepal, Indonesia, Madagascar, the United States, and Austria, on themes such as inclusive education, CLIL, youth‑led research, and global English.

Ami’s research focuses on intercultural communication, linguistic diversity, and inclusive pedagogy, exploring how multilingual learners experience and shape classroom dialogue. Grounded in linguistic ethnography and multimodal analysis, her work investigates the relationship between language, identity, and participation, and develops practical tools to support inclusive, research‑informed practice in schools and teacher education. She contributes to national conversations on EAL pedagogy, linguistic justice, and teacher preparation, and her research extends internationally through collaborations examining teacher autonomy, democratic dialogue, and culturally sustaining pedagogies.

Current Projects

UCET Scholarship Project (2026): Exploring Autonomy, Evidence‑Informed Pedagogy, and School Culture in the Netherlands – A funded research visit to Amsterdam and Rotterdam investigating how Dutch primary schools foster teacher autonomy, collaborative professionalism, and evidence‑based decision‑making. The project strengthens international partnerships (including RVKO schools, University of Glasgow, Ramsden Primary School, and Scholas Occurrentes) and provides foundational fieldwork for forthcoming Spencer Foundation Vision Grant and Large Grant applications. The project seeks to enhance sector understanding of professional trust, democratic dialogue, and international models of ITE practice.

  • Co-authoring Threshold Concepts: Engaging all ITE stakeholders in collaborative curriculum research (Emerald Publishing, 2026)
  • Embedding critical oracy and linguistic justice across ITE programmes
  • PhD thesis: Dialogues of Diversity: Ethnographic Insights into Intercultural Interaction and Inclusion in UK Primary Classrooms

Funding Applications

  • Spencer Foundation Large Grant: TransformED: Teacher Education, Sustainable Development and Youth Participation in Thailand ($421,795)
  • British Council ISPF: TIGER – Tomorrow’s Innovators: Girls Empowered through Research (£176,343.60)
  • ESRC/AHRC SHAPE Catalyst: Awarded £50,000 for research commercialisation

Published:

  • Montgomery, A. (2018). The multicultural classroom: Celebrating diversity and challenging disparities. In P. Beckley (Ed.), The philosophy and practice of outstanding early years provision (pp. 63–80). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315206431
  • Montgomery, A. (2018). Chapter 13: EAL. In Paige, R., Lambert, S. F., & Geeson, R. (2020). Building skills for effective primary teaching : a guide to your school based training (Second edition). Learning Matters.
  • Kampouri, S., Montgomery, A., Howell, E. and Gee, N. (2019) How does social constructivism as displayed in contemporary educational settings in England compare with the Grossetestian view of the development of human knowledge? In: Robert Grosseteste and Theories of Education. Routledge International Studies inn the Philosophy of Education . Routledge, Oxford, pp. 218-235. ISBN 9780367273026 

Forthcoming Chapters:

  • At the Intersection: The Voices of Cultural and Linguistic Diversity in Interdisciplinary Themes of Sociolinguistic Studies (2026)
  • Co-authoring a book for the Great Debates in Teacher Education series:
    Threshold Concepts: Engaging all ITE stakeholders in collaborative curriculum research (Emerald Publishing, 2026).
    This work introduces four threshold concepts in ITE and explores their implications for policy, practice, and teacher identity.

Journal Articles:

  • Scally, J., Parrish, A., & Montgomery, A. (2021). Intercultural competence and languages: inextricably linked or linked inexplicably? Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education.

     

Forthcoming Publications:
 
  • At the Intersection: The Voices of Cultural and Linguistic Diversity in Interdisciplinary Themes of Sociolinguistic Studies (2026)
  • Co-authoring a book for the Great Debates in Teacher Education series:
    Threshold Concepts: Engaging all ITE stakeholders in collaborative curriculum research (Emerald Publishing, 2026).
  • Knowing education in Thailand like a global expert organisation: Politics, context and data (Manuscript under revision). British Educational Research Journal.

  • Oxford Ethnography and Education Conference (Sept 2025): IEDA: An Ethnographic Tool for Supporting Oracy and Representation in Primary Classrooms
  • UCET Annual Conference (Nov 2025): Voicing Inclusion: Embedding Critical Oracy in Initial Teacher Education
  • UCET Annual Conference (Nov 2024): Enhancing EAL Provision in Initial Teacher Education: Navigating Current Challenges and Future Directions for Linguistic Justice

  • Deputy Dean, Faculty of Education (2026–Present) – Faculty-wide leadership in teaching, research, and knowledge exchange.
  • Centre Manager, Bell Foundation Centre of Expertise for EAL (2025–Present) – Secured national accreditation; delivering strategic KPIs and CPD programmes.
  • Deputy Head of ITE Programmes (2024–2025) – Oversight of Primary, Secondary, and FE ITE programmes.
  • International research project manager (fixed-term January 2023-April 2024) - Lead on the development and implementation of a £2M International research project funded by Research and Innovation (UKRI) and supported by the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) through the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). 
  • Head of Programmes & Associate Dean for International (2019–2022) – Led institutional restructuring and global engagement strategies.
  • Programme Leader MA Education with TESOL (2016–2019) – Established TESOL provision and secured Trinity College London accreditation.
  • Primary Teacher & EAL Coordinator (2011–2014) – Developed whole-school equality and diversity policy and multilingual learning strategies.

  • UCET – Active contributor to national teacher education policy discussions.
  • Chartered College of Teaching
  • NALDIC – National Association for Language Development in the Curriculum.
  • TESOL International Association
  • BAAL – British Association for Applied Linguistics (SIG Committee Member).
  • ARMA – Association of Research Managers and Administrators.

  • Secured Bell Foundation Centre of Expertise for EAL accreditation for BGU (2025), positioning the university as a national leader in linguistic inclusion.
  • Awarded Senior Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA) (2025).
  • Authored and initiated the Geographically Speaking project concept, leading the formation of a cross‑institutional research partnership focused on teacher workforce diversity, recruitment, and retention in East Coast communities
  • Advanced REF 2029 impact case study development and secured SHAPE Catalyst funding (£50,000).
  • Delivered sector-leading workshops at UCET Annual Conference and presented at Oxford Ethnography & Education Conference (2025).
  • Submitted major funding bids (Spencer Foundation, British Council) and initiated global research collaborations.

Related Courses