Miss Sarah Nixon

National Teaching Fellow 2011 Sarah Nixon works within the Centre for Sport, Dance and Outdoor Education within the Faculty of Education, Community and Leisure. She is a Principal Lecturer in Sport Development and the Faculty Learning Development Manager. Sarah's absolute commitment to student learning is matched by a passionate belief that staff, too, must know themselves as learners and use that knowledge to help students achieve their goals. In her view, if students are to learn at their best, then teachers must teach at their best. Her development work with staff within her own Faculty, across the University and in other institutions has been literally trailblazing. Sarah has recently been working with colleagues on developing resources to support peer review of teaching and these have just been launched across the University. Curriculum design and enhancement is crucial to ensure students have a current and inspiring learning experience. Sarah has been working across her Faculty to re-design the learning experience for the students on a whole of range of courses. She is particularly proud of her work in personal development planning and the resources that she has produced to support the students throughout their degree journey. Her approaches to personal development planning and her Transitions into HE model have been adopted by other programmes in her Faculty, by programmes in other Faculties and by other universities. As a teacher and supporter of learning Sarah has literally transformed the learning experience for thousands of students and her work has had an impact far beyond her own practice. To her students Sarah is quite simply, 'a legend', 'an absolute star', the person whose unstinting support is described as 'priceless', who 'brightened up my Monday mornings', 'pushed me and made me believe in myself', 'helped me achieve something I could only dream about'. Sarah's philosophy is that every student should be enabled to be the best they can be. She is widely admired by students for her professionalism, as a role model and for the 'gift she has in how she can transform setbacks and negative situations into positive outcomes, turning possibility into probability'.