Banna Millar

As Professional Lead for both undergraduate and postgraduate Primary Education programmes within the Department of Education, I oversee the strategic development and delivery of teacher education across Kingston University's primary routes. My responsibilities include curriculum design and leadership, partnership development, and quality assurance across all primary teacher education routes. This helps to ensure Kingston University maintains its TEF Gold status – one of 26 Higher Education providers across the country to achieve this – and meets the highest sector standards, responding dynamically to evolving educational needs.

Central to my role is ensuring the delivery of a robust, ambitious and future-focused curriculum that equips new teachers to thrive in contemporary classrooms. I deliver sessions on the Professional Practice and Child Development and Inclusive Practice modules. I also collaborate closely beyond Primary with PGCE Secondary colleagues to ensure coherence and excellence across routes. Strategic partnership and placement management form a core part of my role, ensuring all students benefit from high-quality, effectively mentored professional practice placements. I am a dedicated personal tutor, championing student voice. I ensure this informs programme enhancement and development. I also support students with their transition from university study into their first Early Career Teacher post.

Before joining Kingston University, I taught for 12 years in Special Educational Needs, working with pupils aged 3-16 with speech, language, and communication difficulties. This extensive experience in Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) provided a foundational understanding of inclusive pedagogy, multi-sensory teaching and positive intervention strategies that directly informs my current practice in teacher education. This background allows me to embed authentic, evidence-based approaches throughout our teacher education curriculum. This ensures Kingston students gain the empathy, adaptability, and creative problem-solving skills that define our Future Skills agenda and means our graduates are sought after for their knowledge, skills and ability to be innovative thinkers.

My practice is guided by Kingston University’s progressive model of education and distinct commitment as the UK’s leading university for Future Skills. Within our Primary Education programmes, students develop creative problem solving, digital competency, an enterprising mindset, adaptability, empathy, collaboration, resilience, self-awareness, and a questioning outlook - skills identified by employers as critical for graduate success. These attributes are integrated at every stage of the student journey. They make our graduates highly sought-after for their expertise, reflective capacity, and ability to drive educational innovation.

I collaborate with the Driver Youth Trust to develop sector-leading practice in Initial Teacher Education, ensuring all graduating teachers possess the confidence and competencies to support pupils with dyslexia and literacy difficulties in the classroom. This collaboration aims to develop evidence-based, innovative, inclusive pedagogical approaches to support learners with dyslexia and literacy difficulties in the classroom and subsequently create systemic change in teacher training programmes. Our research partnership has delivered enhanced curriculum integration, effective intervention resources, and is actively exploring the impact of this innovative teaching content. View some of our work here. 

I am an active member of Kingston’s Inclusion and Social Justice special interest group. I contribute to investigations exploring rights and responsibilities for individuals with additional needs, policy implementation in inclusive education and social justice perspectives on educational equity, supporting our research excellence where 70% is rated world-leading.

• MA (Hons) Psychology
• PGCE Primary