Sue Baylis
Senior Lecturer
Children and Families
email: s.baylis@worc.ac.uk
tel: 01905 855571
Sue Baylis has over 30 years of extensive professional experience across Early Years and school provision, working within both PVI and maintained settings. Her early career included eight years based in a Nursery Assessment Unit at a Special School, where she led a class supporting children with a wide range of additional needs. This role involved working closely with children who experienced challenges with behaviour regulation, communication, and inclusion, and required a highly skilled, reflective, and responsive pedagogical approach. These formative experiences continue to underpin Sue’s strong commitment to inclusive, child‑centred practice and to supporting all children to reach their full potential.
For the past twenty years, Sue has worked in Higher Education, where she continues to make a significant contribution to early childhood education through teaching, curriculum leadership, research, and sector engagement. She has a longstanding research interest in Social Pedagogy, with published work in this field informing both her academic practice and professional contributions. Seven years ago, Sue worked collaboratively with a colleague to introduce Social Pedagogy to the University of Worcester. Its strong values base, closely aligned with early years principles and professional standards, has played a key role in shaping and strengthening the Early Childhood degree programme.
Sue maintains close and purposeful partnerships with a wide range of early years settings and services, coordinating high‑quality placement experiences that ensure strong links between theory and practice. Students are supported across a broad spectrum of provision, including Early Years Hubs, early years settings, schools, PRUs, alternative provision, health visiting teams, family support services, and foster care agencies. This breadth of experience enables students to develop a robust professional identity and to gain rich, contextualised insight across universal, targeted, and specialist services, supporting both learning and future employability.
In addition to this, Sue developed the University of Worcester Early Years Community Hub and, in collaboration with Local Authority colleagues, leads these meetings to support placement providers. The Hub creates professional spaces for networking, sharing expertise, addressing student support needs, and celebrating collective achievement. Through this work, Sue demonstrates sustained sector‑wide leadership and a deep commitment to inclusive, values‑driven early childhood education. This approach strengthens practice partnerships, promotes reflective practice across settings, and ensures placement experiences remain coherent, inclusive, and responsive to the needs of both students and the wider sector.
Qualifications
- Fellowship Higher Education Academy (FHEA) (2013)
- PG Certificate in Learning and Teaching in HE (2013)
- MA in Special and Inclusive Education: University of Worcester (2010)
- BA (Hons) Early Childhood Studies
- Tutor Field Worker/ Pre-School Practice
- Assessor/Internal Verifier Awards D32,D33
- Diploma in Preschool Practice
Teaching & Research
Teaching Interests
Sue is interested in supporting students to become resilient agents of change, who can make links between theory and practice though adopting a reflective approach to their practice empowering them to be committed advocates for children.
Research Interests
Sue has undertaken research investigating the use of creative pedagogy to support children’s effective communication and valuing the child’s voice.
Sue led Early Years professional Status programmes at the University of Worcester from 2006 to 2017. During this time she explored the need to reconceptualise setting leaders’ roles to acknowledge the need to ‘lead’ from within practice. During this time she also worked with government departments to support the development and growth of the programme.
Recently Sue has been involved with a research project investigating the effect the ‘In The Moment Planning’ approach can have on children’s learning and development.
Professional Bodies
- Training, Advancement and Co-operation in Teaching Young Children (TACTYC)
- The Higher Education Academy - Fellow
- Social Pedagogy Professional Association.
Publications
Chapter 4- Adopting Social Pedagogical Values to Support Children with SEND In, Social Pedagogy in Education. Re-establishing Relationships and Enriching Learner Experience. Edited By Carla Solvason, Nicola Stobbs, Geoffrey Elliott (2025)
Stobbs, Nicola, Solvason, Carla, Gallagher, Stuart and Baylis, Sue (2023) A human approach to restructuring the education system: why schools in England need social pedagogy. International Journal of Social Pedagogy, 12 (1). p. 8. ISSN 2051-5804
June 2009 The New Professionals: leading for change by Rory McDowall Clark & Sue Baylis. In Reflections on Practice in the Early Years Edited by Natalie Canning and Mike Reed
Article-Men in Early Years In EYE Magazine
2009 - Andrews, M & Baylis, S (2009) Male Status Symbols: Men in Early Childhood. Early Years Educator (EYE) Magazine. Vol 11, Issue 3
2010 - The New Professionals: leading for change by Rory McDowall Clark & Sue Baylis
2010 - In Reflections on Practice in the Early Years Edited by Natalie Canning and Mike Reed. London: Sage
2011 - Leading Practice and Leading Change by Rory McDowall Clark & Sue Baylis
2011 - In Implementing Quality Improvement and Change in the Early Years Edited by Natalie Canning and Mike Reed. London: Sage
2012 - Wasted Down There; policy and practice with under -threes. by Rory McDowall Clark & Sue Baylis
2012 - Early Years Journal (Special Edition)
External Roles
- External Examiner at Kingston University for the Postgraduate Certificate in Education: Early Years Teacher Status Birth-5
- Governor at Fort Royal Primary School, Wylds Lane, Worcester, WR5 1DR