A leading advocate for giving pupils a say in their learning has died of cancer, aged 70. Jean Rudduck, professor of education at Cambridge university, began her career as an English and drama teacher at Godolphin and Latymer school, London, in 1959 and moved into research six years later.
She was a founder member of the Centre for Applied Research in Education at the University of East Anglia in 1970. She later became a professor of education at Sheffield university and moved to Homerton college, Cambridge, in 1994. Here she conducted a three-year project on consulting pupils about teaching and learning.
She retired in 2004 but continued to lecture. Her husband, John Gray, professor of education at Cambridge, said: “Jean cared passionately about what happened to pupils and teachers and her work made a real difference.”
The old saying “the good die young” resonates strongly in the case of Margaret Morgan, who died of cancer aged 60 on March 28, writes Nigel de Gruchy, former general secretary of the NASUWT teachers’ union.
A lovely person, Margaret was a gifted teacher who gained the respect and affection of everyone she met. She rose to become president of NASUWT in 1998 and vice-chair of the General Teaching Council in 2000.
She was born in Whitley Bay. She married Roger Morgan in 1967 and immediately took up her first teaching post in Zambia.
In the 1970s, she worked in Exmouth at what was then one of the largest comprehensives in the UK, later becoming deputy head at Ilfracombe community college.
Margaret’s non-confrontational style, which she combined with a disarming firmness, was easy, but unwise, to underestimate.
