Lecturer Janina Spencer

Biography

Janina Spencer started her career as an Early Years mainstream teacher before becoming a special school teacher. For the past 20 years, Janina has worked in various primary and secondary special schools in different localities mainly within the area of complex learning difficulties. She has been an English Subject Lead and used her specialism in early literacy to introduce and adapt phonic programmes to successfully raise standards in reading within the schools she worked in. Janina recently collaborated on a pre-phonics guide for schools and accompanying webinar. 

Janina has been an Assistant Head teacher and Primary Lead in two different special schools. She currently works for the Southampton Inclusion Partnership (SIP) based at Springwell School, a school for pupils with complex needs. Whilst working for SIP, Janina has supported provision for SEND in a number of mainstream schools and now leads an Initial Teacher Training course specialising in SEND for the University of Winchester in collaboration with SIP. 

In addition to leading the PGCE Primary with SEND Route, Janina provides coaching in two local schools – a special school and a mainstream primary school. She also leads training for Early Career Teachers working within special schools for the HISP Multi Academy Trust.