UCL PhD student Homayra Rahimi is a teacher and special needs practitioner, committed to ensuring all children, no matter where they are from, have access to a good education.
Homayra is a third-year PhD student at the UCL Institute of Education (IOE)’s department of Learning and Leadership, exploring literacy provision and practice in primary schools in England. She is also a Postgraduate Teaching Assistant and a Student Residence Advisor.
Homayra came to UCL from Jask, in the Hormozgan province of Iran and is of Baluch ethnicity, a highly marginalised minority group. Despite the low rate of literacy in the region, she was determined to learn English and pursue higher education.
I was raised in a city which has been really disadvantaged in terms of education and basic facilities. People rarely get opportunities to get a high-quality education or to be able to study in such a high ranked university.
Homayra came to the UK to study for a master’s in Education at Brunel University, before starting her PhD at UCL. She previously worked as a teacher and special needs practitioner in Jask, delivering literacy interventions and voluntary CPD sessions for teachers, for which she received the 2019 Teacher of the Year award. These experiences shape her current research, examining how England supports children with reading difficulties and how this can be improved.
The work is challenging and, at times, confronting. It is a disappointing finding that there is often a gap between what the evidence says children need and the support they are actually receiving.
Her commitment to education extends beyond literacy. After her hometown became a target of conflict, she secured UCL200 funding to run a workshop bringing together experts to explore how teachers can be prepared for global crises: “Conflict is not a local issue… it has a ripple effect.”
At the IOE, Homayra has found what she calls her “second family” and she is dedicated to enhancing the wellbeing and experiences of students and staff; effectively de-escalating complex accommodation issues, offering support to reception teams and helping students who face learning difficulties.
Looking ahead, she hopes universities like UCL will go even further to remove barriers for students from overlooked communities.
We talk a lot about widening participation, but when it comes to university it can get blurry. What I really hope to see is that this definition gets broader to encompass students from the most marginalised and disadvantaged communities.
She credits resilience, consistency and tenacity as the traits that got her here: “If I came from that severely marginalised community to do a PhD at UCL, then definitely, you can too.”
