MsEmma Rutherford Vale

Emma Rutherford Vale is an experienced literacy educator who began her career working with English as a second language learners in public high schools characterised by socio-educational disadvantage. Emma's education training is in the areas of second language acquisition and educational linguistics. She has worked as a cross curriculum literacy instructor and curriculum developer for the Department of Education NSW, independent literacy consultant and exam and curriculum developer for NESA. More recently Emma's work in education research has explored literacy development across the years of schooling. As project officer for a large-scale longitudinal study, Transforming Literacy Outcomes, she has published research exploring student experiences of the primary to high school learning transition. Emma is currently completing her Doctoral Thesis exploring writing development at the transition from primary to high school in science. Her driving passion is supporting teachers to understand the central role of language in learning.