As an education expert and a specialist in thinking and learning differences, I untangle the trickiest issues which impact young people in life and learning.
After gaining my first degree in Education and English Literature at Homerton College, Cambridge in 1994, I started my career as a primary school teacher. A few years later, I returned to Cambridge to complete a Masters degree and then a PhD, both in Education at Clare College. My doctoral research was focused on understanding the parental experience of working with education professionals when a child is struggling in school, and to develop better frameworks for establishing authentic parent-professional partnerships.
Over the past thirty years, I have worked in a range of educational settings and almost always with a lead inclusion-focused role. For the last eight years of my in-school career, I was at Harrow School and for much of this time led their provision for boys who have additional SEND needs.
I specialise in social communication differences, autism (especially girls and young women), anxiety around learning an in a school context, ADHD and attentional issues, and specific learning differences such as dyslexia. Complex cases and those involving boarding school settings are also particular areas of expertise.
About My Mission
More than a decade ago when my own children were tiny, I recall staying up the entire night writing a mission statement and business plan on scraps of paper. Of course back then I had no clue how to even get started. And the next day, my ideas were dismissed to a drawer. And for two years there they sat. But the concept kept calling me. I knew first hand from my own schooling, my doctoral research and also from my work in schools, how important it was for the views and experiences of parents and their young people to be truly heard and understood. I knew too that so much beautiful talent was often missed or squashed within the systems that exist.
I could also see that we need a world in which children and families need to be holistically understood, and where a young person's worth is not defined by a narrow version of success.
So, with many late nights and very early get-ups, piece by piece, my mission has been clarified, the private practice has been built and my work continues to evolve. Although it has been up and running for nearly ten years now, in many ways, I am just getting started.
The overarching intentions of my work are:
1. To drive change by empowering families, educators and society at large to better understand and meet young people's needs;
2. To enable young people to understand themselves better and to be able to advocate for what they need from others;
3. To shine a spotlight on education, neurodiversity and wellbeing matters.
