BIOGRAPHY

For over 35 years, I have been teaching across a broad spectrum of settings, including schools, hospitals (play therapist), educational establishments, literacy centres and learning centres in the UK and Australia. I have supported children with specific learning difficulties, including pre-handwriting and foundational writing skills using peg boarding and touch typing. Teaching occurs one-to-one and in mixed groups. I often work alongside other educational professionals such as educational psychologists, occupational therapists and speech therapists.

Common responsibilities across roles include:

• Working with individual primary age children and groups, supporting social, emotional, and intellectual skills
• Supporting decoding skills such as reading
• Supporting encoding, teaching children how to spell, alongside grammar and punctuation
• Developing children’s creative writing skills, using projects
• Teaching the use of touch-typing programs to support children with writing difficulties
• Interpreting and assessing areas to focus on for students with learning difficulties
• Identifying and adopting the most beneficial teaching approach using the most effective evidence-based programs
• Working as part of a dynamic team, with colleagues and, parents and carers, focused on successful learning with evidence-based outcomes for the children
• Communicating children’s development, progress and achievements to parents and carers