HE Curriculum Lead: Education and Early Childhood Studies and SENDI
Summary
My industry background has been working across the early years sector in a variety of educational and care settings. This has given me the opportunity to progress through the different roles from a nursery practitioner within a pre-school setting to a regional manager for a chain of nurseries. In the last 7 years my focus has changed to becoming a lecturer in Early Years and education where I have had the opportunity to share my knowledge and experience. This has seen me teach and lead programmes across a range of subjects such as early years, education, SENDI and teacher training before progressing on to a curriculum lead role in 2021. During this time, I have completed my MA in Early Childhood Studies and developed my teaching pedagogy in order to teach and support students studying higher education.
My research interests include leadership and management within an early years environment along with exploring the impact of higher education on the student life cycle. Additionally, I am an external examiner at the University of Chichester for a range of HE programmes exploring play therapy.
About
My background began in early years where I started as a parent helper at my daughter’s pre-school and from there I grew a passion for supporting children, young people and later, adults to learn, develop and grow. I worked my way up through every role within early years finishing as a regional manager for a chain of nurseries before deciding that I wanted to share my experience and knowledge with others to enable them to build and develop their own career.
I started teaching in Further Education in 2007 and moved over to Higher Education in 2018 where I have been the programme leader for a range of programmes supporting the development of our programmes though the development of teaching resources and the use of innovative teaching strategies including an online platforms.
In 2021 I was appointed as Deputy Head of school based at UCNL where I have worked tirelessly to develop our range of programmes to ensure they are at the forefront of this exciting and progressive sector.
Teaching
FdA Children’s Learning and Development (University Campus North Lincolnshire)
BA Hons Children’s Learning and Development Top Up (University Campus North Lincolnshire)
BA Hons Early Childhood Studies (University Campus Doncaster)
Industry Experience/ Publications / Portfolio
I have worked within industry since 1994 taking on many roles within a range of settings. Alongside this I have constantly updated my skills to ensure that I am current and relevant to the sector. This has included becoming a Forest School practitioner in 2019 which enabled me to take part in a range of interventions across primary schools in Doncaster and then completing my Masters in Early Childhood Studies in 2020 where my focus was exploring the life cycle of an Early Years HE student in order to better understand the students role and their future career paths.