Since qualifying as a teacher in 1981, I have worked exclusively in SEND Education. I have experience working within both day and residential special schools catering for children and young people with a range of special educational needs including SEMH, MLD, and most recently, high functioning ASD.

I taught for the majority of my career at Broomhill Bank Special School in Kent, joining as a class teacher, and subsequently fulfilling the roles of Deputy Headteacher, Headteacher and Executive Headteacher between 2006 and 2018. 

I have extensive experience of change leadership, initially as I led my school through a major redesignation and expansion from an all girls MLD school for 80 students aged 11-18, to a coeducational school for students with high functioning ASD, necessitating complex building projects and staff restructuring to accommodate the changed and increasing roll. In 2015 I became Executive Head when the school expanded again onto the site of a recently closed special school in North Kent, inheriting a roll of students from the previous school, all with complex SEMH needs in addition to their ASD diagnosis. 

As greater responsibility was delegated from local authorities to schools during the last decade, I took opportunities to collaborate with other special school and mainstream leaders, together with Kent Local Authority to develop initiatives including devolving Specialist Teaching and Learning Service provision to district special schools, and establishing a Cooperative Trust of special schools. 

I retired in 2018 and joined the Red Hill Trust in 2020 as an Associate Trustee. I am also a Co-Chair of Governors in a local primary school.

I am passionate about supporting children and young people with, or at risk of developing, SEMH difficulties, so that remedial action and preventative measures can help secure their full inclusion within education and society as a whole.