I was born in Oxfordshire in England and lived in the south of England. I always knew that I would work with children, and started my career as a teaching assistant in a nursery located in a picturesque town next to a beautiful lake. I worked there for many years having made a career path from assistant to managerial position. Here, I implemented a ‘forest school’ approach to child development. The children could take part in creative learning in an area of ​​the forest behind the nursery. Here children created sculptures and crafts using natural materials and exploring the nature around them.

Whilst I worked with children, I also studied part time. I started with a National Vocational Qualification Level 3 Early Years Child Care and Education. This course was a great introduction to the subject and I wanted to learn more! I enrolled on the University of Brighton’s Early Years Care and Education Foundation degree. I really enjoyed this course and wanted to have a full degree so I progressed on to the Professional Studies in Learning and Development course earning a Bachelor of Arts with honours degree. I then continued my studies after graduation to become a professionsl in early childhood development with the course Early Years and Primary School Professional Status. The learning process itself gave me great pleasure and I have found a myriad of academic materials on early child development, research that has been really useful both for my own professional learning, and as a valuable tool for implementing new ideas on the basis of children’s educational benefit, and for training colleagues.