Profile

I live in Brighton which is a really exciting and fun place to be.  I love spending time with my family out and about, and particularly on the beach.  I really enjoy swimming in the sea, even in winter (although I have a really good wetsuit and gloves to stop me from freezing!)  I swam on Christmas Day last year which was ace!

I have two boys who are in primary school.  I also have two cats, Marvin who is 16 (and sleeps a lot) and Bruno who is 2 and enjoys chasing squirrels.  One of my favourite things to do is to watch football – my favourite team are Wolverhampton Wanderers.  My family all support different teams, so when they all play each other it gets interesting……

I love going to watch live music, and also snuggling up on the sofa to watch TV or a movie.  Harry Potter and Paddington are up there with my favourites.

Educational Psychologists work with children and young people (aged between 0 and 25) and their families.  We try to understand how children and young people learn best, and what makes people feel happy and safe, using psychology.  We sometimes use assessments to measure how people’s brains process information, but also spend a lot of time talking – to the children themselves, and to other adults who know them well.  Our main aim is to make learning accessible for everyone, and to help adults to understand how to best support children.  We sometimes help when things feel really stuck, and with things like when children have experienced something really traumatic, when children don’t want to go into school, or when young people feel really anxious. We use psychology and psychological evidence to guide all of our work.

The main part of my job is thinking about how to use psychology to help children and families to understand learning.  I spend lots of a typical day with children and young people, visiting them either in school or nursery, but sometimes at home.  I use psychological tools and assessments to help to get a better understanding of what is going on.  I also work a lot with adults who support children – either providing them with additional skills and resources, or offering problem solving support when things feel difficult.

I spend lots of my day in the car, out and about.  I occasionally pop back into the office either to meet with colleagues and catch up, or to pick up additional resources and assessments.  I also spend time working at home writing up my reports and sorting out admin stuff.