Meet the Team

For as long as I can remember I have been involved in childcare and business. My mother started our nursery in 1995, converting our family home. My sisters and mother lived on-site for 6 years before moving off-site to extend the nursery in 2001. Over the next 15 years I finished education and went on to complete my degree in business management with my sights fixed on owning a construction company. Working in various construction related roles, and account management, after a few years of travelling the world, working in Australia and learning Thai Boxing in Thailand, I returned home. I offered to support my then past retirement age mum, in reviewing the nursery performance as I felt it needed modernisation and refining. I learnt a lot of lessons the hard way – a lot! I am grateful as my drive for successful and effective business management meant I never gave up, I always strived for the nursery to be better, to out shine other nurseries and crucially, for it to be the best place to work for every staff member from apprentice up to manager. Putting the staff at the centre of everything we do has transformed our nursery, we have ridden every wave thrown at us and have come out learning, improving and enjoying what we do. I’m very lucky to be in a position where I can choose to share my business experience, as well as commitment to the early years sector, by talking to other early years professionals and supporting childcare provider success. Now my own son has joined Abbotswood, I am starting to see a lot more about the parent perspective, giving me further in-sight into this hugely dynamic sector that is early years.

Early Years Professional Status, NVQ in Management, PTTLS, NCFE Level 3 AVA

I have been working in Early years for over 20 years in various training and leadership roles. I have a degree in early Childhood studies and EYP status, as well as qualifications in training, assessing and coaching. Throughout my career I have worked in a wide range of childcare settings across the country, supporting a range of different teams and professionals with a host of different challenges and difficulties. My passion is staff wellbeing and engagement and how we retain the early years workforce keeping their passion and love for early years alive. My other specialised areas are behaviour and how understanding brain development and self-regulation can enable us to support children better.

Qualified Teacher Status with Early Years Specialism

Over my ten years in the early years sector, I’ve worked as an apprentice to become a qualified teacher. Teaching is my passion and early years has taught be that it doesn’t need to be in the confines of four walls. Early years is all about the special experiences that you give children, that they might not remember forever but it’s embedded in who they are growing to be. I believe that having knowledgeable, passionate practitioners are the best resource you can have. I love helping bring visions to life and embedding the outdoors into creating endless teachable moments and creating a sense of awe and wonder.

HNC in Business Administration 

I have worked at Abbotswood since 2018, dealing with every aspect of the administration of the Nursery and Academy. My role at Abbotswood is dealing with all invoices, applications, booking patterns and other financial tasks, putting my 20+ years experience in the Private, Voluntary and Public Sector to use.