0330 043 9626
Alongside my classroom practice, I am a qualified Mountain Leader, with extensive experience working with children outdoors in ways that are purposeful, safe and engaging. My passion for children, learning and the natural world, combined with educational expertise and outdoor leadership, underpins everything I do.
I am an experienced primary school teacher with over 15 years working in education across Scotland, including six years as a Principal Teacher of Additional Support Needs. Throughout my career, my work has focused on understanding how children learn, develop and thrive particularly when learning is shaped around their individual needs rather than a one-size-fits-all approach.
I have a particular professional interest in children’s development in literacy and numeracy, especially how these skills emerge through meaningful, real-world experiences rather than formal instruction alone. I have spent years engaging with research and professional development on children’s learning and development and connecting this to practice. I was previously a member of the Scottish Mathematical Council and have worked as a visiting lecturer at the University of Strathclyde, contributing to teacher education in children’s development in numeracy.
My work has been shared widely. I have presented at conferences across Scotland and internationally, including at the University of California, LA and the University of Washington, focusing on supporting children with additional support needs and on how children develop mathematical thinking. I have also published papers and articles on children’s development in numeracy and inclusive music education (which can be accessed here, here, here and here) and have led professional learning and development for teachers and schools across multiple local authorities in Scotland.
A significant part of my career has involved supporting children with additional support needs, in both mainstream and specialised settings. I am a Nurture-trained practitioner and place a strong emphasis on emotional safety, connection and understanding children’s developmental needs. I believe learning flourishes when children feel secure, supported and valued, and when relationships are at the centre.
As a parent myself, I understand both the hopes and the anxieties that families carry about their children’s learning. This work brings together my professional experience, my outdoor practice and my belief that children learn best when they are active, curious, supported and connected to the world around them.
As a teacher I have always sought to understand the children that I work with. Each child is completely unique, and it is fascinating to see how their thinking, confidence and understanding grow over time as they make sense of the world around them, particularly when learning is shaped around who they are. I love teaching. I love watching children’s thinking develop, seeing their curiosity spark, and witnessing those moments when understanding suddenly clicks. It is a real privilege to experience and be part of those moments.
However over the years I have often found myself feeling restricted within the system. I have been fortunate to work with headteachers who valued creativity and professional judgement, but increasingly our education system has become results and time-focused, often at the expense of deep, meaningful learning. Many teachers and school leaders feel significant pressure to prioritise outcomes that look good from the outside, sometimes at the expense of the deeper developmental work that supports long-term learning. Pressure can also be placed on schools to get the best results quickly, making it difficult for them to take the time required for learning to develop in a way that is secure, meaningful and responsive to individual children. When pace and performance take priority, there is often less space to follow children’s thinking, revisit concepts in depth, or build the strong foundations that underpin confident, long-term learning. It was this tension between what children need and what the system often demands that led me to begin creating an alternative space for learning.
I believe strongly in teaching through context rather than textbooks. A textbook is never written with your child in mind but when educators have a deep understanding of child development, literacy and numeracy, they can create meaningful contexts, learning experiences and problems that place the child at the centre.
When learning is rooted in real experiences, it becomes relevant and engaging. Done well, this approach supports progress far more effectively than formal exercises alone and enables children to make genuine connections between ideas, developing the conceptual understanding that underpins deep learning.
I have always been passionate about the outdoors. Nature is where we often feel most grounded, and it is where I see children learning with their whole bodies and minds. The outdoors offers space for movement, imagination, collaboration, creativity, risk-taking and problem-solving, all essential for healthy cognitive and emotional development.
The Wild School grew from this belief and from my desire to create something that reflects and supports how children naturally learn. This project is for my own children as well as yours: a space where learning is thoughtful, developmentally informed and deeply connected to nature.
At The Wild School, learning is designed around how children naturally think, explore and make sense of the world. Our approach is grounded in a deep understanding of child development, recognising and supporting children’s innate creativity, and shaped by the belief that children learn best when learning is meaningful, active and connected to real experiences. We work with children as individuals, meeting them where they are developmentally and supporting them to grow in confidence, understanding and independence.
Children might be measuring worms and leaves or putting maths into real life contexts to build functional dens, discovering patterns in nature, exploring local wildlife, mapping local trails to explore distance and direction, acting out a Highland legend or creating their own, creating stories or poems inspired by nature or local folklore and faerietales, or using natural materials to solve a practical maths challenge, the list is endless, but all while developing literacy, numeracy, problem-solving skills, and creative thinking.
Our approach is flexible and responsive, ensuring that all children, regardless of starting point or learning needs, can access rich, meaningful experiences that support their growth. We recognise that children develop at different rates and in different ways. Learning is carefully planned to be accessible and challenging, with flexibility built in to respond to individual needs.
At The Wild School, we believe that education should be responsive, fun and engaging. By combining professional expertise with purposeful outdoor learning, we help children explore, think critically, and grow with confidence.
We guide children in developing their skills and ideas organically through experience, while still maintaining a clear understanding of progression and next steps and so providing experiences, questions and activities that will push them on in their thinking and understanding. Many formal learning frameworks introduce real-life concepts late in the progression, after children have already been expected to work with abstract representations. In our experience, this is back-to-front; true understanding develops more readily when children first encounter ideas in meaningful, concrete contexts. Once a strong conceptual understanding is in place, children are then better able to make sense of more formal methods and abstract representations, where and when these are appropriate for the individual child.
This approach supports children to develop understanding that is secure, transferable and sustainable over time. Basing teaching on your child’s thinking removes much of the pressure that can come from expectations around memorising taught procedures or working at speed, both of which are common contributors to maths anxiety. Instead, children are supported to develop confidence, flexibility and a positive relationship with mathematics, allowing them to approach problems with curiosity rather than fear.
