Profile

I live in the countryside (there is a field of horses at the end of my back garden, and Ziggy is quite scared of them!).  Ziggy is a scruffy dog, who is full of beans but will be a good boy if there is a promise of chicken.

I have lived in lots of different places.  I grew up in Slough, but moved to Canterbury as a student.  I lived in Northampton for a long time before finally settling where I am now.

I like to be creative.  I draw, paint, knit and crochet things.  I used to work for Madame Tussauds repairing wax figures in an exhibition in Windsor, and my ability to paint wax and fibreglass figures meant that was able to work in exhibitions to earn money while I was studying psychology.

I am interested in how children learn to read, and what sort of things we can do to help people who might find learning to read more difficult.  I have done a lot of different types of projects into this, including whether text messaging can help children with their reading and spelling (it can).  At the moment I am really interested in wellbeing at school – so, what makes children feel happy or sad when they are in class, and what sort of things we might be able to do in order to help.  I am also interested in how parents can support their children’s learning.

My day starts with putting my daughter on the school bus and taking Ziggy for a quick walk.  I then turn on my computer at about 9am, and I sit with a big mug of tea answering emails if I am working from home. Then I might write a talk, a report, or think about the next piece of research I would like to do.  A lot of my job is about thinking of new projects, and working out how to make them happen.  Sometimes this means I write something called a ‘grant’ which is a special (very long) sort of letter asking for some money to pay for my next project.  That is an important part of my job, and something I am slowly getting better at!

Part of my day will sometimes involve seeing or teaching my students, which is one of my favourite parts of my job.  I do this at work rather than from my home but I live quite a long way away from where I work.  So on those days I get up at at about 5.30am (!), and get in my car and set off at 6.15am.  I get to work at about 7.45am, and then I have breakfast and get ready for my teaching sessions, which will start at 9am, and can go on quite late.