New tutors join the Froebel Trust team

Beverley has 17 years' experience as an early years educator. She is passionate about early childhood experiences and development - with a particular emphasis on outdoor play, exploration and engaging with nature. She is the nursery manager at Tiddlers Wraparound in Caerphilly, Wales which has been recognised as a 'Lead Setting' offering support, guidance and good practice to other nurseries and early years settings. Beverley is a founding member of the Wales Froebel Network.

An experienced Further Education Lecturer and Trainer, Shirley has a proven track record in teaching and training Early Years/Childcare and Health and social care programmes. Following a brief spell as a general nurse, in the early eighties Shirley trained as an NNEB nursery nurse. Employed by Lewisham Council, initially as a nursery officer, then student placement supervisor, liaising with further education colleges, and subsequently a nursery manager and NVQ assessor.

The core aspect of her work has always been co-ordinating and delivering vocational courses. This enabled strong community links to develop guidelines for standards in practical training and support workplace supervisors with practical assessments. She also developed strong links with awarding bodies, and as an exam writer gained greater understanding of curriculum and assessment frameworks.

Following her long career in vocational training and study skills programmes, Shirley currently works for City Lit as a community outreach childcare tutor, delivering accredited and non- accredited courses and family learning programmes. She also delivers introductory courses to ESOL learners.

Rachna is an early childhood teacher, action-researcher and consultant. She works with under-threes, Nursery and Reception children in classroom settings and holds an MA in Early Childhood Studies. Rachna also writes for organisations like Tapestry and Early Education. Her recent work includes embedding music into settings via grants to purchase outdoor music walls, open-ended music resources and workshops for children and their families.

Amanda has worked in the field of early childhood education for many years and has a wide range of experiences caring for children, teacher training and play therapy roles. Amanda is currently Programme lead for the BA (Hons) Childhood Studies at University of Winchester. Amanda's professional experience has included working in health and social services contexts and opening and managing a successful day care nursery, catering for children from birth to four years old. During her appointment at the nursery she led a team of staff through curriculum delivery and several OFSTED inspections. She specialised and trained as a practicing psychologist, Assessor, PGCE/ FE, EYP, Therapeutic Play Specialist (PG PT), SG lead, SENCO, ENCO, and TEFL supporting her professional practice as part of the senior management team.

Kate began working with children and families as a reception class teacher and has since worked extensively with early childhood practitioners and research students as a Senior Lecturer at Canterbury Christ Church University. Kate's research interests are focused on young children’s literacies, particularly their mark-making and writing. Her latest publication, 'Supporting Early Literacies through Play' (Smith and Vincent, 2022), explores the symbiotic relationship between play and literacy. 

Fengling is a Senior Lecturer in Early Childhood Studies at School of Education, Froebel College, University of Roehampton. Fengling’s teaching covers BA/MA Early Childhood Studies, Froebel Professional Certificate in Early Childhood and supervision of MA/PhD students at Roehampton. Her research interests include Froebelian perspectives, young children’s identities/spirituality/wellbeing, play and creativity, children’s rights and participation, early childhood professionalism and higher education pedagogy.

Eve worked in a maintained nursery school in Peckham, London for over 6 years and is now a nursery teacher in a primary school in Cambridgeshire. She gained her MA in Early Childhood Studies at University of Roehampton and it was there that she became inspired by a Froebelian approach to early education.

Holli Williams is Head of Schools at Linden Tree Nursery Schools, a small chain of privately-owned settings in Southwest London. Linden Tree has undertaken three of the five Froebel Short Course elements, which began their transformation to a Froebelian educational approach in all their settings.

Holli is also a Trustee of the Froebel Trust.