Short Courses

Dr Stella Louis leads our team of Froebel Trust Travelling Tutors. She was named Trainer of the Year at the Nursery World Awards 2023 and was also honoured with the Nursery World Lifetime Achievement Award for her work in early childhood education.

She is an early years consultant, trainer and author working with individual early years settings, parents and carers, nursery schools, local authorities, government departments and charities. She provides training and consultancy and is particularly interested in observation and its part in developing learning, especially through children’s schemas.

Stella has worked both in the United Kingdom and internationally, including South Africa and Australia where she worked with teachers to develop a Froebelian approach to teaching and learning.

Carole's early training was in London, some of it at Froebel College with Professor Tina Bruce. While in the UK, she taught in special education and nurseries but for most of her career, she has worked in South African multilingual settings on holistic approaches to teaching young children reading and writing. Her aim is to enable equitable, inclusive and holistic learning opportunities for all young children. She is informed and inspired by Froebelian ideas and principles in her work as Director of The Project for the Study of Alternative Education in South Africa (PRAESA) and Extraordinary Professor in Language Education at The University of the Western Cape. Carole has co-ordinated several initiatives to bring Froebelian pedagogy to life in South Africa (SA) with Dr Stella Louis and Professor Tina Bruce, including an online Froebel Trust course, from which a South African Froebel Network is emerging.

Sally is currently the headteacher of Guildford Nursery School and Family Centre (GNSFC).  Sally is committed to working collaboratively and building positive relationships with children, their families and educators that are underpinned with mutual trust and respect.  She has a successful track record in the fields of school improvement and pedagogy, which has been recognised at a national level.
 
Sally has taught across the whole primary age range; she has been a deputy headteacher of a large primary, a senior Early Years consultant in two London boroughs, a Regional Advisor for the National Strategies and a strategic lead for a locality of children’s centres. 
 
Sally is successfully leading the development of Froebelian pedagogy at GNSFC.  Froebelian principles guide Sally’s work with children, parents and staff.

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.

Stephanie Harding was originally an archaeologist. She trained as an early years teacher and taught in a Nursery School where she later become the Headteacher. She completed a MA research project which looked at how children used bikes and undertook further research on how the children were developing new skills and strategies to manage their learning in the outdoors. She is interested in curriculum development and has researched practitioner’s response to implementing a curriculum based on Learning Dispositions. She has published work on children and learning outdoors and co-authored a book on the history and development of a nursery school.

She enjoys supporting other practitioners and has supported students studying at HND through to MA level courses. Her interest in the role of observation, naturalistic outdoor learning environments, children as active agents in their own learning and the history of early years education has led her to embrace a Froebelian approach to young children’s learning.

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.

Tricia Johnson is an Early Years’ consultant with a broad range of experience, both theoretical and practical. Throughout her career she has ensured she has remained up to date with current practice and research, and, that children in the Early Years receive a high level of education and care. She worked as a Lecturer and Head of School for Early Years in Further Education and as a Senior Lecturer in Higher Education. Her practical experience as an Early Years Practitioner began at her local Pre-School followed by fourteen years at the Norland College where she cared for children from 10 days to 9 years of age. Tricia remains committed to providing high quality care and education through her work with the Froebel Trust as a Froebel Travelling Tutor and membership of national Early Years organisations.

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.

Paula Lester has been a senior leader in Early Years for more than 20 years, including being Group Manager (Yellow Dot Nurseries) and Director of Quality (Tops Day Nursery Group) - two large nursery groups in the South of England.

Paula has been an active Froebel Trust Travelling Tutor since 2017 and has an MA in Early Years Education from the University of Roehampton. She is also a Froebel Trust trustee.

Julia Manning-Morton is an author, trainer and lecturer in early childhood. Her career spans 40 years and diverse roles as a nursery nurse, manager, adviser and lecturer in Early Childhood Studies. Julia is now an independent consultant, an associate trainer for Early Education, a Froebel Travelling Tutor and a member of the Pikler (UK) Association.

Julia’s research, writing and teaching is focused on practice and provision that meets the needs of children from birth to three years old and on the personal, social and emotional well-being of children. Her aim is to promote the well-being of all children and all aspects of their care and learning; emphasizing inclusion and anti-bias, and to promote the well-being and professionalism recognition of all practitioners.

Thelma Miller trained to be a Primary school teacher at Goldsmiths College, University of London from 1968- 71, studying Drama and Art as her main subjects. Her first teaching experiences were in schools for children experiencing emotional behaviour difficulties, developmental delay and or physical disabilities. Following the birth of her children she became interested in how children develop in the first years, and retrained at the Froebel college, Roehampton in 1983 to become an early years teacher.

Throughout her long happy career as a teacher, a family literacy tutor, headteacher and early years adviser she has tried to nurture the imagination and creativity in children, finding this the best way to motivate, interest and engage them in their learning.

In 2017 Thelma was invited by Professor Tina Bruce to train to become an accredited Froebel Travelling Tutor. She found it inspiring to revisit Froebel’s principles that are so comprehensive, practical and relevant for our work with children today, not only in the UK, but in developing countries. She was delighted to make 3 visits to Kolkata, India to complete a programme introducing Froebelian principles and practise to a charity working with street children.

Pete Moorhouse is an Early Years Creative Consultant and works regularly as an artist educator in settings. Froebelian principles very much inform his work with children. Pete is a Froebel Trust Travelling Tutor and an associate trainer for Early Education and delivers CPD training and conference presentations throughout the UK and overseas.

Pete is the author of several books and journal articles including ‘Learning through Woodwork: Introducing Creative Woodwork in the Early Years’ (Routledge 2018), and ‘Outdoor Environments’ and 'Learning Outdoors' (Community Playthings 2019) and 'The Wonder of Woodwork' (Froebel Trust, 2021). Pete is an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Bristol, researching children's progression in their creative and critical thinking. He is a Churchill Fellow through which he researched woodwork in early childhood education around the world and in 2019 Pete was awarded the national award from the Creative Learning Guild for his work promoting creativity in education.

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.

Dr Lucy Parker is Deputy Headteacher at Ludwick (Maintained) Nursery School in Hertfordshire. She has been instrumental in introducing a Froebelian approach at the nursery, including cookery and clay as core curriculum experiences. Lucy is a Froebel trained teacher and has received a BA, PGCE, MA and PhD from the University of Roehampton.

Lucy is a Trustee at the Froebel Trust. She is Chair of the Froebel Trust's Education Sub-Committee and Co-Chair of Education & Research Committee.

Kate has spent most of her adult life in the north of England, teaching in Early Years in Manchester, largely in schools with high levels of deprivation, asylum seekers and refugees. She has had a great deal experience of teaching children with EAL.

She went as the third teacher to the Kolkata Project, funded by the Froebel Trust. This was a project working alongside untrained teachers in charity schools to develop their understanding of Froebelian principles and practice, and thus to improve the quality of education these schools offered to the poorest children.

As a Froebel Travelling Tutor she has trained adults in a variety of settings, ranging from a maintained nursery school to a community allotment.

Dr Kate Smith began her career working with children and families as a reception class teacher in primary schools. After moving into Higher Education she became a Senior Lecturer at Canterbury Christ Church University supporting practice based and research students in the field of Early Childhood Studies.

Kate's research interests are focused on young children’s literacies, particularly their mark-making and writing. She has written for a variety of publications and collaborated on a range of early childhood projects including the recent Birth to Five matters document. Her latest publication, 'Supporting Early Literacies through Play ' (Smith and Vincent, 2022) explores the symbiotic relationship between play and literacy.

Kate is a Travelling Tutor for the Froebel Trust and an education consultant working with a range of early years settings, schools and arts based organisations.

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.

Felicity is a Froebel trained early years teacher and has over 40 years’ experience of teaching, leading and training others in this sector.

She has worked in schools, family centres, children’s centres and within the community. She is one third of a consultancy and training company which she started with two like-minded and recently retired head teacher colleagues. She has experience of teaching adults on a foundation degree accredited by Hereford University and has assessed leaders doing their early years initial teaching qualification.

Felicity has retrained through the Froebel Trust to become a Froebel Travelling Tutor. She has used her updated and reflective understanding of Froebelian principles to support teachers working with the street children in Kolkata. Recently she has co-authored a book (available from the Froebel Trust) about the history of early years education in England and related this to a case study of the nursery school she led.

Helen Tovey was Principal Lecturer in Early Childhood Studies at University of Roehampton, London teaching on undergraduate, masters and professional development courses. She is a Froebel trained teacher with over 20 years experience working in Nursery and Primary Schools. She was head of a Nursery school in an inner-city area of London and was involved in setting up and developing a challenging outdoor environment.

Helen is author of numerous books and articles including Playing Outdoors, Spaces and Places, Risk and Challenge published by Open University Press and Bringing the Froebel Approach to your Early Years Practice published by Routledge.

Although retired from lecturing Helen is a member of the Froebel Trust Education Committee, Chair of the University of Roehampton Froebel Archive Advisory Group and a Nursery School Governor.

Jane Whinnett MBE is an associate tutor on the 'Froebel in Childhood Practice' course at the University of Edinburgh and a Froebel Trust Travelling Tutor. 

She is author of the Froebel Trust pamphlet on 'Froebel’s Gifts and Block Play Today' and co authored 'Sewing with Young Children'. She has published chapters in 'Early Childhood Practice: Froebel Today' (2012) and co-edited the award winning book 'Putting Storytelling at the Heart of Early Childhood Practice' (2020) and 'The Bloomsbury Handbook to Friedrich Froebel' (2023). 

Jane trained as a primary school teacher, later specialising in early years and went on to become Headteacher at two local authority nursery schools in Edinburgh. In 2019 Jane was awarded an MBE for services to Early Childhood Education.

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.