Helen Squires BA PGCE Dip.Psych MBPS
Educational Consultant.
“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” ― Dr. Seuss, I Can Read With My Eyes Shut!
As a child (and as an adult) I love ‘reading’….although I myself did not ‘read’ until I was 6 or 7 years old as it was far more enjoyable listening to my mother and teachers read me stories, so I pretended I couldn’t! How we teach our children to read in relation to the processes involved in learning to read is of great interest to me. Reading is a vital part of life and how we approach this for our children both in the classroom and at home is really important for their futures. How teachers teach reading greatly effects whether or not our children want to read. Their phonic knowledge is the key building block in this process. Therefore delivery of phonics needs to be engaging, fun, pacey and contextual for children in order to stimulate interest and to engage them in learning.
My role in phonics fun is the educational voice on the teams shoulder…
I trained as a Primary school teacher at Canterbury Christ Church University graduating with a specialism in Early Years. At the same time I studied for my Post Graduate Diploma in Psychology with The Open University. In both disciplines my primary interest is in children’s early development, as this is an area of cognitive and emotional development I am passionate about. I am particularly interested in childhood disorders relating to learning, attachment theory, early memory (including working and phonological) and language acquisition and development. In my day job, I work fulltime as the Assistant Principal of the John Locke Academy in West London. I also work as a Guest lecturer at Kingston University as part of the BEd and PGCE teaching programmes.
