My Story
On my first day of school, aged four, I sat on my teacher’s lap and cried all day.
The same thing happened every day for two weeks. Nobody told my mother.
My relationship with education remained complicated. By 13, after years of struggling with the social and emotional demands of school, I reached a point where I simply couldn’t do it anymore. I stopped going altogether.
For a long time, I thought of that as failure. But my story with education didn’t end there.
Years later, I found my way back. I completed a BA and MA and eventually built a career in further and higher education, working with young people and adults whose own routes through education haven’t always been straightforward.
Later in life, an ADHD diagnosis gave me another way of understanding some of my own experiences — the overwhelm, the inconsistency, the things that seemed so much harder than they should have been, but also strengths I’d often overlooked.
Today, I bring those experiences together in my work as a coach and educator.
I know what it can feel like when education isn’t working. I know the impact it can have on the person struggling — and on the people who love them.
And I know that what happens at school doesn’t have to define what happens next.
Why I Coach
My own experiences are part of what brought me to coaching, but they’re only part of the story.
Throughout my career in education, I’ve worked with young people and adults whose lives, learning and careers haven’t always followed the expected route. I’ve seen how easy it is to focus on what someone is struggling with and lose sight of the person underneath.
Coaching gives us a different kind of space — somewhere to understand what’s going on, recognise strengths as well as challenges, and explore ways forward that work for you rather than simply trying harder to fit.
That’s the space I want to offer.
Experience & Training
I have more than 15 years’ experience across further and higher education, working with young people and adults in teaching, coaching, outreach and student support roles.
My experience includes teaching young people who have struggled in mainstream education, supporting care-experienced young people, leading widening participation and outreach programmes, and coaching adults navigating neurodivergence, work, education and life transitions.
I trained as a professional life coach with The Coaching Academy and hold a BA, MA and Level 3 Award in Education and Training. My practice is neuroaffirming, strengths-based and person-centred, with ongoing professional development in ADHD, neurodiversity, safeguarding and inclusive practice.