Heather Rick – Curriculum Vitae
heather@rickhj.com
Vision statement
I am passionate about
improving life chances for young children through good quality education, which
means good quality teaching and learning.
My vision for the future is to continue to offer young children the best start
in life we can offer them. I will
continue to be responsive, creative and support early years
practitioners through good quality training.
Career History
Head of Early Years Team: 2012 –
ongoing.
I am Head of the Early Years team in
re-organisation, and whilst challenging, I have managed this difficult transition. I am responsible for the EY budget, and
liaise with our finance team on a regular basis. I plan strategically with other Heads of
service to bring a collaborative pedagogy to work as a ‘team around the family’
ethos.
I am responsible for organising and delivering CPD across the Borough. Changes in the Revised EYFS Framework, has
resulted in the writing and delivery of three conferences and several briefings
to Early Years settings and schools, as well as delivery of courses on;
Tracking progress against Development Matters in Reception.
Characteristics of Effective Learning
2 year olds in an early years setting.
Child development; physical and emotional development of young
children.
We have a conference planned for March 2013, on changes in the EYFSP.
Foundation Stage Moderation Manager
(2012 – ongoing)
I am Moderation Manager for
This role has enabled me to offer teachers constructive support through
inset and CPD, depending on the needs of the individual school. An important part of the moderation process
is exploring and implementing a successful transition (Reception to Year 1) policy
with schools. I promote and have run a
successful ‘Transition course; Getting it right from the start’. This project involved working with
schools from Easter until Christmas, tracking progress of Reception children
into Year 1, and resulted in the publication of an in-house transition guide
for schools.
Lead Early Years Consultant: 2011-2012 - London Borough of Waltham
Forest
In June 2011, I worked as a Lead Early Years
Consultant. My work consisted of working
in maintained Nursery, Reception and Yr 1 classes, supporting schools across
the curriculum, who were in ‘special measures’ as judged by Ofsted.
This involved formal class teacher observations with Head Teachers or Phase
Leaders, to identify inset needs for individual or groups of teachers. I delivered inset and courses across the
Early Years range, including;
Letters and Sounds – Phase 1- 6 (including parent information sessions)
Guided reading
Shared, sustained thinking
Early Language development
Developing mathematical thinking and concepts
Developing a quality learning environment
Boys Learning
Six weeks SENCO course, including modules on; SEN and the law, Speech and
Language difficulties, working with children with ASD and managing behaviour in
the classroom.
Reading Recovery Teacher Leader - 2010 -2011 - Institute Of Education
I was seconded for one year to the IOE to train as a Reading Recovery Teacher
Leader. This involved working with Wave
3, Year 1 children, who were in danger of failing with Literacy. All Reading Recovery Teacher Leaders have to
teach children themselves as well as teaching teachers about the Reading
Recovery techniques to use in school.
This philosophy means that Teacher Leaders are experiencing first hand,
the difficulties and successes, gaining insight into what teachers in schools
are experiencing.
The first part of the course focused on learning about Reading Recovery – the
assessments, procedures and how children learn to read within a theoretical
framework. The second part of the course
focused on teaching other teachers to become RR teachers, through a series of
collaborative reflective teaching and learning sessions. This way of teaching
can be new and challenging for many teachers to adopt and use effectively. I
have embarked on exploring how children learn to read using case studies of
both younger early readers and older ‘failing’ readers, in order to support and
scaffold the learning process.
Communication Language Literacy
Development Consultant: 2007-2010
Croydon Primary Strategy Team.
In my role as CLLD Consultant, I supported class teachers in twelve schools, to
implement ‘Letters and Sounds’ national phonic programme. This involved training teachers, observation
and monitoring children’s progress. This information was fed into Pupil
Progress meetings, (PPM), involving the class teacher, the DHT/HT and for
children identified with additional needs, the school SENCO. I was involved in
supporting ‘quality first’ teaching which includes the Foundation Stage and KS
1 encompassing speaking and listening, reading and writing. Teachers were
expected to be aware of the crucial role of phonological awareness for
pre-readers, systematic phonics teaching (Letters and Sounds) and vocabulary
development to support language and reading comprehension. This information, along with tracked Phase
information, informed teachers about children’s strengths and ‘next steps’ for
literacy.
My involvement in delivering literacy CPD for teachers and TAs promoted four
core values of speaking and listening, reading and writing. Practitioners were supported to recognise
language enrichment and, particularly, vocabulary development, as essential for
later language and reading comprehension. CPD courses included;
Phase 1- 6 training
Guided reading
Children’s writing development
How children learn to read
Area SENCO - 2002-2007 - Croydon Early Years and
Childcare Section
I worked in the private and voluntary sector, as well as the maintained
sector, and worked with very young children and their families. It gave me a unique opportunity to gain an
overview of the how ‘Every Child Matters: Change for Children, supports
children and young people right from the start, through to adulthood.
I studied to become a trained Makaton practitioner and later became a
trained Makaton Local Tutor. Supporting teachers to use Makaton for all children formed a major part of my work as
an SEN support teacher.
I have delivered Makaton
training courses to groups such as Child-minders and Children’s librarians.
All Early Years providers and schools must have an effective policy for
ensuring equality of opportunities and for supporting children with learning
difficulties and disabilities.
Practitioners were supported to focus on each child’s individual learning,
development and care needs to ensure that the children with whom they work are
fully included.
Literacy
Consultant - 1993-2002 -
My work in a mainstream school, allowed me a unique chance to work across the
Foundation Stage, seeing children through to Key Stage 1, and KS 2.
I liaised with Nursery staff about children who have speech and language
difficulties and about children’s needs when they enter reception class. Many of these children had ongoing speech and
language difficulties, specifically poorly developed phonological skills, so specific
‘Letters and Sounds’ Phase 1 training formed an ongoing part of my work.
During this time, I wrote an early literacy intervention programme and ‘ELIP’ was devised as part of a post
graduate course in Speech and Language difficulties, with
I carried out further research through the
I have been
involved in supporting teachers to identify children for Wave 2 intervention in
Year 1, through tracking children’s phonic phase progress, aligned with
National Curriculum and book band levels. My work with teachers in schools was
to support delivery of the curriculum guidance which advocates a broad ranging
approach to literacy development across speaking and listening, reading and
writing. The pedagogical view in Foundation Stage (FS) is based on children
interacting with supportive adults and being part of a rich learning
environment to develop skills in six areas of learning.
Specialist Teacher -
1993-2002 - The Literacy Centre
(SENSS)
I worked with small groups of children at Wave 3, in KS 1 and KS 2, who were
assessed having Dyslexia. I have an SpLD qualification to teach
Dyslexic children and assess their needs.
All work with children was planned, assessed and reviewed for each
individual child. This cycle was shared
collaboratively with other people involved in working with those children. The
use of a range of standardised assessment tools also provided a baseline of
information, along with informal testing, observation of children and liaison
with teachers, giving a well informed view of children and any difficulties
they may be experiencing. Work was done to support teachers when children
transfer from FS to KS 1.
This work resulted in the production of a booklet ‘Supporting Transition’ and has gone out to schools in the Borough of
Croydon.
I delivered courses on;
Raising Awareness of the Dyslexic Child.
(for parents) Supporting your Child with Literacy
activities
Language and Dyslexia – the link
(for further courses delivered, please see below)
SEN support teacher - 1990-1993 Parish Church
Junior School
The link between language skills and later literacy success has been very well
researched. So, practitioners have a responsibility to identify children’s
needs and intervene with appropriate support as early as possible, to help
children achieve the goals of ‘Every Child Matters’ and make progress. In order
to progress to become competent readers and writers, children need to have
developed good speech, language and communication skills. Most children will do
this using oral language, but some children may need to use augmentative
methods of communication, such as signing.
Reading Project – Teacher, 1991- 1993 - working across Key Stage 2 and 3
Working with older children with literacy
difficulties present different day to day issues. In many cases, older children did not want
extra support or at least did not want their friends to realise they were being
helped. Finding suitable materials for
older children was challenging. This
work gave me insight into difficulties that arise if literacy issues are not
tackled at an earlier age, which is where the focus should be. I supported
teachers to make sure that older children had access to a wide range of good
quality books and stories appropriate for their age group, but with easier text
and free from negative stereotypes
but promoting positive role models.
Classroom teacher 1988-1990 - Crosfield
Nursery School
I worked in a mainstream nursery school as a class teacher and was
responsible for a small ‘key’ group of children. It was essential at this time to ensure that
all children had access to a balanced curriculum, both inside and outside. Educationalists were just becoming aware, and
then implementing the ‘outside classroom’ realizing that children learn in
different ways and their learning was more purposeful when engaged in
self-initiated activities with adults who could scaffold learning in a
multisensory ‘hands-on’ approach.
Support teacher 1988-1990
-
see point above
Classroom
teacher - 1974-1979 - Mainstream Primary
I
started my career as a classroom teacher, teaching KS 1 and KS 2 children. This was
before the introduction of the National Curriculum, so opportunities for using
ones initiative and creativity were in some ways greater than after this
time.