Alison trained as a primary school teacher specialising in Art & qualifying in 1987 before the advent of the National Curriculum. She worked in a primary school in North London for 3 years before moving to Suffolk in 1990. Alison started working at a middle school as a Year 6 form tutor and with responsibility for Display throughout the school. She stayed there for nearly 7 years and became a Year 8 form tutor for the bulk of that time and took on curriculum responsibility for Design Technology while also teaching Art and supporting pupils with Special Needs in English.

Alison took some time out of teaching and worked for Berol, the manufacturers of pens and Art materials. During her 7 years there Alison developed new products, demonstrated at exhibitions, wrote catalogues, leaflets and support materials for the product range and started running InSET workshops for teachers. This is where she discovered her love of training teachers and being able to pass on her own enthusiasm for Art. “There is nothing more satisfying than helping a teacher develop the confidence and the skills to do something new that their pupils will love.” she says.

Another change took Alison back into teaching, full time for a while then an opportunity for a job-share came up which allowed her to develop her work as an independent trainer while guaranteeing enough income to pay the mortgage every month just in case the training didn’t pay off! Fortunately it did, and Alison is fast developing a good reputation for running entirely practical training courses that are inspiring, relevant and realistic. Her courses recognise the pressures that teachers face every day and the constraints that they often have to work under. See what teachers have had to say about Alison’s courses.