Creating an Emotionally Intelligent ECE team

Not Just A Teacher Education

For over a decade, I've worked across primary, secondary and inclusive education settings-supporting students with complex needs, leading wellbeing initiatives and mentoring educators and school leaders. That journey has taken me through mainstream classrooms, specialist behaviour support roles, middle leadership and whole-school capacity-building projects.

What I've learned along the way is that emotional intelligence isn't something extra we add on top of our jobs. It's the foundation that helps everything else work. It determines how we manage conflict, build trust, handle pressure and genuinely connect with the people around us. I've seen firsthand how schools shift when staff feel emotionally safe, when students understand their triggers and when conversations around behaviour start with curiosity instead of consequence.

My interest in emotional intelligence is deeply personal. I’ve lived with trauma and its effects since I was young, which has shaped me into the person I am today. It taught me early on that our inner world powerfully shapes the way we show up in the world around us. That insight has shaped the way I teach, lead, coach and create. It's what led me to build Not Just A Teacher Education, where I now work with schools, early learning centres, families and organisations to embed practical emotional intelligence into everyday practice. I do what AI can't and that's be human. Whether it's working with leadership teams, educators or students through our student identity program: My Brand, our work is grounded in neurology, real-life challenges, language people actually use and tools that can be picked up and used the very next day.