Testimonials

“Your in-depth observation of [our son] gave the school an insight into how he needed help.”

– Parent

“Mandy has been a huge support to us, as a family, and to [our son] as an individual.  She has been consistently encouraging, understanding and constructive in her advice to us; allowing him to express himself and be proactive in strategies that she has discussed with him.  These have varied from strategies to cope with his extreme anxiety, social issues and also self-acceptance.  Mandy has made herself available to attend meetings with school and for home visits when appropriate.  As a mother, I can honestly say that I wouldn’t have coped with a particularly difficult time in [my son’s] life without Mandy’s understanding and support.”

– Parent

“Mandy’s knowledge… was probably the single greatest factor in allowing us to come to terms with the children’s autism and move forwards.  Her (classroom) observation of our son helped hugely with encouraging staff to adopt autism friendly strategies to ease his high levels of anxiety. Additionally Mandy helped me enormously with some 1:1 training on how best to support the children at home… I would recommend her services to anyone living or working with autistic children.”

– Parent

“I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for all the fantastic hard work that you have done in helping us support [our student] this year.  I am delighted that [he] has been accepted onto [a college course] and am confident that a significant proportion of this achievement can be attributed to your involvement with him.”

– Deputy Head Teacher, Specialist Academy

“I found Mandy very supportive and helpful at a time when we were really struggling with our son.”

– Parent

“The VERY detailed report provided a wealth of information regarding the observation, ideas and advice for staff.  The feedback to parents with the CAF meeting was so vital in providing them with support and giving them such informative feedback.  The professionalism, care and delivery of feedback was all to an exceptional standard. I would highly recommend the service and it would be my first choice if we needed advice.”

– Head of Primary School, East Northants

“Mandy has been a rock to supporting my daughter, also myself, and my son.  The work Mandy does is unbelievable and her support to us is exceptional.  Hope other families have the privilege of receiving Mandy’s support too.”

– Parent

“Your reports are always detailed and relevant with practical advice for busy staff. You responded really quickly in our ‘hour of need’ and we received your very professional report lightning fast! You have always been great to work with on a personal level and staff are happy to have you in the classroom.  A real asset to stressed SENCos, incredibly efficient and accommodating.”

– SENCO, Infant School, Rushden

“We were very happy with the report following your observations of [our daughter] in school and the conclusions, although inconclusive, gave us a way forward with more confidence and we are grateful for that.”

– Parent

“Very knowledgeable and able to  offer useful advice about children who are not yet supported by other services/agencies.”

– SENCo, Infant School, Rushden

“During the years that Mandy worked for the Northamptonshire Autistic Spectrum Team, we had reason to call on her many times for advice and support.  During this time, her input, experience, encouragement and advice was invaluable to pupils, parents and staff, ensuring that the needs of pupils were met successfully.  If we need support in this area, we will definitely be asking Mandy.”

– John Kidney, Headteacher, Alfred Street Junior School, Rushden

“I have found liaising with Mandy extremely helpful when working with autistic students.  She has a no nonsense, common sense attitude coupled with a caring, deep seated knowledge.  Always striving to help us to provide bespoke support for our students, Mandy often goes above and beyond with the service we might have expected from outside agencies.”

– Anna Storey, Learning Development Faculty, Rushden Community College

“Mandy has given our school a great deal of support with children on the autistic spectrum. Many teachers are facing the need to not only deal with large class sizes but also children within those classes having a wide range of needs.  Mandy has given me practical advice on how to help these children progress within the mainstream school system, which can be extremely difficult for all involved.  She attends meetings and helps to guide us on what we really need to know to help that child in everyday situations.  Teachers need training and practical solutions not hours of meetings where nothing actually gets done to support the child or their class teacher.  Mandy has been a ‘god send’ to all of us teachers trying to make a difference to the lives of our students, no matter what their individual needs may be.”

– Mercie Moore, Y6/5 teacher at Irthlingborough Junior School, Northants

“I have always been very impressed with the knowledge and expertise Mandy has continuously shown. She always had time to help others providing: whole school training, intervention programme training and consultations regarding individual children.  She knows the realities of school and classroom life, and is able to offer a wide range of concrete, do-able strategies and systems to help youngsters.  As a result staff felt that their ability to provide strategies to support children had increased dramatically and children had gained self-awareness and coping strategies.  Mandy has worked with parents, pupils and staff in providing a wide range of services, including observations, reports, feedback to families and practical strategies.”

– Ann Palmer, Retired SENCo at South End Junior School, Rushden

“Mandy was a specialist teacher for autism in Northamptonshire for 4 years during which time I was her line manager. I was always impressed with her professionalism and her passion for improving the lives of children and young people on the autistic spectrum. During the 4 years Mandy’s work was consistently evaluated to be of a very high standard and she readily gained the trust of those with whom she worked. Mandy is extremely knowledgeable about autism and her past experiences enable her to empathise with staff and parents alike. She listens to youngsters, staff and parents, observes situations and uses her clear powers of analysis, explaining issues and putting forward excellent do-able suggestions which have real positive impact.”

– Stephanie Ince, Retired Specialist Teacher and former Autistic Spectrum Team Leader, Northamptonshire County Council

“While Mandy was employed by Northamptonshire County Council as a specialist teacher for children/young people with Autistic Spectrum Conditions, I worked collaboratively with her and consulted her on several occasions.  Mandy worked very hard at all times and paid careful attention to detail. She was always keen to take into account information from parents/carers, professionals and from the child/young person as far as possible before offering advice or contributing to plans to support the child/ young person at school or in other settings. Mandy was keen to be involved in monitoring and review of progress and to re-visit her recommendations in the light of further developments in any particular situation.  Where required, Mandy delivered well researched training packages or worked with other people to do this. She organised her case load effectively and accessed activities which would contribute to her continuing professional development.  At all times, Mandy took care to focus, and to help other people to focus, on developing a shared understanding of the best interests of the child or young person.”

– Maureen Liepins, MA (Hons) PGCE MEd (Ed.Psych.) DEdPsy AFBPsS, Educational Psychologist; Educational Psychology Services, Learning Skills & Education, Northamptonshire County Council

“In my experience of working in a multi-professional team with Mandy for over 4 years, she brings many qualities to her role in working with schools, families and children who are on the autistic spectrum.  Mandy is highly attuned to the needs of children who have autistic spectrum needs and helps others to see things from their point of view – drawing on years of experience and knowledge of autism and child development.  With all, Mandy is clear in her communication – linking her detailed and astute observations of each child to likely reasons and causes and then to a combination of highly practical proactive approaches and strategies  to use, as well as reactive ones, when needed.  She records these in a highly accessible way to use as an on-going resource for helping to think through what is needed.  In training others in the needs of children with ASD she is able to bring her deep and broad knowledge to life in helping others to understand ASD and how best to help children directly and to help others to help children, by capacity-building, as demonstrated in her training of teachers, support staff and parent support workers as part of the Northamptonshire Targeted Mental Health in Schools Project.”

– Mike Simons, Specialist Senior Educational Psychologist, Targeted Mental Health in Schools Programme Lead; Educational Psychology Services, Learning Skills & Education, Northamptonshire County Council