I entered teaching 25 years ago to make a difference and do the right thing. In 2025, I stepped away from a system that had lost confidence in its own judgement — mistaking safety for progress, and caution for care.

I’ve experienced the education system from multiple positions: first as a child with untreated ADHD, later as a teacher and school leader in the UK and internationally — and now as a parent to two neurodivergent children, including a daughter for whom school became impossible to face for almost a year.

As a school leader, I chose to speak publicly about my ADHD. I did so because I’ve seen how easily difference is misunderstood when debate is driven by headlines and soundbites rather than lived reality.

I also know what it feels like to be a parent sitting on the other side of the table — feeling lost, frustrated, and unsure what to do for the best, while worrying about what your child is learning about themselves along the way.

Over more than 25 years in education, I’ve seen and lived how the same child or adult can thrive in one setting and struggle in another, not because of ability or effort, but because of how environments respond to difference.

Children don’t experience systems as policies or frameworks. They experience them as classrooms, relationships and daily interactions. When support comes late, or the environment doesn’t fit, they don’t interpret that as complexity — they interpret it as not belonging.

Today, I work with individuals, families, educators, school leaders and organisations to bring clarity where there is confusion, strengthen conditions where people are struggling, and create environments in which children, families and professionals truly belong and thrive.