About the speaker

Over the past 2 decades, Dawn has been immersed in all facets of the Early Years sector. Like all of those working in this area, she is passionate about young children’s growth and development. Dawn originally trained as a Montessori teacher, and has Early Years Teacher Status, a level 3 in speech and Language development, a Postgraduate Certificate in Education and a Masters Degree from the University of Roehampton.

A key principle of Dawn’s practice is that all those working with children need a good level of understanding of knowledge and theory and an outstanding practitioner needs to be able to demonstrate this knowledge by putting it into practice. She believes that young children need a special environment in which to grow and deserve practitioners who are inspiring, dynamic, reflective and passionate about their learning.

In the last few years Dawn has been working on ways to develop playful interactions to enable strong emotional connections between adults and children. She feels very passionately that adults need to engage with children as play partners, supporting, extending and respecting their play, valuing those play choices. Dawn firmly believes in the child’s right to play and is an advocate for a play curriculum in early childhood, especially through In the Moment Planning.