Diane is a qualified teacher with a postgraduate qualification in early years and a National Professional Qualification in Integrated Centre Leadership (NPQICL).

She has extensive teaching experience in primary schools, including foundation stage and key stages 1 and 2. For several years she worked as part of a leadership team in Children’s Centres and childcare settings, providing information, advice, support and guidance to a range of multi-agency professionals which included the delivery of training to meet identified needs.

She is currently the team lead for ILAS whose focus is to work with pupils, families and class teachers and other school staff to ensure that pupils become functionally self-sufficient in speaking, listening, reading, and writing English, removing barriers to accessing the wider curriculum.

She is passionate about improving outcomes for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and English as an additional language (EAL) and their families. She offers high quality training in strategies supporting EAL learners, is a SCITT lecturer and convenor of the North East Regional Interest Group.