Victoria Carlton

Victoria Carlton has 30 years of teaching experience at all levels, from pre-primary to the tertiary entrance examination, specialising in remedial education, teaching dyslexic children, education programmes for gifted and talented children and language and literacy acquisition.
Victoria has taught in government and non-government institutions in Western Australia and over the last 15 years has conducted many in-service courses for teachers and parents in Western Australia and other Australian States, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Macao and India. Victoria is often a guest speaker at national and international education conferences. She presents many papers on improving standards in education, and her own research and methodology for ensuring full educational development for students.

Courses developed and delivered by Victoria include THE ACADEMIC STIMULATION PROGRAMME and a motivation course for teachers called REFOCUS.

Victoria was part of the ELIC program in W.A. (EARLY LITERACY INSERVICE PROGRAM) and worked with a small team to develop SCIFL- (SUCCESS IN THE CLASSROOM FOR FURTHER LITERACY). She is a FIRST STEPS presenter and has successfully used FIRST STEPS strategies at her teaching centres for many years.

She has also developed a specific course to help teachers identify and re-mediate children with learning difficulties within the classroom. Recently she has developed courses for teachers and parents of gifted and talented children.

She is currently giving courses on MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES and EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE to teachers in South East Asia and Australia and is developing a new test to help teachers determine children's talents and preferred learning styles.

Victoria recognises the need for quality teaching materials and fully endorses the JOLLY PHONICS and JOLLLY GRAMMAR approaches to early literacy. This method is used throughout her clinics and in her overseas work. For the past 9 years, Victoria has been running professional development courses for teachers in order to teach them how to use this effective literacy program. All parents of young children who attend her clinic are also taken through a JOLLY PHONICS training program in order to help them support their children's learning. Victoria visits the writers and publisher of the program in England annually and is able to examine research on the effect of the program in other countries.

Victoria has now been featured three times on the current affairs program TODAY TONIGHT. The first occasion was about the need for parents to read to their children, the second was about Jolly Phonics, as this program has caused such a large degree of acceleration of literacy skills. The last time Victoria was on this program concerned the successful EQ4KIDZ program which was running in Eleenbrook Primary School.

More recently Victoria appeared on the ABC Stateline program and was interviewed on the question of Was Tuition Necessary?

Victoria has organised an International Conference in Phuket for teachers from Australia and South East Asia to come together to discuss learning difficulties and best practices to overcome them. She is currently planning another conference entitled GIVE THEM WINGS to be held in in the near future. This conference will address the issues and practices involved in ensuring that all children in schools are enabled to reach their full academic potential. She writes articles about current issues in education for educational journals and local and overseas papers.

Victoria is a past-president of the Guildford On Swan Business and Professional Women Club, a former member of the Equal Opportunity Consultative Council, Primary English Teachers Association, Special Education Teachers Association, Gifted and Talented Children's Association, Midland Chamber Of Commerce and the Australian Institute of Management.

Victoria recently written a new book titled "Ages and Stages" which will be published in March 2007. This follows on from the book she co-authored entitled WHAT DO I TEACH? which is now out of print. This earlier text was to help teachers and parents make sense of the new Curriculum Frameworks in Western Australia and ensure that basic teaching concepts are not missed. She has been also working on a book called THE TEARS OF DISCONSOLATE ANGELS- A FRESH LOOK AT LEARNING DIFFICULTIES. Her book EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE IN THE CLASSROOM will be released as soon as she can get around to finishing it and will be the text for her popular course -TEACHING EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE.

Recently Victoria has written a new THINKING SKILLS course for children which combines the techniques of Edward de Bono, Howard Gardner, Daniel Goleman and many other researchers into brain compatible learning. This course has been operating for 6 months and was officially launched in November 2002 in Western Australia.

She is passionate about the need for transforming schools into institutions where all children are challenged, motivated and encouraged to develop their full academic potential.

Victoria is now offering professional development courses for corporations to increase Emotional Intelligence and ensure companies and institutions are operating at maximum levels of productivity and have work environments that foster nurturing, positive relationships with staff and clients. She has recently delivered a course to AUSTRALIA POST.

She has written a new business seminar NOT SO SECRET WOMEN'S BUSINESS! This seminar will be offered to women in Australia and Singapore and will help women to be successful in their chosen businesses while maintaining healthy and happy relationships with family, friends and themselves! The course includes TIME MANAGEMENT, THE FEMININE WAY TO BUSINESS SUCCESS, RELATIONSHIPS AND NETWORKING, SETTING GOALS AND WRITING A BUSINESS PLAN and much, much more! This course was launched at the W.A. Business and Professional Women's State conference in 2001.

In June 2002, THE INTERNATIONAL CENTRE FOR EXCELLENCE received the prestigious GOLD BARTERCARD AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN BUSINESS AND INDUSTRY.

Victoria travels to Singapore to conduct assessments, develop INDIVIDUAL EDUCATION PLANS for children and to deliver workshops and courses. Her work in Singapore has included the following-

Workshop for SINGAPORE INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT on REFOCUS
Workshops for NTUC on REFOCUS and ACADEMIC STIMULATION PROGRAM
Guest speaker at various early childhood organisations
Workshops for parents in the academic stimulation area- held in early childhood centres and Singapore University.
Workshops on Jolly Phonics for Chartsworth International School and Pan Asia publishing co.
Course for parents on IMPROVING ACADEMIC DEVELOPMENT for OASIS LEARNING CENTRE.
Presentation for YBPW group on EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE.
Her regular trips to Singapore includes workshops for parents about enhancing learning and thinking skills, EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE workshop and presentations for JOLLY PHONICS.

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Jackie Silberg

Jackie Silberg (also known as "Miss Jackie" from her television years) is a highly sought after workshop-seminar leader, motivational speaker, and performer. With degrees in Education and Child Development along with graduate work in Piano and Composition, she can entertain and inform with equal ease.

Jackie has worked with thousands of teachers, parents and children presenting keynote addresses, workshops and seminars and family concerts. She appears throughout the US, Canada, Australia, Singapore, and Germany as a speaker, concert artist and talk show guest including appearances on National Public Radio's "Parent's Journal" and "All Things Considered." Activities from her books appear regularly in parenting and early childhood magazines, college texts and journals.

Jackie’s books and music have been quoted and reviewed in Better Homes and Gardens, Parents Magazine, Ann Arbor Family, Kansas City Star, Ed Play, Island Family, Wisconsin Book Watch, Birmingham Family Times, San Diego Family, Sacramento Sierra, Parent Magazine, Parent Council, Texas Child Care, Kansas City Parent, Parenting, Learning Magazine, Parents Express, and more.

Jackie does consulting work for the Discovery Channel and has helped in setting up a music section at their website. She also edits scripts for the Blue’s Clues people at MTV.

The country of Singapore has embraced Jackie and invites her there regularly to be a keynote speaker, workshop leader for parents and teachers and concert performer for families. She was also commissioned to write a National Singapore Day song for children.

Jackie Silberg has been an adjunct instructor at Emporia State University where she received her Master of Science Degree in Child Development. In 1996 she received the Distinguished Alumna Award for outstanding work in Education. She currently guest lectures at colleges and universities throughout the US. Jackie has been a member of “All Experts” on the Internet for several years and answers questions regarding Early Childhood.

Her books have been published in Australia, Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, China, Denmark, Estonia,,Finland, Germany, Greece, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy,Korea, Latin America, Lithuania, Malaysia, New Guinea, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Netherlands, Pakistan, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Serbia, Spain, Sri lanka, Sweden, Taiwan,Turkey, United kingdom and Yugoslavia.

As a songwriter "Miss Jackie" knows how to create music especially for kids, with catchy, easy to learn tunes that are appropriate for young children. Her songs appear in Music, Language, and Social Studies texts and Early Childhood publications. Many recording artists, including herself, have recorded her songs. Notable appearances include her invitation to sing at the US Capitol steps at the annual meeting of NAEYC, regular interviews on National Public Radio, and her appearance with Captain Kangaroo. She has also starred in two children's television series..."Tree House Lane" and "Just Kids."

Jackie Silberg is a member of BMI.

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Noreen Boyle

Noreen has been working in London Schools and Nurseries for the last 20 years. She was the head of The London Borough of Merton for 13 years which is a home teaching service for children with special needs to facilitate inclusion of special needs children into mainstream settings in both the local authority and independent sector. She has done this through a combination of training sessions for teachers and learning support assistants, and supporting individual programmes in nurseries and schools. She is a highly skilled trainer and practitioner, delivering training to all the more common strategies such as PECs, TEACCH, Signing and other methods of visual support, writing individual education plans and teaching how to use task analysis to ensure that the building blocks for learning are in place for children with extra learning needs. She has extensive experience in taking children, families and practitioners through the statutory assessment process, and ensures issues are followed through to a successful conclusion.

Noreen has co-authored books and booklets on Including Children with Special Needs and Including Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. She has also designed specific courses on behaviour and social interaction groups which benefit all children, not just children with special needs.

From Noreen herself,

"I have worked in Health for 20 years and I have worked in Education for 20 years

During my time in health I worked with a large number of children who were both ill and/or had learning difficulties and I made it my mission to ensure some strong connection with them, their families and how the children could make the best use of any learning experiences.

I was Head of Merton Portage Service for 15 years and during that time, worked with approximately 600 children and families.

The children I have worked with have had a range of difficulties including:

• Down Syndrome and other chromosomal anomalies
• Dyslexia
• Autistic Spectrum Disorder
• Cerebral Palsy
• Hydrocephalus
• Global Developmental Delay
• Speech and Language Delay
• Behaviour difficulties

During the last 5 years, I have mainly been working with mainstream nurseries and reception classes to help them include children with a range of difficulties and training early years practitioners in a range of courses to help meet these children’s needs.

I have also co-run 5 EarlyBird Courses for families of children with Autistic Spectrum Disorder

I can offer training in Early Years Foundation Stage, including Observation, Assessment and Planning (from UK); Behaviour Planning; Working with children with a range of difficulties such as ASD, Global Developmental Delay (Moderate Learning Difficulties); Social Interaction Groups; 'BrainGym'and Developmental Movement Play; Storytelling and Writing Individual Education Plans.
Also, I can offer, in school some small group work. This is based on research in the UK that children learn more within a small group than in a one to one with an adult. I would offer between 4 and 6 sessions of one hour for groups of up to 5 children ranging from 2 to 4 and from 4 to 6 years of age. In this group the children would be offerred a range of activities including "BrainGym", Developmental Movement Play, Listening Skills, Waiting and Turn-taking Skills, Opportunity to practice their Language Skills, Making choices, Singing and Signing, whilst having fun. I would also offer the teachers and parents a written report at the end of the series. These groups are particularly useful for children who have difficulty with any of the above in a larger group, although it is my experience that all children enjoy them as they are great confidence boosters, particularly for shy or quiet children. These are called Social Interaction Groups or Circles of Confidence".

Testimonials

During her many years in education and health Noreen has made a huge difference to many people’s lives. Below are just a few who wanted to share their experiences:

Noreen Boyle has delivered training to Merton early years practitioners including those from schools, day nurseries, childminders and professional colleagues on a wide range of topics related to children’s development from birth to 5 and the impact of that knowledge on best practice. She has received consistently high evaluations, with 98% rating her skills and knowledge as “excellent”. Comments from across senior professionals to practitioners new to the subject also rate highly her ability to draw on her extensive knowledge and experience to translate theory and research into practical steps, relevant to practitioners contexts, that they can implement in their settings.

Sue Thompson, Early Years Training and Workforce Manager
London Borough of Merton, UK

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Noreen's contribution to supporting families and their children with SEN has been outstanding over the 21 years that she has spent in Merton. She is highly skilled as a mediator and has an open, honest approach with parents, colleagues and other professionals. She always puts the needs of the children at the forefront and has an excellent understanding of children's development overall, and how to support children with a varying range of special educational needs.

Noreen is able to work extremely well with practitioners, to support and challenge their inclusive practice. She has extensive experience in taking children, families and practitioners through the statutory assessment process, and ensures issues are followed through to a successful conclusion and ensures deadlines are met.

Noreen is a highly skilled trainer, delivering training to SENCO's in a variety of areas including those around supporting positive behaviour, early motor development, social interaction, wellbeing and involvement, interactive story telling, portage, small steps to learning and delivering the SEN Code of practice. More recently she has taken a lead on safeguarding training, including child protection and the Common Assessment Framework.

Noreen sits on the supporting families panel and the SEN panel, where her vast early years experience is highly valued.

Noreen is a very valued team member and manager, and provides a positive role model for less experienced staff within the team. I have personally learnt a great deal from her in relation to supporting children with additional needs and she will be greatly missed.

Tracy Clarke, Deputy Service Manager (Quality and Standards)
Early Years, Childcare and Children’s Centres, UK

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Noreen has made a real difference to the lives of disabled children and those with Special Educational Needs and their families through her work in Merton. She has done this through direct work with a wide range of vulnerable children and their families with diverse needs in their homes and nurseries. She has trained and inspired her colleagues as well as staff in other early years settings. She has brought a high level of professional knowledge and skills and enormous energy and commitment to her work. Noreen has been generous with her knowledge and time always going the extra mile in making this difference. She has led and contributed to a range of projects and has brought a creative problem solving approach to this work.

Elaine Killerby, Principal Educational Psychologist
LB Merton, UK