Three new trustees join the Froebel Trust

We are delighted to welcome three new trustees who join the Froebel Trust Council this year and bring a wealth of expertise in Early Years research and practice.

Fufy joins us from Sheffield Hallam University where she is a senior lecturer in the Sheffield Institute of Education. She began her career in higher education after 10 years of teaching in Foundation Stage settings. She currently coordinates the CPD network and the student placement programme for the Early Years Community and Research Centre (EYCRC) at the Meadows Nursery, Sheffield.

Fufy teaches on the BA and PGCE early years courses at Sheffield Hallam University and supervises doctoral candidates. Her own research focuses on understanding the role of dialogic pedagogies in professional learning in the early years and beyond. Recent projects include an Erasmus project on Global Citizenship and Mathematics education and a classroom intervention to promote metacognition in early childhood settings.

Kate is a Reader in Education at Brunel University. Her research focuses on education policy, identity, inequalities in relation to early years, further and higher education.

In 2018 she completed a project, funded by the Froebel Trust, with Dr Sue Smedley, exploring the possibilities to protect and extend Froebelian practice through policy interventions, with a particular emphasis on the education and training received by a sample of 33 early years educators.

Her recent funded project with Professor Alice Bradbury examined the role of nursery schools in reducing the impact of socio-economic disadvantage in the early years sector. She has published on inequalities in Early Childhood Education & Care, with a focus on the role of policy in exacerbating these. She regularly reviews for early years journals.

Paula is an active Froebel Trust Endorsed Travelling Tutor who has an MA in Early Years Education from Roehampton University.

With Froebelian principles at the heart of her pedagogy, Paula is on the Senior Leadership team of Tops Day Nursery Group with Early Years settings throughout Dorset, Hampshire, Wiltshire, Somerset and Devon.

Her previous roles have included being Group Manager of Yellow Dot Nurseries, a high quality Early Years Group in Hampshire, and leading and coaching Outstanding practice as a member of the Hampshire Advisory team.