Staff profiles

Publications
Parents Integration Project toolkit – 2015
Family Skills toolkit – 2017
Council of Europe – Language support for adult refugees – 2017
New to ESOL resources – 2019
Picture This! toolkit – 2021
Literacy for Active Citizenship series of graded readers – 2021
Creative Writing and Photos series of graded readers – 2023

Experience: Sarah is an ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) project manager, teacher trainer and tutor with an extensive background in the field spanning over 15 years. Sarah’s main interest and specialism lie in photography, visual storytelling and creative writing in the ESOL classroom. In 2022 her participatory photography and ESOL project, Picture This!, run in partnership with Fotosynthesis, won the British Council ELTons award for local innovation. Other organisations Sarah has worked in partnership with, while working at Learning Unlimited, include English for Action, Victoria and Albert Museum, Council of Europe and Learning and Work to name but a few. She has contributed to the development of many educational resources, including a number of toolkits for ESOL practitioners and the Literacy for Active Citizenship and Creative Writing and Photos series of ESOL readers. Outside of work, she is a keen photographer and enjoys painting, writing and escaping to the sea whenever she can.  

Publications
Kelly, B., Devlin, M., Giffin, T. & Smith, J. (2021). Family Learning Online During Lockdown in the UK. Adults Learning Mathematics: An International Journal. 

Experience: Mary has worked in Family Learning, Children’s Services and Early Years training and consultancy for over 20 years. In that time, she established and led a children’s centre for 7 years and worked for the National Children’s Bureau as a trainer and consultant, including on a national rollout of the PEAL – Parents, Early Years and Learning – training, and Making it REAL – Raising Early Achievement in Literacy – project. She is also an artist and enjoys designing creative workshops for parents and children. Whilst at Learning Unlimited, she has delivered a range of courses and workshops for parents and carers including Best Start for Boys, Best Start for Nursery and the Teaching Assistant training programme. She also participated in the research project Family Learning Online and co-ordinated the Bags of Fun project, designing activity packs for families who were stuck at home during the Covid-19 pandemic. More recently, Mary led on our European Erasmus+ project, Money Matters.

In her spare time and particularly on Friday nights, Mary manages a very popular jazz club in Camberwell called Jazzlive at The Crypt.

Publications
Kelly, B., Devlin, M., Giffin, T. & Smith, J. (2021). Family Learning Online During Lockdown in the UK. Adults Learning Mathematics: An International Journal. 
Co-edited and written Family Learning in Prison – a complete guide

Experience: Tessa has worked in Family Learning and adult education for over 10 years. Previous work has included being the project co-ordinator and trainer for the Best Start for Families prison project. This involved developing and delivering training for parents in prison, prison staff, volunteers and museum staff as well as designing activities for Children and Family Visits. She has been a course trainer for a number of courses aimed at parents and carers. These include Helping My Child With Reading And Writing, Healthy Families, Best Start for Toddlers and the Teaching Assistant training programme.

Publications:
Kirsh, J., Akthar, A., Dudley, K., Kelly, B. & McGerty, J. (2013) Welcome to the UK project Year 3 Impact Assessment Research Report. Kirsh, J. & Dudley, K. (2014)
Active Citizenship and English project Year 1 Impact Assessment Report
Teaching ESOL Literacies Learners (2020), Language Issues Journal, Vol. 31.3 Summer 2020
Welcome to the UK materials toolkits – contributor
Preparing for Life in the UK toolkit – contributor
Integration for ESOL workshop article (2016) RaPal
Working with ESOL learners with basic literacy needs
Films for ESOL training

Experience: Judy has more than 35 years’ experience in the field of English Language Teaching, as a teacher, teacher-trainer, external examiner, consultant and materials-writer. She has worked on many international, national and regional projects such as the Active Citizenship and English project (2013-2015), the Welcome to the UK project (2012-2013), the Citizenship materials for ESOL learners, ESOL and Literacy subject specialist modules and diplomas, and the highly acclaimed Teaching Basic Literacy to ESOL learners course. Judy led on the development of ESOL CPD modules for the British Council ESOL Nexus project (2011-2014) and has undertaken consultancy work for the Education and Training Foundation and Learning and Work Institute. Most recently, she has developed, with John Sutter, the innovative online Teaching ESOL Literacy Learners (TELLs) course. Judy is interested in all areas of ESOL teacher development, with a particular focus on literacies learners. For many years she was a trustee and co-chair of NATECLA, the professional association for ESOL practitioners in the UK, and a member of the ESOL Strategy Steering Group. She currently volunteers with Herts Welcomes Refugees, supporting volunteers and partners.

Experience: Julia has worked in the community and education sectors for over 30 years, firstly as a teacher and then as an adviser and manager. She taught EFL, ESOL and adult literacy for over 12 years in the community, FE and private sectors before moving into project and operations management. She has considerable experience of managing projects of all sizes from small grants to very large national and international programmes funded by a wide range of funders and commissioners. She is an experienced staff and finance manager and project evaluator and also leads on the quality management of Learning Unlimited, which currently holds the ISO:9001 quality mark.

Publications
Bilingual Children – A Guide for Parents
Helping My Child with Reading & Writing with Shan Rees
On the Road – Journeys in Family Learning with Shan Rees and Attilah Malik

Experience: Foufou has 25 years experience of family learning developing new courses, accreditation, materials and teaching as well as being a teacher educator and consultant in family learning, Skills for Life awareness. She has worked in two inner city London boroughs to develop appropriate family learning provision, liaise with a wide range of agencies and providers, develop working partnerships and recruit learners. Foufou has 20 years project management experience including international projects in family learning, bilingualism and offender learning. For the last 15 years she has worked with the offender learning sector in various projects, developing programmes and training teachers. In addition Foufou has 5 years as teacher educator and consultant on Caribbean language issues and Caribbean literature and 6 years of teaching at secondary school level.

Experience: Marie-Josée is a literacy subject specialist with 25 years experience in the field of family learning, delivering a range of courses and developing course materials for embedding literacy into existing family learning provision. She has played a leading role in developing Learning Unlimited’s Parents as Mentors Course to develop adult’s knowledge and skills in literacy and as mentors. She also has considerable experience in Primary School Education, delivering Supporting Teaching and Learning in Schools”, at all levels. She is a qualified internal verifier.