Call: 0800 368 7694 (UK) +44 203 286 6824 (international)
Email: consultants@goodschoolsguide.co.uk
The Good Schools Guide Education Consultants team is made up of our most experienced writers around the country. All our consultants have visited many schools and all have specialisms in eg boarding, the IB and special educational needs. All are parents, many are teachers or other experts in education. The team is managed by our senior administrator, Shari Lord and her assistants, Amanda Perkins and Kathryn Berger who will be your first contact. They will take your details and a brief summary of how you would like us to help you. Shari will then consult with the directors of the service, Susan Hamlyn and Bernadette John, to decide which member of the team will be best able to help you.
You will find brief introductions to the team below. You will also find links to articles that have been written by members of the consultancy team. Asterisks by consultants’ names mean that they are part of our SEN team.
Grace Moody-Stuart - director
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Bernadette John - director
Her younger sons have been educated in a mix of state primary and independent prep schools, and at three of Kent's grammar schools. She advises parents seeking admission to grammar schools, and helps parents with appeals to grammars and other secondaries. She is also an advisor for mainstream independent and state schools across the home counties. Bernadette began her career in journalism and was an award winning magazine editor. She continues to write freelance articles on education and travel. ”I love a big research project,” she says, “and enjoy using all the journalistic wiles to get the information you need. And I know at first hand the anguish parents suffer in trying to get the right school for their child. It’s out there somewhere and I’ll enjoy helping you find it.” |
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Susan Hamlyn - director
Formerly head of English and drama at a London independent school, Susan has been teaching English to children and adults for more than 40 years in schools, colleges and one-to-one. She has been a GCSE and A level English examiner. Susan is the writer of numerous books on English at the 11+ level, including the best-selling 11+ English Revision Guide, published by Galore Park. She has written many other books, stories and poems for children and writes regular journalism for national press on educational matters. Susan is a regular contributor to The Daily Telegraph's educational "Ask the Expert" feature and is the education Agony Aunt for Angels and Urchins magazine. Susan lives in West London and has two grown-up children. She has visited more than 150 schools for The Guide and has advised many hundreds of families. She has particular interests in girls’ schools, London schools and boarding schools. Her principal aim is to help ensure that children enjoy their childhood and their school years. “Happy children learn,” she says. |
Shari Lord – senior administrator
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Amanda Perkins – assistant administrator
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Kathryn Berger – assistant administratorKathryn has worked for The Good Schools Guide since 2010, helping on the Great Annual Edit which takes place each autumn. In 2015, she joined Shari and Amanda as an administrator for The Good Schools Guide Education Consultants. Kathryn has four children, two in primary education and two in independent secondary schools in Cornwall. She previously worked in the research sector at JP Morgan and Accenture in London and Reuters in Devon. Kathryn has a commerce degree and an MSc in Information Science. After moving to Cornwall she has worked as a school librarian. She is married to a teacher. |
The Consultants
Susan BailesSusan taught English at secondary and preparatory schools for over thirty years. Until 2012, she was head of a successful non-selective, coeducational, independent preparatory school in Surrey. Susan began her career at St Catherine’s School, Bramley and, later, Guildford High. Both her sons went through the independent system and Susan became excited by the possibility of working in the preparatory sector after touring schools as a prospective parent. She has considerable experience of London day schools having been Deputy Head at Falkner House and senior teacher and Head of English at Durston House School for boys. She was Deputy Head and Head of English at Bute House, helping to prepare pupils and advise parents on the bewildering choices available to them. An experienced ISI inspector, Susan has also undertaken an MA in children’s literature and has also been a GCSE examiner. She joined The Good Schools Guide Education Consultants team in 2012 as a prep school specialist and greatly enjoys visiting schools. “I am delighted to join The Good Schools Guide team” she says, “and I hope to make use of my diverse experience whilst encouraging and supporting parental choices so that the young are happy and fulfilled in the future. It is so important that we develop and nurture talents and abilities of boys and girls in both day and boarding schools, single sex and coeducational and ensure that each individual is matched to the right school.” |
Janita Clamp
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Elizabeth CoatmanElizabeth lives in Sheffield and has taught English, mainly in independent schools and Further Education colleges, in various parts of the country, for over thirty years. Her children (one girl, one boy) attended a state primary, followed by either a comprehensive or independent school, so she has an interest in and experience of both sectors. Elizabeth says, “I am a self confessed edu-geek and have found visiting a wide range of schools for The Good Schools Guide, for ten years now, fascinating and at times inspiring. My favourite part is talking to the pupils, always a delight. They have a much more lively time than I did, at a rather monochrome girls’ school in North London – I feel quite envious at times!” Elizabeth has advised a substantial number of parents looking for state schools all over England, with a particular focus on London and the Home Counties. She has helped families – both with choosing the best schools and with negotiating the seemingly infinite variety of admissions policies. |
Sarah Drummond
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Sarah EvansFormer head of a leading independent school in Birmingham and before that, head of a co-educational boarding school in Saffron Walden, Sarah Evans has chaired a number of national education committees including establishing as an independent company and chairing the Independent Schools’ Teacher Induction Panel. She now chairs the National Induction Panel for Teachers in Academies and Free Schools and works as an educational consultant advising governing bodies on senior leadership appointments and leadership training. A Governor of four state and independent schools, Sarah is also a trustee for two Charities involved in social enterprise. She has advised her own family and friends extensively on educational matters! Sarah has been awarded the Tatler Award for Best Headmistress of a Public School, an IoD Midlands Leadership Award and an OBE for Services to Education in the January 2014 Honours List. Sarah is a welcome and highly experienced member of The Good Schools Guide Education Consultants team and can advise parents on all matters to do with their children's education. |
Sue FieldmanSue Fieldman has been with The Good Schools Guide for fourteen years and is one of our most experienced consultants. She has first hand experience of the crucial importance of school choice – her daughter has been through the British education system from age 3 -18 and is now at university. Sue says she enjoys every minute of her work advising parents about schools. “There is nothing more satisfying than hearing from parents that their children are happy in their new schools – it makes all the hard work worthwhile.” Sue is used to helping people in various aspects of their life. Prior to working for the Guide, she was a national newspaper consumer journalist specialising in readers’ financial problems. She is also a fully qualified solicitor. |
Lisa Freedman
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Judith French
As well as writing for The Good Schools Guide, she is a commissioned playwright for BBC Radio, where her Sony-nominated work has won consistent popular and critical acclaim; she also regularly wrote and presented “Something Understood”, the BBC’s contemplative arts-strand for insomniacs. She is married with two sons, and lives in south east London. She says, “Putting together my teaching, my acting, and my work for The Good Schools Guide, I’ve been inside more schools and met more teachers than almost anyone I know, outside The Good Schools Guide experts, of course! I know how they tick, and I love using my experience to help parents make the right choice for their child.” |
Anne HadleyAnne Hadley has broad experience of education in the UK, having visited and reviewed schools in the south of England for The Good Schools Guide since 2012. She was a governor of a primary school and has two children currently being educated in the independent sector. She and her family relocated to the south of England three years ago so is well placed to understand the anxiety parents can feel in identifying the right school for their children in an unfamiliar area. Anne was an employment lawyer for seven years, advising clients on their employment rights at often very stressful moments in their working lives. Finding the right solution for each particular client was crucial and she enjoys using these practical skills to help parents find the right school for their child. |
Sophie Irwin*
Sophie tells us, “My varied career has given me much experience and insight into today’s educational options and issues across all age ranges and abilities. I live in South London with my husband, two daughters and a dachshund. I enjoy the variety and flexibility of being part of The Good Schools Guide writing and consultancy team.” |
Mary LangfordMary Langford is a US/UK dual national who first moved abroad at the age of two. She attended eight schools on three continents, studying in French, English and Spanish. She attended the College of William and Mary (Virginia, USA) and the University of Texas graduating with a BA in Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies, and later an MA in International Education at the University of Bath. She has recently started her Doctorate in Education at Bath. She has been a school head, principal, teacher and admissions and communications director at boarding and day schools in England, Switzerland, Greece, France and Spain offering IB, US, English, Spanish and Saudi Arabian curricula. For four years she was Deputy Executive Director of the European Council of International Schools (ECIS) where her responsibilities including managing 32 professional committees and ECIS certificate programmes for governors and trustees, senior leaders, and teachers.. She has served on 16 international school accreditations teams under the auspices of the Council of International Schools, the International Baccalaureate Organisation, and two US accrediting agencies, predominantly the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, and has visited over 90 international schools in the Far East, Middle East, Southeast Asia, North Africa, Europe, and North, Central and South America. She manages a language consultancy of over 40 supporting over 100 students who are studying their mother tongue languages in over 30 International Baccalaureate Schools worldwide. She is also a Visiting Lecturer on International Education at a Danish University. Mary has written, spoken and led workshops and training programmes on international schools, international education, and the impact of international mobility on families and children, and has served as a consultant for The Good Schools Guide International since 2007. |
Ralph Lucas
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Patrea More NisbettPatrea, who was educated at Cranborne Chase and the Sorbonne, is now Consultant Emeritus. She was one of the three founders of The Good Schools Guide and remains a source of huge experience and expertise. |
Beth Noakes
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Charlotte Obolensky
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Mary Pegler*
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Charlotte PhillipsCharlotte Phillips is an Oxford graduate and a former teacher (she was a music specialist at a South West London prep school for a decade), parent and consultant. She has also written on education and family life for The Telegraph, Times and Guardian, among others. Her three children, one with SEN, have taken very different educational paths, attending 12 different schools between them with one child home educated through GCSEs. All have ended up doing well. The only thing that matters, she says, is whether a school is right for a particular child, something that glowing exam results and fabulous facilities won’t necessarily tell you. As a veteran of some wonderful moments but some dreadful ones too, she enjoys putting her experience and knowledge at the service of other parents for whom finding the right education is not always straightforward. “Getting the right school for the right child is endlessly satisfying,” she says. |
Catriona Prest
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Melanie SandersonSince joining The Good Schools Guide in 2013, there is hardly a corner of outer London and the home counties that Melanie has not visited, notepad in hand. She has prolifically reviewed prep, grammar, state and independent day and boarding schools across the area and is well connected with head teachers, registrars and local parents – crucial for an inside scoop (and the occasional last minute interview or entrance exam). A former PR agency director, Melanie relishes putting her consultancy skills to good use to respond to families’ individual briefs, helping them achieve clarity in what can be a bewildering process. Mum to two school-age sons, she has experienced first hand the perils and pitfalls of state school applications, prep school admissions, the 11+, the moveable feast of grammar school catchments, pre-tests and, with Common Entrance on the horizon, is well positioned to empathise with and guide her clients. An advisor since 2014, Melanie has worked with families tackling international and UK relocations, education planning, troubleshooting and, sometimes, simply providing a calm sounding board. |
Mary-Ann Smillie*Mary-Ann Smillie is a teacher with a Master in Literacy Learning and Literacy Difficulties from the Institute of Education, London and so has particular understanding of special educational needs. She has reviewed schools for The Good Schools Guide in the UK and abroad and, through The Good Schools Guide Education Consultants, helped many parents find schools that best suited their children. Her own three children attended both state schools and independent schools, in London, France and Italy and Mary-Ann now has responsibility for international schools and international education. But education doesn’t end there, she says, because ‘university applications can be just as complicated as finding the right school – in our family one child went to a Scottish university, one an English university and one went to the U.S.A’. Mary-Ann is our consultant with special responsibility for children who are recognised as Gifted and Talented. |
Rosemary Taylor
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Emma Vickers*Emma has an MA in history, a PGCE and a diploma in Specific Learning Difficulties. Having worked as a teacher for over twenty years, both as a class teacher and as a learning support teacher on a 1:1 basis, she has a wealth of experience of working in education. Emma has also taught English as a Foreign Language in Singapore to 16-18 year olds. Emma has a particular interest in dyslexia and dyspraxia and has been a governor of a special school in London. She joined The Good Schools Guide in 2012 and has visited and reviewed both mainstream and special schools, primary and secondary. Having prepared numerous pupils over the years for entrance exams to senior schools, she is aware of the pressures on them, particularly in London. Emma says, ‘There is nothing more satisfying than knowing that a child is heading for the right school for them.’ She lives in London and has three children of her own. |
Sally WalkerSally Walker has been the Geneva/Lausanne editor of The Good Schools GuideThe Good Schools Guide International since its birth in 2006. Before Switzerland, she lived in Asia and the Far East and is a long term expat (over 25 years) so brings exceptional experience of that way of life to The Good Schools Guide Education Consultants. Sally worked on regional and national newspapers as well as a variety of magazines when in the UK. In Asia she worked for Dow Jones and Newsweek and, in the Middle East, for Time Magazine and Forbes. Sally was a governor at the Geneva English School. She has a thorough knowledge of the International Baccalaureate Organisation’s four programs: PYP, MYP, Diploma and the new IBCC and she has close ties to the IBO, which is based in Geneva. She has provided an advisory service to many expatriates moving to Geneva and so understands the special needs of expatriate children. Sally has two children of her own who are currently studying at Oxford University, having gained the IB Diploma. She is passionate about the importance of a good education for all children. In her spare time, she’s a Cambridge University qualified English as a Foreign Language teacher. |
Janette WallisJanette Wallis is a senior editor of The Good Schools Guide and advises parents around the world on UK school choice. She writes regularly about schools and education and is frequently quoted in the national press on education issues. She has 12 years experience with The Good Schools Guide Education Consultants helping families find the very best schools for their children. Janette previously wrote for The Economist and The Financial Times, held the education brief for the Diplomatic Service Families Association and has been a school governor. She has four children of her own. |
And more…
In addition, we have a School Appeals Expert, Experts in University Applications in the USA and Europe and a team of Special Needs Experts. We can also offer a listening ear and expert, non-judgemental advice on any aspect of bringing up children if it is not easy to talk to friends and family.
Call: 0800 368 7694 (UK) +44 203 286 6824 (international)
Email: consultants@goodschoolsguide.co.uk