Website photo of Sharon

 

Dr Sharon Girdham

 

 

I am a Chartered Educational Psychologist with a wide range of experience working in Local Authority Educational Psychology Services across the East Midlands.

I have a Doctorate of Applied Educational Psychology from the University of Nottingham. Prior to training as an Educational Psychologist, I spent 14 years working as a teacher and senior leader across the Primary phase both in the UK and abroad.

I am a Chartered Member of the British Psychological Society and a registered member of the Health and Care Professions Council.

I offer a range of assessment, intervention, advice and consultation to support children, young people, their families and schools. During recent months, this has included:

  • Using motivational interviewing with secondary aged pupils experiencing emotional based school refusal in order to support their attendance at school.

  • Supporting language and communication development for Early Years children.

  • Using the principles of dynamic assessment to promote children’s learning and progress, through training and coaching with school staff.

  • Supporting a school to develop their behaviour policy based on inclusion and relational approaches.

I am experienced in working with schools and families to understand children’s strengths and needs in their social communication and interaction development. This includes contributing to multi-agency discussions as part of the Leicester City, Leicestershire and Rutland ASD pathway.

I have knowledge and skills in a range of qualitative and quantitative research methods which I have used to support schools in identifying and meeting their strategic development needs.  

I have experience of creating and delivering a wide range of training packages for educational settings.  Training I have recently delivered includes:

  • Precision Teaching and Direct Instruction.

  • Brief Functional Assessment and Multi Element Plan (to support in understanding and supporting challenging behaviour in school).

  • Emotion Coaching.

  • ELSA (Emotional Literacy Support Assistant training).

I also support in the delivery of doctoral training activities for Trainee Educational Psychologists at the University of Nottingham.