Helen is School Education Lead at Swansea University’s School of Social Sciences and Programme Director for the Primary PGCE, with a background in primary and teacher education across postgraduate and undergraduate programmes.
Her research spans two areas: children’s metacognition and thinking skills (she trained at Project Zero, Harvard, and completed a fellowship with Professor Carol McGuinness at Queen’s University Belfast, with her doctorate focused on young children’s metacognitive thinking), and human-animal education, particularly school dogs’ role in supporting pupils — an area she’s published extensively in, holding certifications from the University of Denver and the International Institute of Animal Assisted Play Therapy, and currently leading an ESRC-IAA funded project on best-practice guidance for school dogs.
She peer-reviews for several academic journals, external examines at Edge Hill, UCL Institute of Education, Southampton, and Ulster, and supervises and examines postgraduate research. Helen is also a primary school Governor, a Team and Peer Inspector for Estyn, former Honorary Secretary of IPDA, and a founder member of the National School Dog Alliance, alongside sitting on the Let’s Think Forum.
