Angie trained to be a teacher of the deaf at Manchester University in the 1980s. Since then she has worked in a variety of settings including two units, a college for deaf students and three peripatetic services. Children she has worked with range from babies through to young adults but if her passion lies anywhere it is with teaching Key Stage 2 children. Along the way she gained a BSL Stage 2 qualification.
1999 was an important year for Angie when she became a research fellow on the RNID’s project The Review of Good Practice in Deaf Education with the universities of Birmingham and Manchester. Working alongside Linda Watson, Steve Powers and Sue Gregory she had the privilege of exploring and describing examples of good practice around the UK with deaf children, an experience which profoundly affected her own work.
Since her early days as a teacher she has been excited by the possibilities of drama as a tool for developing many different skills and as a springboard for learning. Around 2003 she met Jacqui O’Hanlon, a drama practitioner and now the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Education Director and between them they pooled their experience and particular interest in PSE skills to research and write Using Drama to Teach Personal, Social and Emotional Skills (2007). Although applicable to children generally the original focus was the education of deaf children. Using material from this handbook, Angie has worked with teachers and trainee teachers of the deaf around the UK.
In 2014 Angie worked as a data collector on an Ear Foundation project relating to children with cochlear implants and literacy skills.
In 2017 she acted again as a data collector on a literacy project led by Brahm Norwich at the University of Exeter.
She is now working in collaboration with the Royal Shakespeare Company in a project to give deaf children better access to Shakespeare.