Tuffkid Team
Mrs Janice
Head of Tuffkid Nursery
Janice Marriott is NNEB qualified and a Hearing Therapist. Janice has gained her MA in Integrated Provision for Children and Families with Early Years at Pen Green Research Centre. Janice has worked in the NHS and private sectors as a hearing therapist and in nursery schools for over 25 years, involved with both mainstream and special needs children. Janice was the first Head of TuffKid 20 years ago and is the Tuffkid SENCO.
Mrs Barbara
Deputy Head
Barbara has her NVQ3 and an MA in Integrated Working with children and Their Families in the Early Years from the Pen Green Research Centre. She has over 20 years’ experience in nursery education and been part of the Tuffkid team for 11 years.
Mrs Aidy
Assistant Deputy Head
Aidy has 10 years experience in the Education sector and has worked with special needs children for 5 years. Aidy has a Level 4 Early Years qualification and is completing the Early Years Foundation Degree at Pen Green Research Centre.
Mrs Brenda
Key Worker
Brenda has a Cache Level 3, a diploma in early childhood and over 15 years of experience in childcare. She has been part of our team for 5 years.
Mrs Laura
Key Worker
Laura has a degree in Theatre Design and is currently working towards NVQ3 in Childcare. Laura is a qualified Yoga Instructor.
Miss Leah
Key Worker
Leah is currently working towards her NVQ3 in Childcare.
Mrs Laura
Key Worker
Laura has a degree in 3D Design and has an NVQ3 in Childcare.
She has been part of our team for 5 years.
Miss Rositsa
Nursery Nurse
Rositsa has an NVQ3 in Childcare.
Mrs Harvinder
Nursery Administrator
Harvinder has 14 years administration experience and is also a professional baker and cake decorator.
Tuffkid Therapists
Britt Burstein trained as an Occupational Therapist in South Africa and, in 2006, Britt obtained her Master’s in Occupational Therapy. Britt has worked both independently and in the NHS. As an Occupational Therapist, she assesses the underlying fine motor, gross motor, sensory and perceptual issues that are causing a child to underperform in the three main areas – self-care, school, and play.
Karen Shnaier-Duchen trained as a Physiotherapist at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg South Africa. On graduating, Karen worked in the Johannesburg Hospital specialising in Paediatrics. Karen has also worked in Sydney, Australia in a centre for children. On her return to London, she worked at Great Ormond Street Hospital for children where she acted as the Head of the Physiotherapy Department. Karen now works both independently and as a Physiotherapist for Sally Wright Associates.
Deborah Dietch is our Speech and Language Therapist and has over 15 years of experience after graduating from the University of Manchester. She has been working in Barnet with primary school aged children since 2001 and before that spent some time in various settings in Jerusalem, including the Sulam School for special needs and the Malhiv Therapy centre. Deborah is a Highly specialised SALT in both Dyspraxia and Autistic Spectrum Disorder. Deborah is a member of many professional affiliations including the RCSLT and HCPC. She now works as an Independent Paediatric Speech and Language Therapist running her own practice specialising in Verbal Dyspraxia.
Talya Ganz is a Dance Movement Psychotherapist who has been working with children with special needs for over 8 years since graduating from Goldsmiths University in 2009. Through movement and creative play, Talya helps children to connect to their physical, emotional and social selves.
Professional Partnerships
We work closely with several professionals who share their knowledge and tips based on experience gained in the industry over many years.
Dr Nina Robinson is a Senior Practitioner Educational Psychologist who has been working in Barnet for many years. She holds an undergraduate degree in psychology and physiology and a doctorate in child and educational psychology and is a qualified primary teacher. Nina has a passion for early intervention through supporting staff and working with children in the Early Years Foundation Stage. She runs training sessions on emotional wellbeing and other topics.
At our parents’ evening sessions Nina talks about how to understand our children’s emotions, showing us strategies to support our children to develop resilience. We have used her techniques in the nursery over several years. They are extremely helpful in managing behaviour and allowing the children’s emotional intelligence to flourish.
Dr Stella Louis is a freelance Early Years consultant working with parents, nurseries, local authorities, government departments and charities. She provides training and consultancy and is particularly interested in observation and how it supports learning, development, and teaching.Currently Stella leads a small team of Froebelian travelling tutors in promoting, developing, and delivering the short Froebel Trust courses in England. She is co-author of Understanding Schemas in Young Children (2012) and Observing Young Children (2014) and has published articles in Nursery World, Early Years Educators and Early Education.
She has worked in the UK and in South Africa to develop a Froebelian approach to teaching and learning. Stella has been the lead trainer in a project led by Professor Tina Bruce in Kliptown, South Africa. Since 2017, in a project funded by the Froebel Trust, Stella has been using learnings from her work in Soweto, developed with PRAESA (University of the Western Cape).
Kate Hesketh qualified as an Occupational Therapist in 1995 from Brunel University. She has spent the last 25 years working as a children’s Occupational Therapist. Kate has a wide range of experience from working with premature babies to teenagers, and from preventative interventions (such as Sure Start) through to complex care. She currently works across schools and educational services and runs a small local private practice.
In 2009 she set up a project with Barnet Pre-school Inclusion Team which provided hands on mentoring in Nurseries and Pre-schools aimed at supporting staff to get children physically ready for the demands of schooling. This was in response to the increasing numbers of children entering the educational system without physical and sensory foundation skills, which were impacting on their ability to access learning. Kate has been working with TuffKid since 2015, and provides sessions on Getting Ready for Writing, specially designed and developed to help the children.
