Category: Our People

  • Reflections on the last year

    Reflections on the last year

    Every year when I sit down to write my section of our Impact Report, I reflect on what an incredible year of growth and development we have had. As this annual report reflects, we have once again seen significant growth in all areas, taking the charity in new and exciting directions.

    This year, I celebrate a decade in my role as CEO of Dingley’s Promise, and I have reflected on the huge changes within the charity and its wider impact during this period. When I became CEO, we supported children through three specialist centres in Berkshire. Today, we have ten centres
    reaching over 500 children a year, over 28,000 learners on our early years SEND inclusion training, and contribute to policy development at the highest level, advising Government officials. We are now the largest provider of specialist early years centres in the UK and are widely recognised as the voice of children with SEND in the early years and their families.

    Throughout this growth, we have worked with incredible people who believe in the power of inclusion and support our aims and mission. The children and their families, who we are honoured to be able to support at such an important time in their lives. The strong team of committed and passionate professionals we have brought together in our organisation. The local authority teams, health professionals and education professionals we work alongside to give children the best start in life. Our amazing donors and supporters who contribute financially and in kind, to make sure we can
    give the children and families everything they need. Lastly, our organisational partners, who help us to facilitate change and impact at a national scale and the decision makers who work with us to ensure children with SEND in the early years are prioritised.

    Please join me in celebrating our progress this far and in looking forward to the future and continued growth and success of Dingley’s Promise. Over the next few years, I expect to see the number of services we offer in England through centres and our family support outreach programme to grow
    considerably. I am excited to see our training gain momentum across the early years workforce and our influence lead to more national policy change, which directly benefits children with SEND and their families.

    I am so proud of everyone who has made this possible, and we will continue to champion the voice of children with SEND and their families in everything that we do.

    Catherine Mole MBE – Dingley’s Promise CEO

    You can read the full Impact Report here.

  • Dingley’s Promise welcomes interim Chair of Board Sarah Clarke

    Dingley’s Promise welcomes interim Chair of Board Sarah Clarke

    Sarah became a Trustee of Dingley’s Promise in 2023 and is proud to contribute to their mission of ensuring every child has the best start in life, while championing inclusion and supporting families to thrive.

    Sarah is a dedicated parent carer of two neurodivergent teenagers, each with very different needs and diagnoses. Her personal family journey, alongside the experiences of other families she has met along the way, has been the driving force behind her commitment to improving outcomes for children, young people, and their families.

    She first became involved with her local Parent Carer Forum in 2015, quickly stepping into the role of Chair, and later becoming Joint CEO when the forum transitioned into a charity. Sarah’s leadership has always been solution-focused, building constructive partnerships with stakeholders to drive positive change.

    In 2020, Sarah joined the National Network of Parent Carer Forums (NNPCF) as the South East Regional Director, supporting 19 Parent Carer Forums across the region. In this role, she worked regionally and nationally with key partners, including the Department for Education, health bodies, and local authorities. In Spring 2023, she was appointed Co-Chair of the NNPCF, further strengthening her influence in shaping national policy and practice.

    Her lived experience, combined with her leadership skills and commitment to collaboration, continues to guide her work in championing the voices of families and ensuring meaningful change. We are delighted that Sarah has agreed to lead our Board of Trustees as an interim chair and are excited about the vision and direction she will bring.

  • Trustee Board Opportunity – Chair of Trustee Board

    Trustee Board Opportunity – Chair of Trustee Board

    We are seeking an experienced and strategic minded individual to support our growth as Chair of our Trustee Board. You’ll be working with a dynamic and multiskilled group of trustees to help grow the charity and enable us to support even more children with special educational needs and disabilities and their families. If you’re passionate about driving change in the early years sector for all children, you can view our recruitment pack here.

    We’re very grateful to our outgoing chair Russ Fowler for his dedication to Dingley’s Promise over the last three years. We’ve seen fantastic growth and as an organisation we are looking forward to building on this with the new chair. If you think it could be you, get in touch! Contact our CEO via email: [email protected]

  • Meet the Team: Q&A with Meggie Fisher, Quality Lead

    Meet the Team: Q&A with Meggie Fisher, Quality Lead

    How are you enjoying your role as Quality Lead with Dingley’s Promise?
    I love it! It’s amazing to be part of a team which is so dedicated to children with SEND and their families. I am lucky to be able to see the impact we have on a daily basis and the transformation we can have in improving lives and outcomes for children.

    What do you enjoy most about your job?
    Being around the teams and children daily and seeing the children flourish as a result of the support we give. I love seeing how everything we work on behind the scenes (such as policy, procedures and curriculum input) comes into practice to support the children. I am proud daily of the extra mile the teams go to in ensuring that families feel heard and valued.

    What are the challenges our early years teams face in delivering excellence?
    It can be difficult to recruit specialist staff to support children with complex SEND needs because it takes a certain type of attitude and approach to working. The staff we recruit are very unique and able to see the potential in every child and are committed to helping them achieve it. Our work can be emotionally challenging for us and our staff. We ensure that we focus on wellbeing and celebrating progress of both children and staff in our settings at every opportunity.

    What are the main priorities for our operational team moving forward?
    We are committed to working more collaboratively with local authorities who have a shared passion for responding to the needs of  children with SEND in the earliest years, and helping them to recognise and assess need and sufficiency levels in their local areas. We are working to embed the Dingley’s Promise Curriculum across our centres, ensuring that it is accessible and meets the needs of all individual children. We are also preparing for expansion by streamlining our systems and processes whilst giving each of our centres the flexibility to respond to the needs of their community of families and children.

  • Remembering Chris Khoo

    Remembering Chris Khoo

    In November last year we lost a much-loved patron and dedicated supporter of Dingley’s Promise.

    Christopher Khoo DL had been a patron of Dingley’s Promise for 6 years and the generosity of his time and unfailing support has been vital to the success of Dingley’s Promise over the last few years.

    Chris approached everything with positivity and along with his wife of 50 years Naomi, attended a great many events in support of the charity, continually raising awareness and even hosting fundraising events at their beautiful home.

    We are extremely grateful for all that Chris contributed to the charity and many staff, children, families and supporters who met him, will treasure fond memories of his kindness and beaming smile.  The Dingley’s Promise team will certainly have him at the forefront of our minds as we endeavour to grow our charity to deliver on Chris’ belief that every child with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities deserves the best start in life.

    We are grateful to for the continued support of Naomi, who remains passionate about the education of our youngest children, and the thoughts of the Dingley Family are with her and her family during this difficult time.

    In loving memory

  • Dingley’s Promise Team Day 2022

    Dingley’s Promise Team Day 2022

    Dingley’s Promise Team Day 2022

    At the beginning of September early years practitioners, management, central and leadership staff and volunteers from across Dingley’s Promise came together for our annual Team Day! Kindly hosted by the Hilton Hotel in Reading, our wonderful team were treated throughout the day to wine and cheese tasting, personalised goodie bags, while Anne-Marie from Unlock Your Wellbeing presented an informative session on caring for yourself and improving your mindset.

    Working together to support children with SEND

    CEO Catherine McLeod shared updates about the organisation and how Dingley’s Promise is working towards expanding its Early Years specialist centres and family support offer. She also detailed the responses being made to staff feedback, ensuring that the voices of our skilled early years educators are heard and valued. Operations Manager Karen Vockins gave a refresher presentation with a focus on safeguarding children with SEND and their families, demonstrating the importance of communication and trust within our teams. Updates on our reach and plans for the range of training courses offered by Dingley’s Promise were provided by Training Programme Manager Amanda Brown. Our early years inclusive practice training aims to provide early years staff across the country with the skills to support children with SEND in mainstream settings, improving outcomes and building confidence in practitioners working with disabled children. As an organisation working towards the best start for every child with SEND, we’re excited to offer more local authorities and early years staff the opportunity to support inclusion in all settings. In the afternoon, Fundraising Manager Jo Evans hosted a 40th Anniversary planning session, with the centre teams working together to develop fundraising events for the charity’s birthday next year. Having to raise over £500,000 every year to sustain our work can be daunting, so it was wonderful to see the enthusiasm from our staff during the session. Keep your eyes peeled for our birthday fundraising events throughout 2023!

    Celebrating excellence in early years SEND provision

    Finally, our team awards recognized the hard work and long service of individuals within the charity.
    Award for Excellence – Shakila
    Award for Care – Zoe
    Award for Development – Louise
    Award for Integrity – Tanya
    Award for Empowerment – Sam
    Award for Volunteering – Ruth
    Parent Choice Awards – Jess, Sarah, Carly
    25 Years Long Service Award – Pauline
    5 Years Long Service Award – Tanya, April, Sarah
    2 Years Long Service Award – Deborah, Nicola, Emma, Georgia

    Our annual Team Days are a fantastic opportunity for our staff to meet, share triumphs, challenges and ideas, and build relationships. We are lucky to have so many dedicated, skilled individuals working hard towards creating a bright future for children with SEND!

  • Dingley’s Promise CEO calls for increased funding at APPG

    Dingley’s Promise CEO calls for increased funding at APPG

    Dingley’s Promise CEO calls for increased funding for Early Years Sector at All Party Parliamentary Group Meeting.

    Catherine McLeod MBE, Chief Executive of Dingley’s Promise, was a key speaker at the latest meeting of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Childcare and Early Years Education, which called for the Government to use the Spending Review to address shortages in early years funding. 

     

     

    Catherine spoke about the stark reality of the lack of easily accessible funding in the mainstream for providing support to children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) across the Early Years Sector. Shockingly, 81% of settings report having to fund SEND costs themselves, with 49% doing so on a regular basis (EYA, 2020). With the cost of specialist primary school places being almost six times as expensive as mainstream places, the long term costs of not giving children the right early intervention in the early years is not only damaging to the child, but also builds more expensive cost liabilities in the primary school system. 

     

     

    The Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns have exacerbated existing issues within the sector. Social isolation and delayed access to services have been the most extreme for children in the early years (Disabled Children’s Partnership, 2021) meaning that this group are more in need than ever before. Vital early intervention cannot be provided to all the children that need it unless settings receive sufficient funding. Without that, settings are left in the impossible situation of having to choose between the sustainability of their business and inclusion of children with SEND.  

    The group, chaired by Steve Brine MP, have collectively called for increased funding for the Early Years Sector as a whole, asking the Government for almost £3000 per child to address funding shortages. Within this ask, there is a call to effectively fund support for children with SEND in mainstream settings to take this extra cost pressure off the sector. 

    To read the full press release, click here: https://connectpa.co.uk/early-years-catch-up-premium-needed/  

    Dingley’s Promise is a proud member of the APPG, representing the needs of children with SEND in the early years alongside key national partners. This shows that even though we are still a small, local charity, we can have a large impact on increasing inclusion in the Early Years Sector on a national scale. Our role within the group is to ensure that the voices of children with SEND, and their families, are not forgotten or left out of national conversations about future policy.  

    To hear Catherine’s full speech, watch the video (Catherine’s speech takes place from the 19th to the 26th minute): APPG for Childcare and Early Education – Early Years and Spending Review 

     

     

    To learn more about the positive difference Dingley’s Promise is making on a national level, visit our UK Impact webpage. 

     

  • Dingleys Promise: CEO’s 2020 Round Up

    Dingleys Promise: CEO’s 2020 Round Up

    In 2015, we set our strategy for five years ending in 2020, that we joked was our ‘2020 vision’. As we approached the end of that five-year period, our progress was looking great and we had achieved most of what we had planned – and in some areas we had exceeded our planned targets. In any other year we would have gathered our stakeholders and created our next long term strategy, but of course 2020 has not been the year for following the usual plan.

    I have written about our work during lockdown supporting children and their families, and how we reopened in June to make sure that our services resumed as quickly as possible in line with government guidance. As we approach the end of the year, we are taking stock of how 2020 has affected all the people who are a part of Dingley’s Promise and how we can collectively move forward to meet our goals and aspirations.

    Our Teams 

    Our teams have worked so very hard this year, and coped amazingly with numerous – and often sudden – changes in our way of working. The team members who work directly with children have embraced remote working, despite it being very different from what they are passionate about doing, and have supported each other through some very tough times. Our organisational focus on wellbeing has been vital in making sure colleagues are doing ok and are able to reach out for support when needed. I am so proud to be part of such a mutually supportive team, who realise that they can overcome any challenge when working together.

    The Children

    The vast majority of our children went home during the first lockdown in March and were supported by their families. In June when early years’ settings reopened across the country, most of them returned and we were relieved to see how quickly they settled in again. The increased stress for some children in being separated from their families after so long was evident, but the majority of children were happy and excited to return to us. Our teams have worked hard since then to address the two main areas where their development had slowed the most – listening & attention and health & self-care. They have helped the children to adapt to the new hygiene measures in place and helped them to enjoy an autumn term full of fun and new activities. While they have had a gap in their education, we will continue to support their recovery. We will also increase our outreach work to help other children get the help they need as early as possible, and continue with our remote support for any children who have to be absent from education.

    Our Families

    Our families have been absolute heroes this year. They have coped with increased isolation and in many cases a total lack of the services they had previously to lockdown. They have worked closely with our teams to support their children at home, using our online platform to share progress. Not only that, but they have supported each other in online meetings and in closed groups, sharing their experiences and being there for each other. Families’ need for emotional support from us has increased significantly this year and we will continue to respond to this need throughout the coming months, to ensure those who have struggled with their mental health have the support they need.

    Our Supporters

    The people who support our work have been incredibly generous this year in making sure we can deliver the vital support that children and their families have needed. Many have responded to our emergency appeals, and despite their own troubles have prioritised supporting us through this very challenging time. This has enabled us to redirect our fundraising efforts towards supporting those most in need and focusing on the children’s recovery from the impacts of the pandemic. The year ahead will be a difficult one and we need your continued support more than ever, whilst we overcome the hurdles we are faced with and return to a new normal.

    Despite the extreme pressures of 2020, Dingley’s Promise has been able to step up and provide the support our children and families have needed. This is fundamentally a result of: our incredible supporters who ensured we were funded; our staff and volunteer teams who have continued to work with such passion and commitment; our Board of Trustees who have provided support and guidance at such a crucial time; our children and their resilience in the face of an unprecedented removal of education and therapeutic services; and of course, their families who have managed fantastically under extremely difficult circumstances without access to services.

    To all of you involved in Dingley’s Promise’s journey, thank you so much for your hard work and support. We wish you a peaceful and restorative festive break and look forward to continuing to meet the needs of children and families in 2021 in what we hope will be a more predictable year.

    Catherine McLeod MBE, CEO of Dingley’s Promise

  • Dingley’s Promise Launches Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Action Plan

    Dingley’s Promise Launches Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Action Plan

    Dingley’s Promise has launched an Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Action Plan, detailing the future steps that the charity will be taking to achieve greater equity, diversity and inclusion across all areas of the organisation. 

     

    The Action Plan was developed in collaboration with all members of the Dingley’s Promise team, including staff, volunteers and trustees. Whole team discussions were held during the charity’s virtual team day at the beginning of September, followed by focus groups with staff at all three of the charity’s centres. Every member of the team was given the opportunity to feedback and comment on drafts of the plan each step of the way. 

     

    As early years providers for children with Special Educational needs and Disabilities, inclusion in all forms is incredibly close to the organisation’s heart. Dingley’s Promise are members of a diverse community, where people differ in age, race, sexuality, gender identity, religion, and disability, and we believe it is our responsibility to combat discrimination and ensure that everyone feels equally safe and welcomed by us.

     

    Dingley’s Promise has also been celebrating #BlackHistoryMonth throughout October by committing to anti racism in the early years, sharing resources that families can use to help teach their children to celebrate our differences and signposting to key people and organisations that are driving the anti racism movement in the Early Years Sector. 

     

    Staff and children at Dingley’s Promise have been getting involved too! Nadia, the Deputy Manager of our Wokingham Centre, tells us more! 

     

    “At the Wokingham Centre we have been celebrating #BlackHistoryMonth by sharing story sacks of black historical figures. We’ve enjoyed learning about brave Rosa and the mean bus driver (Rosa Parks), Henry, who posted himself to freedom and became a magician (Henry “Box” Brown) and Mae who worked hard to get her wish of visiting the stars (Mae C. Jemison).

     

    A huge thank you to our very talented Early Years Practitioner, Chloe, for hand making the story sacks for the children!”

    BHM 1

     

    BHM 2

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    The charity is in the process of recruiting a Trustee who will lead on EDI at Board level, and are committed to making sure that inclusion remains a core value throughout the year.

     

    You can learn more about our commitment to EDI by visiting our dedicated webpage.

     

    Read our Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Action Plan in full. 

     

    Diversity Action Plan page 1

    Diversity Action Plan page 2

     

  • Staff Spotlight: Zoe Cox

     

    Our staff spotlight is shining on Zoe Cox this August!

    During term time, Zoe is the Deputy Manager of our West Berkshire Centre. 

    Added to her duties at the centre, this summer holidays Zoe is part of a team of staff that are running the Dingley’s Promise Remote Learning Summer Support Programme; ensuring that children with SEND are not left behind this summer. 

    We caught up with Zoe to get to know her a little better and find out how her summer has been so far: 

     

     

    What is your role at Dingley’s Promise?

    Deputy Manager at our West Berkshire Centre. 

     

    How are you supporting children and families from your centre (and others) over the summer holidays?

    We are offering a garden stay and play session every Tuesday morning during August at the West Berkshire Centre and every Thursday morning at our Reading Centre. 

    We are running Zoom sessions with parents/carers covering a range of topics such as sleeping, potty training and using visuals, as well as offering family zoom sessions which involve singing, stories and bubbles! We have also been having weekly phone calls and email communications with parents, although this is by request of individual families.

     

    What do you enjoy most about your role at Dingley’s Promise?

    I love being a part of each child’s journey, and supporting them as they learn new skills and celebrating the big and small progresses they make. I enjoy every day as it’s always different, and we always like to have fun!

     

    Could you talk about your background in the Early years sector? 

    I started working with children with additional needs in 2010 as a playworker for West Berkshire Mencap. There, I worked with children from the ages of 5 – 18 years old, with a range of disabilities. I gained lots of knowledge and experience on how to support children with additional needs, but wanted to expand my knowledge and work with children in the early years. I applied for a job at Dingley’s Promise and wasn’t successful, but I still wanted to learn more so asked if I could volunteer and began volunteering once a week. Then, once another job came up, I applied again, and was successful! 

    I have now been working for Dingley’s Promise for 4 and a half years and have gained a lot of knowledge of early years education and insight into the importance of early intervention. I am now the Deputy Manager at the West Berks Centre and have qualified in Level 3 Health and Social Care, the Children and Young People Workforce Diploma and as an Early Years Educator.

     

    In your spare time, what do you enjoy doing?

    I have two children, a 7 year old who I make dens and do crafts with, and a 2 year old who loves trains! He has a speech delay, so I have been using my knowledge and experience from working at Dingley’s Promise to support his communication, which has been beneficial for our whole family. 

    My friends and family are very important to me too, so if I’m not with my children I’m out for dinner with them.

     

    How would you describe yourself in three words?

    Bubbly, Caring, confident 

     

    If you could go on holiday anywhere in the world, where would you go? (Once it is safe to of course!) 

    I would love to go to Disney world, it’s on my bucket list! 

     

     

    Thanks Zoe!