Lucy's blog

When I first started Perform, one of my friends told me that ?staff would be my biggest problem?. She had her own business and said that finding the right people was her main challenge. In many ways, she was right. It is continual challenge to keep recruiting brilliant...

The last 3 weeks have been extremely busy for me because I've been contracting all our teachers for next term. As you can imagine, with over 200 schools and currently 208 teachers working for Perform, this is no easy task. It also demands quite a lot of concentration, so...

I took my 4 year old son to a birthday party last week. Just before we got there, he fell over and so was a bit tearful and clingy when we arrived. He didn't want to join in with the rest of his friends who were being entertained by a well-known local clown. Tom's a...

When I was a teenager, if I wanted to arrange to meet a friend at the weekend, I'd call my friend's home phone (having asked permission to use my home phone first, of course). In most cases, the friend's Mum or Dad would answer the phone and I'd politely...

Darling, look at Jane when she says hello to you! Does that sound familiar to you? Have you ever said it to your own child? I know I have! I've always been passionate about helping children make eye contact, especially when they meet new people or talk to adults. I...

Before I start, I'd like to say that I'm not an expert in autism by any means. However, over the past 15 years, I have taught a great many children on the Autism Spectrum so I have seen firsthand how autistic children can benefit from the kind of games and exercises we...

Before I had my own children, I had very clear ideas about the way in which I was going to bring them up. Having taught so many and seen so many parents 'parent', I thought I knew it all. Hmmm... The reality, of course, has been very different. There are so many...

It's probably no surprise to you that I'm a big believer in the power of song. So I was really pleased to read this Guardian article that a friend forwarded to me this week; http://bit.ly/moqAbc. It's about a new book written by Sally Goddard Blythe, a...

Confidence is something that we'd all love to be able to infuse our children with - I'm sure many parents have wished it was something you could bottle and administer now and again. Alas, I fear science still has some way to go on that front... In the meantime,...

Wow - it's been yet another hectic week! No rest for the wicked, eh? This week I've been working hard with our Regional Partner Simon Fielding on developing a new series of training courses for our Perform teachers. Simon originally joined us 9 years ago as a...