Meet Our Team
Holly Collins
English Hub Strategic Lead
Holly is acting headteacher in Orgill Primary School. She has been with us since 2006 and it is her passion for early reading and phonics that led to us achieving such high standards in this area. She oversees the management of all Hub activities and engages with schools and a range of other local partners to ensure that support reaches the schools that are most in need.
Helen Hawley
Senior Hub Lead and Auditor
Helen is an assistant headteacher and Literacy lead at Orgill Primary School. She has a wealth of teaching experience and has taught the full primary range. She is passionate about reading; she views herself as not simply a teacher of reading, but as a teacher who reads. She manages the Hub on a day to day basis, liaising with schools, hosting a range of events and supporting our Literacy Specialists. She balances this with her role of maintaining high standards in our own school.
Rachel Young
English Hub Finance Manager
Rachel joined our team in March 2020 to strengthen our administration and financial management. She manages the Hub budget and monitors all income and expenditure, producing financial reports for our strategic board and the DfE on a monthly basis.
Lara Park
English Hub Administrator
Lara is your initial point of contact when seeking support. She manages all communications, dealing with general enquiries and providing information. She organises our events, taking and confirming bookings and welcoming delegates on the day.
Katie Jamieson
Literacy Specialist
Katie has a BA Hons degree with QTS 2002 from the University of Cumbria. She is a Year 1 Class Teacher and Deputy Head Teacher at St Mary's Primary School, Kirkby Lonsdale. Katie has taught in Reception, Year 1, Year 2, Year 3 and Year 5. She is the English Lead, Reading Lead and EYFS Leader. Katie is also the EYFS SLE for South Lakes Rural Partnership. Her favourite story is Lost and Found by Oliver Jeffers.
Molly Edgar
Assistant Hub Lead/Literacy Specialist
Molly is our key stage 1 leader, year 2 teacher and reading leader at Orgill Primary School. She has 8 years experience teaching across key stage 1 and 2 and is passionate about ensuring all children leave us not only with the ability to read, but with a deep love of reading. Molly has a NPQ in Leading Teaching and has previously supported her school in developing all areas of the curriculum as a teaching and learning lead.
Rebecca Dawson
Assistant Hub Lead/Literacy Specialist
Becky is our Key Stage 2 Leader and Year 6 teacher at Orgill Primary School. She has over 10 years’ experience teaching across the Primary range, with previous experience as an English and Reading Lead, and she has an NPQ in Leading Teacher Development. Becky is an avid reader and enjoys creative writing, hoping to have a book of her own published one day! She is passionate about helping children and staff to develop a love for books and reading.
Ayasha Gardiner
Literacy Specialist
Ayasha has a PGCE with QTS from the University of Cumbria. She is a Year 2 Class Teacher at Sir John Barrow School in Ulverston. Ayasha has taught in Year 1 for 4 years. She is the Reading Lead at her school. English and reading are her favourite subjects to teach and her favourite book is Winnie the Pooh!
Laura McCormick
Literacy Specialist
Laura is a Year 2 Class Teacher and Reading Lead at Askam Village School. She qualified as a Teacher in 2009 with a BA Hons degree in Primary Education with QTS and an Advanced Study of Early Years. Laura has experience teaching in Reception, Year 1, Year 2 and Year 3. As part of her Reading Leader role, Laura works with the Furness Primary Collaborative to share good practice, support areas of development and plan for improvement in reading. Laura strives to promote a love for reading. Her favourite story is The Paper Dolls by Julia Donaldson.
Loren Crellin
Literacy Specialist
Loren graduated from Northumbria University with a BA hons Early Primary Education degree in July 2015. She currently teaches in Reception where she has taught for 4 years and has recently gained her senior leadership qualification. Loren has worked at Victoria Infant and Nursery school for 7 years and also has experience teaching year 1 and 2. She is the reading leader within the school and is passionate about driving the teaching of phonics and instilling a love of reading in children from an early age.
Helen Finlay
Literacy Specialist
Helen Finlay is the Early Years and English lead at Arlecdon Primary School. She has worked in Early Years since 2016 and until recently was the Reading and English lead for both Arlecdon and Thornhill Primary schools. Helen has a Primary Education degree with QTS from the University of Cumbria. She gained her degree in 2016 after starting her career in education as a Teaching Assistant in 2006. Helen is passionate about all children becoming readers and loves to share books with her class. Her favourite children's author is Oliver Jeffers.
Chloe Trainor
Literacy Specialist
Chloe has a BA hons degree in Early Childhood Studies and PCGE with QTS from the University of Cumbria. She is a Year 2 class teacher at St Gregory and St Patrick’s Catholic Infant School in Whitehaven. Chloe has six years experience in Year 1 and two years experience in Year 2. She is the English lead and is extremely passionate about getting every child to read through phonics and a love of reading. Chloe believes that if you teach a child to read it changes everything.
Helen Danby
Literacy Specialist
Helen has worked at St. Herbert’s C of E Primary and Nursery School in Keswick for over 20 years, where she has taught from Nursery to Year 4. She currently teaches a mixed Year 1 and 2 class. She is KS1 lead and lower school English lead. Her job includes leading early phonics and reading and supporting the lowest 20% in KS2. She loves to support the teaching of phonics and fostering a love of reading for our children.
James Gartland
Literacy Specialist
James is EYFS and Key Stage 1 teacher at Ennerdale CE Primary School. At both Ennerdale and another local school, James has 15 years of teaching experience and has taught all year groups. At Ennerdale, James is English subject lead across the school. For the past 5 years, James has been a moderator for both Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 end of year assessments. James completed his NPQH in 2021, and the focus of both assignments in his placement school and the SIP at Ennerdale were Early Reading and writing.
Rachel Edminson
Literacy Specialist
Rachel is a Year 2 teacher and is the Literacy Leader at Fairfield Primary School. She also works as part of the school’s SLT on wider projects across the school. She qualified as a teacher in July 2016 with a first-class honours degree in Primary Education with QTS. Rachel taught in Year 1 for six years before moving to Year 2. Rachel has recently led on Fairfield Primary School’s successful application to be a Little Wandle Champion School. Rachel now leads on Little Wandle Live Events at her school, where staff from schools across the country visit to see models of best practice. Rachel enjoys all aspects of her role, but particularly enjoys coaching staff
Zoey Slack
Literacy Specialist
Zoey is the Year 2 Class Teacher, SENCO, Reading Lead and part of the Senior Management Team at The Bishop Harvey Goodwin School, in Carlisle. In 2021, she gained her senior leadership qualification, which focused on reading interventions for our most vulnerable pupils. She has been teaching for 15 years and has experience of teaching across Reception, Year 1, Year 2 and Year 3. As a reading leader she is passionate about enabling all children to become fluent readers, through high quality phonics teaching and timely ‘keep up’ interventions. Zoey strives to promote every child’s love for literature from the onset of entering her school. Being an active member of an online book club for primary teachers enables her to keep abreast of new and upcoming authors and be able to share this wide with her pupils and the teaching staff. Her favourite story is Gorilla, by Anthony Browne.