My name is Olivia Gunner and I have been teaching at Laurance Haines School for eight years. I am a Year 2 class teacher and I am fortunate enough to work with the most incredible team! I initially started at Laurance Haines as a cover teacher before I started my permanent classroom role. Within a week I knew that I had made a great choice. This is one of the most caring and nurturing schools I have seen and the wellbeing of the children is of the upmost importance to all staff members. I had begun my NQT year at another school however the support and training was poor and I knew that I had to find somewhere that would help me to teach to the best of my abilities. Laurance Haines gave me this opportunity. The support and CPD that has been offered to me at the school has been phenomenal and did not stop when my NQT year was complete. I have received mental health first aid training to help support staff and pupils as this is something we are passionate about as a school. I am a staff governor, this opportunity has developed my knowledge and understanding of the strategic issues facing the education sector.

I have progressed through the school and have been given the support and opportunities to achieve my goal of being KS1 lead. This has also helped me to become an external KS1 moderator for HFL. I have recently finished an Erasmus project looking at mental health and wellbeing in schools. As part of this project I was able to travel to Italy and Spain with children, where we spent time looking at the provisions for wellbeing across Europe.