Barbara Watson 

PhD; MEdAdmin; BEd (ECE); Dip.Tchg (Primary)

Barbara is a qualified early childhood and primary teacher and has owned and managed early childhood centres. She has been a facilitator and mentor since 2008. Having worked as part of the EC Professional Support team at the Faculty of Education for 7 years, she has strong links with The University of Auckland. While in this role Barbara facilitated a variety of workshops and programmes for a wide range of ECE services and also lectured on a number of ECE papers.

Barbara has a passion for supporting teachers to make effective links between theory and practice. She has particular interests in mentoring, leadership, appraisal and assessment. Her Masters thesis focused on leadership and adult education and her PhD investigated how induction and mentoring programmes are enacted in education and care services. Barbara works with centre leaders as a mentor, coach and external appraiser. She also works with teams to strengthen practice and effective curriculum provision through effective inquiry and evaluation.