The person behind Foster Concepts
Meet Anne.
Why this work matters to me
As a teacher and school leader, I’ve experienced planning discussions where considerable time goes into piecing together expectations from separate documents and systems. I know the care, creativity and professional thinking teachers bring, and how important it is for the school’s structures to support that work.
I founded Foster Concepts to help schools strengthen those connections. I believe clear expectations should give teachers direction and support their professional judgement, creating space to develop meaningful inquiry and respond thoughtfully to learners.
I bring experience in teaching, language coordination, leadership and professional learning to this work, alongside your team’s knowledge of its school and community.
My work brings together professional experience, relevant educational research and current curriculum and programme guidance. For schools offering the PYP, this includes guidance from the International Baccalaureate. I consider these sources alongside your school’s priorities, classroom evidence and the perspectives of its community.
More about my experience
My experience includes teaching and leadership in schools offering the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme (PYP). I have also taught mathematics in the Middle Years Programme (MYP) and, more extensively, the Diploma Programme (DP). This experience informs my interest in how understanding develops over time and how primary learning connects with increasingly demanding subject learning in later years.
I am also undertaking master’s studies in international education at the University of Bath.
My experience as a mother and my work in boarding-school communities also inform my attention to relationships, wellbeing and belonging. These perspectives shape my interest in how learning is experienced across classrooms, homes and the wider school community.
An example from my experience
Developing a transdisciplinary curriculum
As a language coordinator, I worked with colleagues to develop a transdisciplinary curriculum that enabled teachers to consider learning across subjects together. We brought subject expectations and assessment information into a connected structure, making relationships between subjects and the development of learning easier to see.
This gave teachers a shared resource for planning meaningful inquiry and monitoring learning as it developed.