As well as having extensive experience in the primary school classroom, in recent years Gill has run her own preschool music school, is a trained Suzuki piano teacher and more recently was responsible for the GymbaROO programme arriving on the New Zealand scene. She has trained with Judie Bullus and Peter Coles in Melbourne in PMP (Perceptual Motor programming) and Smart Words (Word Study) and is the co- author of Moving to Learn. During her long career in education, Gill has become more and more aware of the growing number of children arriving to begin their schooling at five, unprepared for formal learning. As a result, Gill has established her own consultancy business Moving Smart Ltd. Gill (director and facilitator), runs courses for primary and early childhood teachers working with mainstream, normally developing children, teachers of students who have a motor, behavioral or developmental delays, Occupational Therapists, Physiotherapists, and RTLB's. These courses include implemetation of PMP and Smart Words, Reflective PMP courses, Child Development Moving To Learn and Transition to School courses. She also facilitates parenting courses for 0-5 years. These courses carefully explain the importance of play and movement and how it grows and develops young brains.

The first three years of life hold the key to how the child develops and for this reason, Gill has co authored her very popular book “Moving To Learn” which his about to go into its third print run. The book has been written to inform parents and educators about children in the first three years of life, the importance of movement and play and how to include it in the home and learning environment. Gill also works extensively in early childhood with teachers, parents. Kindergarten Associations, Play Centre Associations, Parents Centres, home based carers, Plunket and Kohunga Reo’s etc.

She also helped develop the SPARC Active Movement Initiative and trains and mentors the Active Movement coordinators nationally for Sport and Recreation New Zealand. She was heavily involved in the writing of the Active Movement guidelines and wrote the Active Movement brochures for SPARC.

Her courses aim to help provide an in depth understanding of the importance of movement and how it forms and grows the child’s brain. They are both practical and theory based and provide many ideas of how to promote movement for young children using the environment and what the child has available to play with. The courses are proving to be extremely popular!

Louise Dempsey Louise is an experienced teacher, consultant, trainer and writer in the area of primary education, in both the United Kingdom and New Zealand. Born and educated in New Zealand, Louise completed her teacher training at the Wellington College of Education and then taught for nine years at Berhampore School, of which she was Deputy Principal for three years. In 1995 she moved to the UK where she was based for 11 years. Initially she worked as an Advisory Teacher for Special Needs for two years and then joined the National Literacy Strategy as a Literacy Consultant in Hackney. The rest of her time in London was spent working in the Hackney Advisory Service. She was promoted to Primary Literacy Strategy Manager and then Primary Team Leader. This role involved managing and leading a team of 15 consultants across 4 subjects. The team supported teaching and non-teaching staff in 55 primary schools, to improve teaching and learning and raise attainment. She also had responsibility for the primary professional development programme, which offered a comprehensive training programme, both centrally and in schools to all teachers, teaching assistants and managers in Hackney. In recent years Louise has completed a range of writing projects for New Zealand and English publishers, as well as the Department of Education in the UK. She co-wrote a phonics intervention programme for low attaining year 7 pupils for the secondary national strategy – this programme is used by most secondary schools in England. In addition, she produced a phonics and spelling programme, based on national material, which is used in the majority of primary schools in Hackney.

Louise has 10 years experience as a trainer and has presented to a wide range of audiences, from whole school teams, to Principals and school management teams. She has developed specialised knowledge in the areas of literacy and effective ‘teaching and learning’. Since returning to New Zealand, Louise has completed contract work for Learning Media and South Pacific Press, and has facilitated training in the Eastern Bay of Plenty and Auckland. She has also worked on a relief basis in two Auckland primary schools. Louise now lives in Mount Albert, Auckland with her young family. Louise is available to schools and Teacher training institutions to run courses in the implementation of Smart Words. She also runs courses and staff meetings for schools who already run Smart Words, but who need some fine tuning or revision of principles. For course outlines see Courses or email Louise direct on louisedempsey@ihug.co.nz

Diana Jenkin Diana runs the office of Moving Smart Ltd, now situated at 4 Timothy Place, Sockburn, Christchurch. Diana's role as Office Manager involves the day to day management of the administrative side of the business as well as organising and shipping the large amounts of orders that we receive daily. Most importantly she is happy to spend time helping clients with equipment and resource enquiries. She has a strong interest in children, learning and the importance of running the PMP and Smartwords programmes in schools today. She is a great asset to have on the team.