I taught in a primary school in south east London, worked as an educational psychologist in Manchester, Wandsworth and Islington, and was a tutor on the professional training course for educational psychologists at University College London before moving to higher education. I first taught at Bath College of Higher Education and then took up a lecturing post at the University of Bristol in 2000, where I received funding for research from the UK government and from charities and other sources. My book Engaging ‘Hard to Reach’ Parents: Teacher-Parent Collaboration to Promote Children’s Learning (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010) was shortlisted for the National Association of Special Educational Needs academic book award, 2011.