Dr Hayley Smith
Hayley has 12 years experience in providing psychological services within the NHS and 8 years working independently as a Chartered Clinical Psychologist and Systemic Family Psychotherapist. She offers individual and family therapy and psychological consultation to parents, schools and other professionals.
Her areas of expertise are working with children and young people and the systems they are in, her special interests are trauma and Autism and, she has spent many years supporting adoptive children and their families.
Every day, in both her clinical practice and within her local communities, she hears stories of children who are distressed by their experiences of school – many of whom are traumatised, developing mental health problems as a result, and end up opting out of school one way or another. Schools are micromanaged by central government, coerced and controlled through Ofsted inspections, threats of school closures, in-house politically-biased training and government reports. Training and government guidelines around teaching methods and behaviour management in schools are based upon hand-selected, outdated behaviourist approaches and basic cognitive science research (mainly tested in labs) to fit with political ideology.
Regular testing set to central government expectations means that children are constantly compared to their peers, with frequent talk of children being ‘behind’ or labelled as ‘naughty’ if they do not conform to a set of expectations around behaviour and academic targets at set ages. Using standardised testing as a way of measuring quality of teaching or children’s ability is based on the assumption that all children should be at the same stage at the same time. However, this does not align with what we know about child development and neuroscience. Children’s brains develop at different ages and stages until they are well into their twenties; they do not all fit into tick boxes at certain ages or year groups. Children who develop at different rates are led to believe they do not measure up. I don’t believe therapy is the answer for these children and I'm currently very passionate about influencing change on a systemic level to our Education System.
Hayley has 12 years experience in providing psychological services within the NHS and 8 years working independently as a Chartered Clinical Psychologist and Systemic Family Psychotherapist. She offers individual and family therapy and psychological consultation to parents, schools and other professionals.
Her areas of expertise are working with children and young people and the systems they are in, her special interests are trauma and Autism and, she has spent many years supporting adoptive children and their families.
Every day, in both her clinical practice and within her local communities, she hears stories of children who are distressed by their experiences of school – many of whom are traumatised, developing mental health problems as a result, and end up opting out of school one way or another. Schools are micromanaged by central government, coerced and controlled through Ofsted inspections, threats of school closures, in-house politically-biased training and government reports. Training and government guidelines around teaching methods and behaviour management in schools are based upon hand-selected, outdated behaviourist approaches and basic cognitive science research (mainly tested in labs) to fit with political ideology.
Regular testing set to central government expectations means that children are constantly compared to their peers, with frequent talk of children being ‘behind’ or labelled as ‘naughty’ if they do not conform to a set of expectations around behaviour and academic targets at set ages. Using standardised testing as a way of measuring quality of teaching or children’s ability is based on the assumption that all children should be at the same stage at the same time. However, this does not align with what we know about child development and neuroscience. Children’s brains develop at different ages and stages until they are well into their twenties; they do not all fit into tick boxes at certain ages or year groups. Children who develop at different rates are led to believe they do not measure up. I don’t believe therapy is the answer for these children and I'm currently very passionate about influencing change on a systemic level to our Education System.
Hayley has 12 years experience in providing psychological services within the NHS and 8 years working independently as a Chartered Clinical Psychologist and Systemic Family Psychotherapist. She offers individual and family therapy and psychological consultation to parents, schools and other professionals.
Her areas of expertise are working with children and young people and the systems they are in, her special interests are trauma and Autism and, she has spent many years supporting adoptive children and their families.
Every day, in both her clinical practice and within her local communities, she hears stories of children who are distressed by their experiences of school – many of whom are traumatised, developing mental health problems as a result, and end up opting out of school one way or another. Schools are micromanaged by central government, coerced and controlled through Ofsted inspections, threats of school closures, in-house politically-biased training and government reports. Training and government guidelines around teaching methods and behaviour management in schools are based upon hand-selected, outdated behaviourist approaches and basic cognitive science research (mainly tested in labs) to fit with political ideology.
Regular testing set to central government expectations means that children are constantly compared to their peers, with frequent talk of children being ‘behind’ or labelled as ‘naughty’ if they do not conform to a set of expectations around behaviour and academic targets at set ages. Using standardised testing as a way of measuring quality of teaching or children’s ability is based on the assumption that all children should be at the same stage at the same time. However, this does not align with what we know about child development and neuroscience. Children’s brains develop at different ages and stages until they are well into their twenties; they do not all fit into tick boxes at certain ages or year groups. Children who develop at different rates are led to believe they do not measure up. I don’t believe therapy is the answer for these children and I'm currently very passionate about influencing change on a systemic level to our Education System.