Kidz Psychology Education and Learning

About Us

Educational Psychologist - Marie Kelly

PG. Dip. Ed Psychology (Registered Psychologist) PG Cert. of Education Psychology; M.A. (Hons); Dip Teaching (Adv), Member of NZ Psychological Society.

Marie is an Educational Psychologist registered with the NZ Psychologist Board. She holds a Masters Degree (Hons) in Education, a Postgraduate Certificate in Educational Psychology and a Postgraduate Diploma in Education Psychology. Marie has been registered with NZ Teachers Registration Board since 1983.
Marie’s extensive experience of over 26 years within the fields of education and psychology includes:

• Former Educational Psychologist for the Ministry of Education, Special Education (School Focus Team)
• A registered primary teacher, Tutor for the University of Auckland (Education ) and tertiary lecturer (Reading and Language;) lecturer for Retraining Teachers’ Course
• Teacher for ESOL, Gifted and Special Needs in primary and secondary schools
• Resource Teacher of Learning and Behaviour (RTLB)
• Certified Triple P Positive Parenting Programme practitioner (Level 4)
• Scerts Model trained (Autism)
• Presenter of numerous Reciprocal Teaching (Reading) workshops for schools, Teachers’ Centres and NZ Education and Reading Conferences
• Co-author of internationally published papers : Reading Comprehension
• Author of Reciprocal Teaching: "A Practical Approach to Improving Reading Comprehension Skills” (2008)
• Trained in Interactive Drawing Therapy
• Regular attendee at conferences and workshops
• Mum of teenagers!

Areas of interest :

• Cognitive and Educational Assessments
• Reader/Writer Assessments
• Learning Difficulties including Dyslexia, Dyscalculia, Dyspraxia
• Giftedness
• Reading and Writing Workshops
• Twice Exceptional (Gifted with learning problems)
• Aspergers/High Functioning Autism

 

Educational Psychologist - Hilary Dixon

Hilary is an Educational Psychologist registered with the NZ Psychologists Board. She holds a Masters degree (Hons) in Education and a Postgraduate Diploma in Education Psychology.

Hilary’s experience of over 22 years within the field of education and psychology include:

• Educational Psychologist for Group Special Education, Ministry of Education for eleven years. Worked in School Focus and Early Intervention Teams. Role included casework with preschool and school age children with a range of special educational and behavioural needs; provision of parenting courses to referred parents; provision of behaviour training to Early Childhood Centres and paraprofessional staff.
• Licensed Earlybird Parent Training Provider for Autism New Zealand: Parent Training Programme for parents of children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder.
• Certified Triple P Positive Parenting Programme practitioner (Level 4)
• Research Fellow (Education Department, University of Auckland) in the evaluation of “Parents as First Teachers Pilot Project”.
• Tutor for Education Department, University of Auckland
• Preschool Teacher at IHC preschool.
• Regular attendee at conferences and workshops
• Mum of 13 year twins and an eight year old.

Areas of interest:

• General parent support and Training
• Parent-child attachment and family relationships
• Families with children with special needs including developmental delay, emotional and behavioural needs, Autistic Spectrum Disorder, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Anxiety Disorder and other childhood mental health disorders.
• Maternal Mental Health

Literacy Teacher - Annette McDonald

Our Literacy Teacher, Annette is a mum of grown up children and a highly experienced and skilled empathetic NZ trained Senior Teacher.

• Annette is a NZ trained and registered Primary School teacher of over 35 years. Annette is an experienced Reading Recovery and ICT teacher. She has experience in the Bannatyne programme .
• Annette’s extensive knowledge of the Primary school curriculum and her expertise and understanding of the reading process is second to none. Annette has lengthy experience as a teacher for individual children with learning difficulties in reading, writing and mathematics.
• Her individualised programmes, explicit curriculum knowledge, empathetic, friendly and positive personality gets fantastic results!

Our Tutors

Our tutors work in consultation with Marie in determining the best way of tutoring students and follow planned lessons. Our tutors are hand-picked and not only are they exceptional at the subjects they tutor they get fantastic results for their students both in school and external exams ; see our testimonial page.

Laura

• Laura is currently attending Auckland University as a fourth year honours student. Laura has won numerous academic awards and commendations at school and university.
• Laura has exceptional ability in tutoring; she has in-depth knowledge of the requirements of school subjects from Year 7-13, particularly in History and English. Laura tutors NCEA and Cambridge students
• Laura also presents a two hour Study Skills and Strategies workshop in the holidays or as requested. She has facilitated numerous workshops for Kidz Psychology Education and Learning Services
• She has a warm, caring personality and gets results!

Peter

• Peter is a third year student at Auckland University who is very skilled in tutoring maths and science.
• Peter has a fantastic ability in relating to adults and kidz and importantly skilfully tutors in such a way that his students get results.
• Peter has been awarded 6 commendations from the University of Auckland for his outstanding work.
• Peter tutors up to Year 13 (Cambridge and NCEA)

We also have tutors available on a needs basis for Accounting, Economics, Geography and Classics.