About Cheryl

Cheryl is a mother of two and an educationist.

Since beginning teaching in 1989, she has moved around and beyond classrooms, in Australia and overseas working to understand school education systems and the relationship between families and schools.

What she has observed and experienced first-hand is an absence of the critical distinction between ‘student’ and ‘child’. This belief has been the driving force behind her family life, work and studies.

Cheryl's latest publication is Your Children: Take the Lead on Their Education. In it, she places parents where she believes they should be: firmly at the centre of all decision-making.

Cheryl has a record of active involvement in community service, most notably her longstanding membership of the Rotary Club of Melbourne and her recognition as a Dame of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, Knights Hospitaller.

She has recently completed postgraduate studies in Parental Alienation, as part of the first group of professionals world-wide to complete such a course.

Cheryl continues to write, speak and advise on the relationship between families and schools and how fundamental change begins locally.