I’m an Education and Translation Manager for MFL Mentoring and I’ve been working with Lucy and the team for over 3 years now.

I’m responsible for managing the mentoring placements that take place across the EAS region, as well as developing multilingual and multicultural teacher resources for both primary and secondary schools in Cymraeg and English.

I also oversee the project’s social media, communications and translation activities, which means that I work really closely with my lovely colleagues Laura and Lowri!

I really love how varied my job is!

I’m originally from the South Wales Valleys and went to a Welsh medium primary and secondary school, even though neither of my parents spoke Welsh.

I loved learning languages at school and took A Levels in both French and Spanish.

I applied to study French and Spanish at Cardiff University but ended up swapping French to start Italian from scratch because I’d always wanted to learn it as I fell in love with the language watching a Welsh programme about Italian football with my Dad as a child!

I then went on to complete a postgraduate diploma in Interpreting and Translating at the University of Bath.

I completed my PGCE in languages at UWIC (now known as Cardiff Met) and once qualified, I began teaching Spanish in a Welsh medium secondary school where I stayed for over 12 years before leaving to join the project in 2020.

I’m a very proud mam to two boys and when I’m not pitch-side supporting them at football, I love yoga 🧘‍♀️,cooking 🍝 and walking my lovely dog Pops 🐕!

My favourite thing about the project is seeing how our wonderful mentors inspire our young learners to think differently about languages.

The mentors have the opportunity to discuss such diverse topics with the learners and they’re generally topics that teachers don’t have time to explore in their lessons.

You really can’t underestimate how powerful an impact near-peer mentors can have on young people, they are truly inspiring and raise learners’ aspirations for the future.