Who the heck is Nicky?
Eeek, I find this a very “un-British” thing to do, sit here and write about how FABULOUS I am.
I could tell you about my many, many successes *blush*.
Or about my previous career in teaching *yawn*.
Or I could even tell you about my snowboarding accident which is the reason I started this company *yikes*.
But that doesn’t really tell you what you really want to know.
How can I make your life easier?
I can’t take away your marking, report writing, parents evening, the tedium of those Monday morning staff briefings or stop your bottom set from licking the computer monitors.
But I can help you spend less time planning so you can spend more time teaching.
Nobody got into teaching to spend every Sunday creating worksheets, marking homework or collating statistics.
All my lessons are ready to use, meaning you no longer need to devote hours to develop resources.
The workbooks are carefully mapped to the curriculum and help your pupils gain a deeper understanding of the topics to prepare them for their exams. And you will discover an untapped confidence through my popular video training courses, so you no longer have the fear of awkward questions.
Reclaim your weekends (at least part of them) and enjoy a lie in for once. You deserve it.
Who is the person behind Nichola Wilkin Ltd?
Really? If you're really interested...
I’m Nicky and I'm the founder and director of Nichola Wilkin Ltd, although I've since got married so on social media you may see me as Nichola Lacey.
I was a programmer, creating bespoke software and became a senior corporate trainer for some major international companies including the De Beers Group, J.P. Morgan and Nordea Bank among others. I retrained as an ICT teacher, working in a state school before becoming the head of department in a private boys’ school where I introduced computing to the curriculum and started experimenting with ways to teach the kids programming.
In 2012 I broke my back in a snowboarding accident. Unfortunately, this meant I was unable to teach in the classroom for many years. But, this happened as the government announced that ICT was being scrapped and computing was being introduced. My teacher friends wanted my resources and lesson ideas and asked me to help them. Eventually, they persuaded me to create Nichola Wilkin Ltd.
Since then I have become one of the most popular authors on TES with well over 1 and a half million downloads. I've written a book (Python by Example: Learning to Program in 150 Challenges) and been lucky enough to have been asked to create teaching resources for tons of companies including BBC Bitesize and Cambridge University Press.
My latest venture (returning to my training days) has allowed me to help teachers find better ways to teach programming and although the pandemic has halted any face to face training the video masterclass is proving just as popular.
I have also worked as an Assessment Manager for Cambridge University Press and Assessment, overseeing the AS and A Level IT and Computing international exams. For part of this role I studied their internal course called A101: Introducing the Principles of Assessment which covered the validity, reliability, fairness, standards, comparability, practicality and manageability of assessment.
I live just outside Cambridge with my husband and two sons who tower above me and I'm currently attempting to master the potter’s wheel in the little spare time I have.
I know, I know, information overload, but you did ask…
Finally, I'm very proud to have been shortlisted for Teach Secondary Awards for Curriculum Impact a very rare honour for an independent publisher and shows the high esteem my teaching resources are valued.
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