Built with schools.
Backed by experts.
The C.O.O.L Curriculum is shaped by passionate educators, researchers, and specialists who believe in joyful, purposeful learning for every child.
Our team brings together experience from every corner of education, early years, curriculum design, literacy, inclusion, SEND, and academic research.
Together, we make sure C.O.O.L is an innovative, forward thinking framework that shifts the pedagogical approach in KS1 towards an inclusive, highly engaging model in which all children can thrive in the classroom.
The Value of Collaboration
By combining lived experience, leadership insight, and cutting-edge research, our team ensures The C.O.O.L Curriculum continues to evolve.
Every voice matters here, and the advisory board working alongside our trial schools means we gain a wealth of thinking, feedback and innovation.
That’s what keeps C.O.O.L honest, practical and ambitious.
Emma
Founder & Director, C.O.O.L Party Chief
Emma's Role in the team
Emma leads the group as the founder and creator of the C.O.O.L curriculum. She is incredibly grateful for the support, guidance and challenge provided by the members of the advisory group.
Emma's full bio
Former headteacher and early years specialist with over a decade of leadership experience. Emma developed The C.O.O.L Curriculum from high quality use of continuous provision in classrooms during her teaching and leadership experience. She saw the need for more joy, movement, and autonomy in Key Stage 1 classrooms and created a structured framework to bring it to schools.
Ellen Parker
Deputy Headteacher & Curriculum Lead, Stoke Primary School
Advisory Board Member – Continuous provision guru
Ellen's Role in the team
Ellen brings an abundance of passion and knowledge about continuous provision in practice. She is on the ground working with children, developing play based practise and bringing reflection and current implications to the group.
Ellen's full bio
Ellen is Deputy Headteacher at Stoke Primary School leading on curriculum development. She has driven improvements in curriculum and teaching and learning across a range of year groups, from EYFS to Year 6. Ellen’s experiences have primarily been based in schools catering for children with challenging starting points, including a high proportion of EAL and SEND learners.
Ellen’s passion is fuelled by the challenge of creating ambitious and bespoke curriculums that captivate young minds. She strongly believes that we can deliver the curriculum creatively, enabling children to contextualise their learning and make meaningful connections to the world around them. By developing engaging and immersive curriculums, we can provide opportunities for every child to flourish and excel, regardless of their starting point.
Ellen is the co-author of the Play Pantry – the in depth guide to setting up purposeful continuous provision zones within the C.O.O.L framework. It’s a practical guide with clear instructions, images and support for decision making. All C.O.O.L schools receive copies of the Play Pantry book.
Kate Wadsworth - Director, What If Education
Advisory Board Member – Chief of Awe and Wonder
Kate's Role in the team
Kate adds a wealth of wonder to the COOL group including international experience, coaching expertise and AI specialisms. She also brings her incredible experience of implementing continuous provision and play with a Year 6 class.
Kate's full bio
Kate is a teacher, international consultant, coach and writer. She is the founder of What If Education?®, a provocative start-up designed to inspire curiosity within education, and the author of Awedinary: The Wonder of Everyday Things. She champions an education that is playful, curious and creative, with learning experiences that feel fun in the moment and meaningful for the future.
Alex Neophytou – Founder, New Education Outlook
Advisory Board Member – Curriculum Guru
Alex's Role in the team
Alex is nicknamed the ‘curriculum guru’ with the COOL group for good reason! He brings wide ranging knowledge and expertise around Primary curriculum development, keeping the knowledge and skills firmly in sight as we develop exemplar planning and offering guidance and support to schools looking to review their curriculum along the way.
Alex's full bio
Alex is an experienced primary school teacher and senior leader, now working as an education consultant through his business New Education Outlook. He works directly with schools on developing teaching and learning, leadership, subject leadership, and in particular curriculum development. Sometimes referred to as a ‘curriculum guru’, he loves supporting others, whether it’s through writing publications to support leaders, producing resources that support curriculum delivery, or visiting schools and working on the nuts and bolts of their curriculum directly (foundation subjects in particular). If you want to chat with someone about ‘curriculum stuff’, he’s your guy!
Why C.O.O.L.?
C.O.O.L. is more than just a curriculum idea, it’s a way of working that can inspire children and develop more independent thinking. I got involved to learn more about continuous provision, but being able to work with Emma and the team on developing something that has the power to have such a positive impact on children and learning has been really exciting and it’s already having a huge impact in schools!
Full bio on the way!
Claire Williams – Deputy Headteacher, St Andrew’s Primary School
Advisory Board Member – Literacy and School Leadership Legend, Chief Cheerleader
Claire's Role in the team
Claire brings a deep passion for and love of everything reading and literacy alongside her current leadership and teaching practice in schools. Her positivity, enthusiasm and humour are invaluable within the group.
Claire's full bio
Full bio on the way!
Amy Storer – Education Consultant & SEND Specialist
Advisory Board Member – Inclusion & SEND wonder woman!
Amy's Role in the team
Amy brings leadership, inclusion and SEND specialisms to the C.O.O.L advisory board along with a dose of her infectious energy and on point training and implementation advice.
Amy's full bio
Amy is an experienced and successful headteacher with a deep commitment to inclusion, belonging and doing things differently. Having led her own school with a strong track record of impact, she now has the privilege of supporting schools, MATs and local authorities nationally, helping leaders to strengthen their practice in both leadership and SEND.
Amy cares deeply about this work. She believes that high-quality professional development should be both purposeful and playful, creating the space for people to think deeply, learn joyfully and connect meaningfully. Humour plays an important role in her approach – helping to break down barriers, build trust and bring humanity back into the work.
Alongside her school improvement and leadership development work, Amy is also a performance and fulfi lment coach, supporting individuals and teams to be at their best and to lead with clarity, purpose and compassion.
Soizic Le Courtois – Researcher, University of Cambridge
Advisory Board Member – Research & Implementation guru, wise and wonderful.
Soizic's Role in the team
Soizic brings her vast and wonderful knowledge and experience of educational and play based research to the COOL group, along with her in-depth understanding of implementation to support the development of COOL within schools.
Soizic's full bio
Soizic is an education researcher passionate about practices that foster and support children’s inner motivation to learn, including learning through play, democratic education, project based learning and self-directed learning. Her PhD research delved into children’s autonomy and agency in learning, and the systemic pressures that stop teachers from giving children more ownership of their learning in classrooms.
She is a member of the Centre for Play in Education Development and Learning (PEDAL) at the University of Cambridge where she is currently working on a project called the Early Years Library, and she is an affiliate member of the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Pedagogy at UCL. She was an advisor to the HundrEd Spotlight on Child-Centred Learning and was an invited witness to the Raising the Nation Play Commission. As well as a member of the advisory board for the COOL curriculum, Soizic is on the steering group for the Play in Education association (with Emma) and for the Waymakers, a playful learning collective for Home Educated children in Cambridge. She is also a Trustee of the Atelier 21 Foundation which aims to transform schools through the Playoneering approach, rooted in Reggio Emilia principles, developed at the Atelier 21 Future School.
Soizic was formerly a Primary School teacher, mainly in London; in a previous life she worked in environmental conservation, and before that she knew a lot about ants. She has two children (aged 3 and 7) and is obsessed with Bluey – she once presented at a conference wearing a Bluey t-shirt.