Robyn Bullingham

Throughout my life, I have always been passionate about supporting children and young people. Within University I had heard about Educational Psychology as a career and had explored this further with my supervisor which highlighted how important it was to gain experience with children and young people. I, therefore, volunteered for Barnardos Young Carers which gave invaluable experience in working with children and chose a dissertation investigating children’s abilities to follow instructions in schools.

Following my degree, I spent 2 years working within a secondary school as teaching assistant supporting pupils within the classroom and delivering evidence based interventions to support learning and social emotional needs. Alongside this employment, I volunteered as a befriender for an Autism charity which helped me to develop my knowledge of supporting individuals with autism. Following this I gained employment as an assistant educational psychologist for 2 years which allowed me to really understand the breadth of the role of an educational psychologist. It further highlighted how applying psychology collaboratively with schools can create positive outcomes for children and young people.

I gained a place on the 3 year Doctorate in Applied Educational Psychology at the University of Nottingham in 2018. I have gained so much knowledge within my first year through placement, teaching and research and had the opportunity to work within different local authorities. This year I very much look forward to building in confidence and knowledge as I continue my journey in becoming an educational psychologist.

My degree from the School of Psychology gave me such a high quality of training within a range of modules studying human behaviour and experience. This has really benefitted me when applying various approaches within psychology with children, schools and parents to achieve positive outcomes. Furthermore, the high level of supervision throughout university and through my dissertation really helped me to build upon my own passions and interests. The knowledge gained upon research methods and real-world research is something I have continued to build upon in this role.

If I could, the advice I would give myself now whilst studying would be to feel less fearful about the future and to be patient in this coming together! To really embrace all opportunities given to you within the course, to explore your interests as much as possible and continue to still go to Fruity where possible!