CW Educational Services

09/10/2026

🧩 I think I may have developed a bit of a jigsaw addiction! 🧩🤣

Over the past few months, I've been spending rather a lot of my spare time surrounded by hundreds (and sometimes thousands!) of tiny puzzle pieces!

Why? Well, a lovely friend of mine is organising a Jigsaw Festival to raise money for Education West Africa, a charity supporting schools in Sierra Leone, and I've been helping her get ready.

I've been busy completing jigsaws that will be on display at the event. Some have been an absolute pleasure to do, others have tested my patience slightly more than I'd care to admit... and I've even had a little 'help' from a certain four-legged family member! 🐈‍⬛🤣

The festival promises to be a lovely day out for anyone who enjoys a good puzzle!

🧩 Over 100 jigsaws for sale, including children's puzzles, vintage puzzles and everything from 500 to 2,000 pieces.

☕ Tea, coffee, cakes and scones available.

❤️ All proceeds will go towards supporting education in Sierra Leone.

📍 St Mary's Church, Pulborough

📅 Saturday 14th November

⏰ 10am–4pm

And I'll be there too! I'll be helping out on the day, so if you're local, please do pop along, say hello, have a browse, enjoy a slice of cake and support a wonderful cause. I'd love to see some familiar faces!

And if you know someone who loves a jigsaw, please share this with them!

Now, the important question... are you a 'sort all the pieces first' person, or do you just dive straight in? 🧩😂

08/10/2026

📚 A little daytime availability!

I currently have a small number of spaces available on Wednesday and Thursday mornings for personalised 1:1 English and maths tuition.

These sessions are particularly well suited to home-educated children, offering the opportunity to work at their own pace, build confidence and develop skills through activities tailored to their individual needs and interests.

As a qualified Dyslexia Specialist Tutor, I can also provide specialist support for children experiencing literacy difficulties.

📍 Face-to-face tuition in Pulborough, West Sussex
💻 Online tuition available across the UK
👧👦 Children aged 5–12

If you're looking for some additional support for your child, or know a family who might be interested, please feel free to get in touch.

I'd be very grateful if you could share this with anyone who might find it useful! 😊

04/10/2026

Just look at this writing! 🦜❤️

This young writer originally came to me for support with her phonics, and seeing her confidence grow enough to produce a piece like this makes me incredibly proud.

She has only just started Year 3 and chose the writing prompt ‘The Perfect Pet’, deciding that a parrot was definitely the perfect choice!
We took our time building up to the finished piece. We talked about the audience, purpose and structure, researched parrots using information books and turned the facts we discovered into reasons why a parrot would make a great pet. We also looked at a model text and focused on using ‘because’ to explain and develop our ideas.

Then came the best bit — bringing everything together in her own writing.
"Parrots are stylish because they have bright and colourful feathers."
"Because parrots are intelligent, they can talk to you."
"They are easy to feed because they eat fruits, vegetables and nuts."

So much thinking has gone into those sentences — choosing relevant information, organising ideas, explaining reasons and applying our grammar focus independently.

But more than anything, look at the confidence in that page.
This is why I love teaching writing. ❤️

03/10/2026

Who says vocabulary work needs to mean worksheets?

I've been using this simple pairs game to work on synonyms — different words with the same or similar meanings.
We start with all the cards face up and work together to match the synonym pairs. Once we've found them all, the cards are turned over and it becomes a memory game, trying to find the matching pairs again.
So we're practising vocabulary first... and then adding a little memory and concentration challenge too! 😊

The words on this version are deliberately quite straightforward, but I've also created a blank set so that I can adapt the game for different children and levels. For older children, we could use a thesaurus to find more interesting alternatives and create our own pairs.

I've added both versions to the free Resources section of my website, so you can download the ready-made game or use the blank template to create your own.
Simple, practical and much more fun than a list of words!

30/09/2026

Wow! Look at who put Pulborough on the map today! 😁

Catherine arrived in picturesque Pulborough to join the team at the West Sussex Minibus, which acts as a vital lifeline for people who cannot easily access public transport.

29/09/2026

Could dyslexia be a factor in your child's difficulties with learning?

If you've found yourself wondering this but aren't sure about what to do next, dyslexia screening can be a really useful first step.

Perhaps you've noticed that reading, writing or spelling seems harder than you would expect. Maybe your child is working incredibly hard but still struggling to keep up. Or perhaps dyslexia has already been mentioned and you're wondering where to go from here.

As a qualified Dyslexia Specialist Tutor, I can now offer individual dyslexia screening to help families build a clearer picture of their child's strengths and difficulties.

I spend time getting to know your child's individual learning profile. I gather background information from you and your child, use a range of screening activities and observations, and use what I discover to guide further investigation.

Following the screening, you'll receive a written report explaining the findings, together with practical recommendations for supporting your child at home and in their learning environment.

And you don't just receive a report and get left to make sense of it on your own. I'm there to talk through concerns, explain the findings and help you understand what your next steps could be.

A screening does not diagnose dyslexia. If the findings indicate that a full diagnostic assessment may be appropriate, I can explain what that involves and help you understand your next steps.

Sometimes the most important thing is simply having a clearer understanding of why your child may be finding things difficult - and knowing what you can do to help.

If you'd like to know more about dyslexia screening, you can visit the Dyslexia Support section of my website or send me a message for an informal chat.

https://www.cweducationalservices.com/dyslexia-support

28/09/2026

📚 Looking for some extra activities to support learning at home?

I’ve added a growing collection of free downloadable resources to my website, covering areas of English and maths that I regularly work on with children in my tutoring sessions.

They’re designed to be simple to download, print and use at home – whether you’re looking for a quick game, some extra practice or another way to reinforce something your child is learning.

There are resources for spelling, reading, vocabulary, punctuation, place value and more, and I’ll continue adding to the collection.

You can find them on the Resources page of my website. 😊
https://www.cweducationalservices.com/resources

17/09/2026

It’s live! 🎉

After rather a lot of days spent moving boxes around, changing my mind about fonts, rewriting the same sentence several times and generally learning far more about building a website than I ever expected to… CW Educational Services finally has a website! 💜

It brings everything I offer together in one place — English and maths tuition, specialist dyslexia and literacy support, dyslexia screening, home education tuition and some free resources too.

More than anything, I wanted it to feel like me and reflect the way I work with children: personal, supportive and focused on helping them build confidence as well as skills.

And after months of saying “I’m building a website…”, I can finally say:

I built a website! 😂

Have a little look — www.cweducationalservices.com

And please do tell me if you spot anything I've missed… although perhaps give me ten minutes to enjoy the moment first. 😂💜

09/09/2026

A little bit of exciting news from me today! 🎉

I found out yesterday that my work had gone through external verification and I had passed the Professional Development in Dyslexia Awareness, Comprehensive Screening and Targeted Intervention course and now have Specialist Practice Tutor status 🍾🥂

It feels like a lovely milestone after many months of studying alongside teaching — and means I’ll soon be able to add another area of support to CW Educational Services.

And, as if that wasn’t enough excitement for one week, there’s something else I’ve been quietly working on behind the scenes…

👀 A little sneak peek at my new website!

It’s definitely still a work in progress (and I’m learning as I go!), but it’s finally starting to look like the website I had pictured when I started.

There are still pages to write, buttons to make work and probably plenty of things for me to accidentally move around 😂 — but I couldn’t resist sharing a little preview.

Lots of exciting things coming together at CW Educational Services! 💛