Maria Culley wins national award

Maria Culley wins national award 

Maria Culley from Silsden West Yorkshire has won the Outstanding Student Award by APeducation Online. The APeducation Awards coincided with their 10th Anniversary and was held in London last month.

The Outstanding Student Award is for students who have displayed distinctive leadership and meritorious service to their profession of health, physical education, community, recreation, dance and/or sport.

Maria was shortlisted as one of the final two candidates after showing dedication to the Early Years and Nanny industry while juggling her time working as a Professional Nanny and commuting to and from Yorkshire.

Maria said, “receiving a nomination as Nanny not only came as a surprise, but a real honour. I took the decision to continue my learning as an older student after attending an online conference by Dr Mine Conkbayir. Covid had thrown the world into chaos and with an even more competitive industry, to find work, I knew I needed to keep learning to be the best Professional Nanny I could be.”

Maria has created an online community platform to enable Nannies and Early Years Professionals to find out more about Neuroscience in Early Years, organised book exchanges and ‘coffee and cake’ meetings.

Maria tells us that, “being a nominated was a huge accomplishment but to win a national award as a Nanny has been a Privilege and Honour. I would have never expected to be able to study the NCFE L4 Neuroscience in Early Years Qualification and been able to juggle working but APeducation Online made it possible.”

In her acceptance speech Maria thanked her Dad for his support and repeated the words that were said to her by secondary school teacher that made an such impact:

 'Your future lays before you, like a sheet of down snow, careful how to tred for every step will show' - S Cartmel

The information in this article does not necessarily represent the views of Morton Michel.