Wirral September Employee of the Month – Lorraine Baker

September has been an extraordinary month for our Employee of the Month competition within the Wirral and Cheshire Branch.

New Directions received a remarkable amount of nominations from schools who wanted to praise the teachers and teaching assistants that have been working on long-term or regular bookings through New Directions. The Wirral team remarked that the process ‘was a tough job shortlisting the nominations to determine one winner was extremely difficult. However, after careful consideration we are very pleased to announce that the winner of our September Employee of the Month is Lorraine Baker’.

Lorraine started working at All Saints Upton C of E Primary School in Widnes as a 1:1 Support Teaching Assistant in April 2015 and since then she has always received fantastic feedback. Anita Lawson, class teacher at All Saints nominated Lorraine as she worked closely with her in the last academic year in a Year 4 class. Lorraine joined All Saints to work on a 1:1 basis with a little boy with Autism. The school was very apprehensive initially to recruit someone for the position as the little boy had the same TA previously since he was in reception. However, Anita said that Lorraine and the little boy have taken to each other amazingly well and have created a fantastic bond. The little boy has issues with food so Lorraine gives up her lunch breaks to sit with him to help him eat his lunch. She also does a lot of food play with him to encourage him. Lorraine has also worked very closely with the child’s mum to help support him further. Lorraine always arrives to work early and is very conscientious. She often volunteers to help out with school trips.

Eve Sweeney, Recruitment Consultant at New Directions commented, “I was very proud to be able to present Lorraine with her award for being selected as our September Employee of the Month. Lorraine has received such fantastic feedback from the school and it is apparent that she has fitted into the school remarkably well. I would like to thank Lorraine for all her hard work this last academic year and wish her the best of luck now that she will joining the school as a fully fledged staff member!”

New Directions would also like to take this opportunity to thank all the schools that took part in this months award and also thank all of the candidates who are working incredibly hard and being nominated by many of our schools.