Meet the team

Cimone Brown

Cimone has over 15 years experience in primary education, starting her teaching career here in Hackney. As a teacher, she has held a variety of senior leadership roles including EYFS Lead and SENCO before becoming Head of School within a high achieving MAT. Alongside this responsibility, Cimone facilitated EYFS networking and supported other schools within the Trust to improve early years provision and prepare for OFSTED inspection. She also has experience of opening successful school-based nursery provisions.

Cimone led the Early Support Team within the Hackney Integrated Service prior to taking up post leading the Early Years team. Her areas of expertise are SEND, inclusive practice (including diverse curriculum design), early reading and fostering positive relationships/interactions in the Early Years.

Caroline Hart

Caroline has been an Early Years Consultant in Hackney since 2009. She has a degree and Postgraduate Certificate in Education and previously worked in an infant school and children's centres across Hackney, whilst completing the NPQICL qualification.

Caroline has been responsible for developing, implementing and evaluating a number of successful, borough-wide programs. Her work includes the integrated two year developmental review, commended following SEND and CQC inspections; the highly successful ‘Eat Better Start Better in Hackney’ nutrition program; and the ‘Happy, Healthy and Ready to Learn’ training program, which received an ‘Innovation in Training Award’ from NHS London. Caroline's work demonstrates the value of collaborating with education leads, health visitors, dietitians and public health professionals to improve children’s outcomes and reduce inequalities, as well as the importance of early intervention. She is committed to lifelong learning and recently achieved an MSc in Population Health at UCL.

Penelope Rodrigues

Penny has worked as an Early Years Education Consultant in Hackney Education for 14 years. She has a wealth of experience working as a primary school teacher for over 20 years across age ranges, specialising in early years and emotional development of young children. 

Her area of particular interest lies in supporting wellbeing and sharing positive behaviour strategies for parents and staff working with children under five. Other areas of expertise include the Solihull Approach, of which she is a qualified trainer; social and emotional development in Early years and infant mental health; and communication language and literacy, including the teaching of phonics.

Hannah Avis

Hannah joined Hackney Education as an Early Years Consultant in May 2024. Prior to that, she gained over 11 years of experience working as a teacher (specialising in the EYFS) in a wide range of infant and primary schools. At her most recent setting, an ‘Outstanding’ primary school in Camden and a member of the North London Alliance Research School, Hannah worked as the Early Years Lead and also carried out Systems Leadership roles in both Oracy and STEAM.

After leaving the classroom in 2022, Hannah used her specialist knowledge of the early years sector to undertake independent consultancy work. She collaborated with a range of education-based clients including early years organisations, a local authority and an education charity whilst also carrying out advisory work and leading CPD for individual early years settings.

Hannah is passionate about putting communication and language at the heart of early year practice and therefore specialises in supporting practitioners to develop high-quality interactions, implement a language-rich curriculum and to transform their learning environment into one buzzing with talk!