Margaret first got involved with the parent teacher body in the late 1970’s when her children were in nursery school in ILEA. She has worked ever since promoting parental involvement in schools, first in London and later in Dorset, travelling as far as Poland with the British Council to support Polish parents on a Know How Scheme.

By 1990 she extended her work nationally to government and all policy making groups through the NCPTA. Dubbed “Neanderthal” by John Paton the then Secretary of State for Education, the voice of parents began to be a force to be reckoned with. Margaret embarked on an extensive round of conferences and keynote speeches explaining the need to include parents in the process of children’s learning and promoting parents and teachers in partnership. She secured a seat for parents on all SCAA Key Stage review committees after doing a “Joanna Lumley” and ambushing Sir Ron Dearing into agreement. Another first was to be the first speaker for parents at the 1995 North of England Education Conference.  She applied for and became one of the initial OFSTED Lay Inspectors and worked in hundreds of schools speaking to parents and listening to their problems until Lay Inspectors were abolished and parents lost a place in the inspection process. 

She was Editor of Home School Magazine published by Hobson Press for 10 years inviting a wide range of educationalists to engage with parents and share their views by writing in the magazine.  Was a founder member of the DCSF Working Group for School Security founded after the death of Philip Lawrence and continues to work today. She was well known to David Blunket when he embarked on his mission for Social Inclusion and fought long and hard with Ruth Kelly to bring CRB checks and list 99 into being.

Margaret now has daily care of five of her seven grandchildren one in private education, one in reception, one in pre-school and one in occasional nursery and compares their education with that of her own children; working closely with today’s young parents.  She is Chairman of a PTA and recently a school governor. One of her concerns is the increasingly young age we are putting our children into education and so eroding the time when children can be children. Some would argue learning through play is good: Margaret agrees but not structured play with a curriculum and tests.  She has many concerns related to the way we now approach bullying in schools whilst recognising the distress for children and parents bullying causes she fears to many companies are thriving on so called “anti bullying” projects and we are missing the real issues.