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For families and childrenSomeone in your corner, and in theirs
Assessment, exam access arrangements, parent coaching and school advocacy for children, young people, and the adults who love them. Including help choosing a school if you are new to Dubai, or setting things up at home if school is not the answer right now.
Bright child, and yet school is a struggle
Parents rarely arrive with a diagnosis. They arrive with a feeling that something is not lining up, and a list of things they've noticed and observations gathered along the way. These are the signals worth taking seriously.
- Reads the words accurately and cannot tell you what happened in the story
- Talks with enormous vocabulary and writes three reluctant sentences
- Cannot get started, then cannot stop
- Handwriting is slow or painful, and homework takes three times as long as it should
- Loses the thread while copying from the board
- Comes home from school with nothing left, and it all arrives at once at the door
- Enormous knowledge about one subject, and a flat refusal to engage with the rest
- Test results that do not match the child you know
How I work with families
Assessment
A full cognitive, literacy and numeracy assessment producing a report in language you can read. It sets out how your child learns and what needs to change around them.
Exam access arrangements
Evidence and reporting for extra time, a reader, a scribe, a laptop, modified papers or rest breaks. Prepared to the standards examination boards require.
Parent coaching
Strategies for homework, mornings, transitions, meltdowns and sibling dynamics. Practical, supportive, specific to your household, and free of blame in either direction.
School liaison and advocacy
I can attend meetings with you and translate what is being said. Twenty years in education means I know what to ask for, how to ask and how to get the best support in place.
Coaching for young people
Sessions with the young person themselves, from around age eleven upward. Organisation, revision, confidence, self-advocacy and language for explaining their own brain to adults.
Transition support
Moving school, moving country, moving to secondary school, moving into sixth form or university. The points where support most often falls away are the points where it matters most.
Moving to Dubai
Choosing a school that will suit your child is very important. I know what different schools and the inclusion departments here can actually provide, what you need to establish before you commit, which questions need to be asked and how to get support agreed before day one. Day 1 is important, let's make sure we get it right.
Setting up home schooling
If school is not the right answer for now, I can help you and your child build the structure around learning at home, regardless of the home learning programme you choose. Routines, timetables, how to access curriculum and resources, and how to stay on top of deadlines without it taking over the house.
Choosing a school, or home schooling
Arriving here with a neurodivergent child means choosing a school under time pressure, usually from another country, on very little real information. And if school turns out not to be the right fit, the alternative can look overwhelming from the outside.
Both of those have a page of their own, with the questions to ask, what to get in writing, and when to start.
- A shortlist matched to how your child learns
- The seven things to establish before you enrol
- Support agreed before you enrol
- Home learning structure, if that is the answer
- All of it can happen before you arrive
What happens next
We talk first
A free call with you, without your child present, so you can say everything you want to say. I will tell you whether assessment is the right next step or whether something simpler will do.
The assessment
Your child works with me for two to three hours, with breaks. It is designed to feel like puzzles rather than tests. Most children enjoy it, and I tell them honestly what we are doing and why.
Findings and a plan
A feedback session for you, an age-appropriate version for your child, and a written report for school. Then we agree what happens at home, in class, and in exams.
A word about the label
Some families want a formal identification. Some want to know what is going on without one. Both are legitimate, and an assessment is useful either way, because the recommendations come from the individual profile rather than from the name attached to it.
Every report I write describes your child as a capable person, because that is what they are. They are a particular kind of thinker who has been asked to work in a system built for a different kind, and that is a solvable situation.
Your child will hear the findings too
Children work out very early that something is different, and in the absence of an explanation they usually decide the difference is a flaw in them. A clear, kind account of how their own mind works is often the single most valuable part of the whole process.
Questions parents ask
No. A great many neurodivergent people have no formal identification, and an assessment is often the first step toward understanding rather than something that comes after one. The recommendations I make come from the profile itself, so they are useful whether or not a label is ever attached.
Children from around age six, young people, and adults of any age. For children under six I will usually point you toward an early years specialist instead, and I am happy to suggest names.
Two to three hours of direct work, with breaks whenever they are wanted. Add a short call beforehand, a feedback session afterwards, and around two weeks for the written report to reach you.
Yes. I hold BPS Registered Test User status through obtaining the CPT3A qualification, which is a Level 7 qualification equivalent to a master's degree or postgraduate diploma. This is the qualification required for preparing psychometric assessment reports that support exam access arrangements. It allows me to conduct, evaluate, write and submit psychometric assessment tests and reports which are accepted by examination boards and accepted by schools.
Depending on the profile, these can include extra time, use of a reader or reading software, a scribe, word processing, a prompter, modified papers such as different colour or font size, and supervised rest breaks. The assessment establishes which are justified by the evidence.
Both. Coaching, consultancy and corporate training work well online and I have clients across several time zones. Some formal assessments are better carried out in person, and I will tell you at the outset which applies in your case.
Nikki Mitchell LLC is registered in the UAE. In-person work takes place across the UAE, and online work goes anywhere.
Individual assessment and coaching are charged at fixed published rates, which I will send you in writing before anything is booked. Corporate work is quoted per engagement, because the scope varies enormously. The first conversation costs nothing in every case.
Assessment data is held under UK GDPR standards. Nothing is shared with a school, an employer or anyone else without your written consent, and you can ask for your data to be deleted at any point. Reports belong to you.
Yes. School liaison and advocacy is part of the family service. I can attend in person in the UAE or join online, translate what is being said, and follow up on what was agreed.
Initial conversations are usually available within a week. Assessment appointments depend on the time of year. If you are working toward a deadline, say so in your first message.
I fit around your week, not the other way round
Assessment, coaching and follow-up sessions can all take place at your child's school in Dubai, during the school day. That means nothing extra for you to find time for, and no appointment sitting at the end of an already long day.
For a lot of neurodivergent students, being in a familiar room with a person sitting opposite them makes learning and engagement far easier than a screen does. Face to face is often the difference between a session that lands and one that is simply got through.
I arrange the timetable directly with the school, so there is nothing for you to organise.
- Delivered at the school, anywhere in Dubai
- Scheduled inside the school day
- No evening appointments and no weekend traffic
- Nothing extra to fit around work or siblings
- Your child stays in a setting they already know
- Arranged with the school directly, not through you
Start with a free conversation
Tell me what you are seeing at home and at school. No assessment, no commitment, no cost.