North teacher is honoured for work
A talented teacher who has devoted her life to bringing education to brain-damaged children has won a prestigious international award.
Caroline Coles was presented with an honorary degree from the world-famous Peto Institute in Hungary for her work educating children and adults with special needs.
Caroline, 45, who grew up in Whitley Bay, has spent the last 27 years training and teaching to become one of the top education specialists in the country.
She was presented with the degree at a ceremony in Budapest for her work with Conductive Education - a system which helps brain-damaged people retrain their minds and bodies through learning.
The technique was developed by Andras Peto from 1945. He believed that, despite the damage caused to the brain, new neural connections could be formed with the right stimulus.
Caroline has been at the forefront of developing the technique after originally training as a teacher for deaf children after leaving the North East. She now lives in Cheshire with her husband Robert.
She is currently helping the department of education develop new strategies to make schools more switched on to the individual needs of all children.
Caroline said: "It was a great honour for me to be given this award. I thoroughly enjoy the work I do and I'm thrilled to have been recognised with such distinction. I even received a letter from the Prime Minister of Hungary thanking me for the work I do which was amazing.
"The aim of Conductive Education is to support and integrate children and adults into mainstream life - whether that be schooling, sport or everyday life skills."
The issue is close to home for Caroline, whose own sister, Dorothy, who still lives in Whitley Bay, was born with Downs' syndrome. Caroline is the first British person ever to awarded an honorary degree from the Peto Institute.
Caroline is also the sister of former Pubmaster executive chairman John Sands who announced this week is set to join brewer Jennings Brothers as a non-executive director.
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