Jude Lennon (pictured) and her partner Dom Bryan have combined their skills to launch Little Lamb Phonics and Little Lamb Tales.

With 18 years’ teaching experience behind her, Jude was well equipped to become a freelance storyteller and develop a fun, interactive app to help children learn to read phonetically. Dom's technical knowhow led to him providing the support for the website, the sound track for the app and recording the video.

They attended Liverpool’s Meet A Mentor event in July, one of the many fringe events during the International Festival for Business 2014 (IFB), and connected with a mentor from Blue Orchid who has helped move their business to the next step. We caught up with Jude to ask about the advantages of working with those you love and the support Little Lamb Publishing has accessed via its mentor.

Jude began by telling us a bit about her inspiration for leaving mainstream teaching and starting Little Lamb Publishing, which provides all sorts of resources and activities to further children’s listening, speaking and reading:

“As much as I loved teaching I felt education was losing sight of who we were in it for – i.e. the children. I wanted to focus on actually working with the children, rather than filling out forms and ticking boxes.”

For Jude, one of the benefits of working with her partner is the ease that comes with familiarity:

“Because we know each other so well, if we’re having a bit of stress moment it doesn’t get taken to heart like it can with work colleagues. Also, we always know that we’re there to help each other. The business is ours so obviously it’s in our interest to make it work. We’re working together to an end purpose.”

Jude, who attended many of the Festival's events, said she found the Meet A Mentor event to be the most beneficial to her new business. Working with her mentor has helped her and Bryan look at the business from a fresh perspective:

“I look at networking in a slightly different way now. Having been in education for so long I looked at networking with fear but now I see it as an opportunity. That’s been a key message. Just knowing there’s help out there if you know who to ask. You might think at first that a person wouldn’t be of interest to you, or you to them, but when you scratch the surface there’s a link.”

As someone working in a ‘family business’, Jude recognises that having a dedicated mentoring relationship with an external organisation can provide vital insight:

“It depends on each individual business but for us it works because although we have a very supportive relationship, we’re not from a business background. You can sometimes get a bit too insular. You’re so busy looking at one detail and someone can come along and say ‘Why are you so focused on that? Just look at this!’ And the problem’s resolved. Then you’re like ‘Oh! Why didn’t we think of that?’”

Jude and Dom have ambitions to secure further funding for Little Lamb Publishing. They hope to develop the app to encompass a second series of phonetic sounds and push the storytelling element to the next level. Contacts they’ve made through their mentor could certainly play a part in these plans:

“We’re now working closely with Blue Orchid – they’ve been really, really helpful. They’re very supportive and have helped us make some other contacts.”

The business is always keen to hear from teachers, headteachers, school governors and other professionals connected to primary education. If you’d like to find out more about what they do, visit www.littlelambpublishing.co.uk