As a classroom teacher of 18 years at the chalk-face, I have seen many changes in schools and colleges. As with all changes, some have been needed, and others not so much. However, the common thread throughout the years which has remained the main barrier to a better education for all, is simply funding and real-term cuts. Class size is one of the biggest impediments facing student progress, particularly in higher-attaining sets. Having regularly delivered a very rigid mathematics curriculum to often upwards of 30+ students, I have faced many challenges, the greatest of which is trying to stretch the top end whilst desperately trying to support those who are going under. A top mathematics set will typically have a 5-grade difference across its ability spectrum by year 11, which should be the expected progress from year 7 through to year 11. With no classroom support, which is becoming even less accessible with further cuts, it is quite simply an unrealistic expectation of all teachers to effectively cater for all abilities and close this gap, and ultimately the ones that suffer are the students. The current model does not facilitate the time and support to revisit topics in the required detail, and students are at the sharp end of the treadmill to deliver the course content within the time restraints, and to the numbers which woefully poor budgets allow.

Recent educational reform is beginning to filter down from above in an attempt to “raise” the attainment of students by focusing strategies on closing the gap. The gap is likely to close, but by reducing the attainment of the brightest students, while focusing on increasing low-end passes to massage school figures. With new rigorous, restrictive teaching policies in place, teachers have little or no autonomy to deliver their lessons their way. Schools now play to the middle ground masses, producing mediocrity which will leave the top-end students fending for themselves. Lost is the inspiration truly exceptional teachers can provide to raise mathematics above its stigma as a core subject that needs to be endured. My experience in secondary school shines with the memories of mathematics and physics teachers lighting the fire of curiosity within me, which ultimately inspired me to pursue the STEM pathway. Sadly, the reason I left the classroom, a place where I inspired the next generation of free-thinking, intuitive mathematicians and scientists, was the strict lesson recipes enforced upon all teaching staff by management, regardless of their experience and results.

Lessons no longer cater for the curious and gifted and instead, stale, booklet-based rote learning with non-negotiable silent robotic practices has taken the place of lively engagement. Scripted mantras echo down the eerily silent corridors from every classroom, sinister, cult-like chants designed to pacify the collective. This is the dystopian solution to the recruitment and retention crisis facing secondary education, taking away the need for new graduates to think, and instead delivering off-the-shelf one-size-fits-all lessons factory-produced by non-specialist management. Ostensibly labeled as labour-saving, planning lessons for teachers frees up time so that more data entry and other “empty tasks” fill their days. This new paradigm will stifle creativity and allow schools to employ, at best, mediocre graduates to fill the yawning shortfall of talented recruits. It is my ambition to enable the very brightest students to continue to shine and excel outside these suffocating restraints by providing the expertise and inspiration they truly deserve. This is why I have bravely struck out and created the Advanced STEM Tuition platform. 

Welcome to creative learning!