When I finished my degree and PGCE, as I left Sheffield University in the early nineties there was just one thing on my mind: to teach young people from homes where education matters a lot. I started my teaching career at a good comprehensive school in St Albans, Hertfordshire. I then moved on to teach at a Grammar School in Marlow, Buckinghamshire and then taught mainly in independent (private) schools for most of my mainstream teaching career.

I grew up with African parents, for whom being a millionaire is less important than having a degree. I was very fortunate that, as a teacher I taught hundreds of high achievers, many of whom were very bright, and for some their high achievement had to do more with nurture than nature. There were two conclusions that I drew and which made me leave mainstream teaching and set up a private tuition company, and they are as follows:

1. High expectation is the most powerful requirement to bring out the best in children. Provided it is backed up with the right level of nurture, the child will grow to become a high achiever
2. Schools could do a lot better in getting the most out of their students. There are some very good schools, who try their best, but, in most schools, it is more about ticking boxes than transforming young people’s lives. There are many so-called good schools, and sadly too many of them are very patronising to parents.

Since I set up performance-boosting courses for teenagers from aspirational homes in 2004, we have been very fortunate to have assisted several thousands of young people to achieve the top exam grades at GCSE and A-level. Many have gone onto top universities, including Cambridge, Imperial College, Warwick, Kings College, Bristol, Nottingham and so on.

Two key elements behind the success our students have achieved are:

1. A rigorous teaching programme, led by competent and enthusiastic teachers, who are genuinely interested in their students’ progress
2. The trust parents place in us and the support they provide have helped us to bring out the best in their teenagers.

I am so blessed to be working with teachers of very high calibre, some of whom top private schools would be proud to have. I’m speaking about the crème de la crème of the teaching profession. The courses we provide are on Saturdays, and some during school holidays, but those are just features. It is the way the programmes are run and the expert teachers that are the main game changers!

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