I came up through the classroom before I built products — a GCSE and A-Level maths teacher at Burnt Mill Academy in Harlow, on a TeachFirst placement from 2016 to 2018. The hardest thing I’ve done, and where I learned to operate. The teaching muscle never left.
Why this CV is also relevant to anyone hiring an operator who has held a room. Two years, one placement, the hardest job I’ve had — here’s what transferred.
Knowing where your understanding of a topic differs from the student's — and reasoning across that gap — is the same skill that lets me brief engineers as a non-engineer and investors as a non-investor.
Holding a Year 10 bottom set on a Friday afternoon is a particular kind of performance discipline. Everything since has had a lower difficulty floor.
Lesson structure — do-now, modelling, independent practice, plenary — is what makes a classroom function. The same shape underwrites a startup operating system, a code-review process, a meeting agenda.
Operator stamina starts here. So does the willingness to do the unglamorous part of the job rather than perform around it.
Two years in front of GCSE and A-Level classes taught me the difference between a lesson that lands and one that’s forgotten by Monday. These are the principles I’d bring to any room now — a classroom, a code review, an investor update.
Find the misconception, then teach the correction. Don't re-teach what's already known.
Worked examples beat explanation; modelling out loud beats both. The diagram earns the words.
Spaced retrieval over re-reading. The effort of recall is where the learning actually happens.
A student who can apply a concept in a non-routine context has really got it. Routine practice flatters everyone.
The biggest determinant of A-Level outcomes is whether a student will be wrong in front of you. Build that before technique.
Two years of GCSE foundation and higher tier plus A-Level maths in a mixed-intake comprehensive, PGCE completed alongside the placement.
Burnt Mill Academy, Harlow, 2016–2018, is the throughline — the placement that the rest of the operating career is built on.
Someone who has actually marked the books and held the room, not just modelled the market — useful when the product has to survive contact with a real lesson.
GCSE or A-Level maths help from someone who taught both tiers, diagnostic-first and patient with the gap between confidence and competence.
Straight talk: this page leads with the narrative, not the numbers. Class-level exam-result deltas, observation feedback, and progress data are still in my TeachFirst archive — once I surface them, they lead. I’d rather flag the gap than paper over it.
A school role, an edtech problem, GCSE or A-Level tutoring, or just comparing notes on pedagogy — the teaching never really stopped, and I’d love to hear from you.
I came up through the classroom before I built products — a GCSE and A-Level maths teacher at Burnt Mill Academy in Harlow, on a TeachFirst placement from 2016 to 2018. The hardest thing I’ve done, and where I learned to operate. The teaching muscle never left.
Why this CV is also relevant to anyone hiring an operator who has held a room. Two years, one placement, the hardest job I’ve had — here’s what transferred.
Knowing where your understanding of a topic differs from the student's — and reasoning across that gap — is the same skill that lets me brief engineers as a non-engineer and investors as a non-investor.
Holding a Year 10 bottom set on a Friday afternoon is a particular kind of performance discipline. Everything since has had a lower difficulty floor.
Lesson structure — do-now, modelling, independent practice, plenary — is what makes a classroom function. The same shape underwrites a startup operating system, a code-review process, a meeting agenda.
Operator stamina starts here. So does the willingness to do the unglamorous part of the job rather than perform around it.
Two years in front of GCSE and A-Level classes taught me the difference between a lesson that lands and one that’s forgotten by Monday. These are the principles I’d bring to any room now — a classroom, a code review, an investor update.
Find the misconception, then teach the correction. Don't re-teach what's already known.
Worked examples beat explanation; modelling out loud beats both. The diagram earns the words.
Spaced retrieval over re-reading. The effort of recall is where the learning actually happens.
A student who can apply a concept in a non-routine context has really got it. Routine practice flatters everyone.
The biggest determinant of A-Level outcomes is whether a student will be wrong in front of you. Build that before technique.
Two years of GCSE foundation and higher tier plus A-Level maths in a mixed-intake comprehensive, PGCE completed alongside the placement.
Burnt Mill Academy, Harlow, 2016–2018, is the throughline — the placement that the rest of the operating career is built on.
Someone who has actually marked the books and held the room, not just modelled the market — useful when the product has to survive contact with a real lesson.
GCSE or A-Level maths help from someone who taught both tiers, diagnostic-first and patient with the gap between confidence and competence.
Straight talk: this page leads with the narrative, not the numbers. Class-level exam-result deltas, observation feedback, and progress data are still in my TeachFirst archive — once I surface them, they lead. I’d rather flag the gap than paper over it.
A school role, an edtech problem, GCSE or A-Level tutoring, or just comparing notes on pedagogy — the teaching never really stopped, and I’d love to hear from you.