Growing up about three miles from the Nottingham Forest ground (When they were a really good team – the best in Europe for a while!), I really wanted to be a footballer when I grew up. However, I was probably a better musician than a sportsman which, at the comprehensive school I went to, didn’t earn you quite as much kudos as the sport might have done. I did go on to play football for Oxford and Cambridge, and even won a Boxing Half Blue while doing my teacher training, and I am so happy to be able to watch school sport most Saturday afternoons now. The only other achievement of note from university was that I won the Oxford University Practical Organic Chemistry prize in my first year. I didn’t know much chemistry but I could cook; something I still enjoy to this day! 

Following my PGCE in Mathematics with Games, I started my teaching in the maintained sector in Bishop’s Stortford but soon moved to the independent sector when it became clear to me, even way back then, that this change would allow me the chance to do so much more than “just teach”. The opportunity to coach games, play in orchestras, even to appear in school musicals, were all motivations behind my change of sectors. A change that I have never regretted.

My family, four amazing young men who will all be OCs, and my wife, Sally, have moved about a fair bit. From Fettes College in Edinburgh, we moved to Lancing College near Brighton, and have now been in beautiful Bristol for almost ten years. I remain passionate about holistic education where exam results are important, but not the most important part of a young person’s education. I still love sport and music and I am intent on doing what I can to make a Collegiate education as accessible to as many local families as we can. The OC Society have been key in this work and I look forward to doing even more to find funds to support local girls and boys who would benefit from attending this amazing school.