Teach Middle East Podcast

Rethinking School For The Students Who Don’t Fit with Hugh Viney

• Teach Middle East • Season 6 • Episode 7

Share episode

Send us a text

We explore how a flexible online and hybrid model supports anxious and neurodivergent learners, elite athletes, and mobile families, while helping schools expand subject options without new hires. Hugh Viney shares a student’s journey from school refusal to Oxford and outlines a GCC hub for trips, meetups, and community.

• Why some students thrive outside traditional classrooms
• Asynchronous and live teaching blend that boosts engagement
• Mentoring, community, clubs, trips, and regional meetups
• Attendance gains for emotionally based school avoidance
• Practical signs leaders can spot for alternative pathways
• Neurodivergent-friendly structure, breaks, sensory control
• Screen time addressed through fewer live lessons and routines
• Hybrid solutions to add GCSEs and A levels cost-effectively
• New models for sixth form and rescuing closing schools
• Teacher recruitment, standards, and flexible contracts
• GCC time zone launch and growth roadmap

Connect with Hugh: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hugh-viney/

Teach Middle East Magazine is the premier platform for educators and the entire education sector in the Middle East and beyond. Our vision is to equip educators with the materials and tools they need to function optimally in and out of the classroom. We provide a space for educators to connect and find inspiration, resources, and forums to enhance their teaching techniques, methodologies, and personal development. We connect education suppliers and service providers to the people who make the buying decisions in schools.

Visit our website https://linktr.ee/teachmiddleeast.

Tweet us: https://twitter.com/teachmiddleeast

Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/teachmiddleeast/.

Hosted by Leisa Grace Wilson

Connect with Leisa Grace:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/leisagrace

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leisagrace/

SPEAKER_00:

You are listening to the Teach Middle East podcast. Connecting, developing, and empowering educators.

SPEAKER_02:

Hey everyone, Lisa Grace here, and this is the 5th, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10th episode of season six of the Teach Middle East podcast. And it is my pleasure to welcome Hugh Viney. He is the founder and CEO of Minerva Virtual Academy. And we're going to be talking online schooling. But we're not talking about it in the way that it opposes your actual school. So don't turn off the podcast. We are here to help. Welcome, Hugh.

SPEAKER_01:

We are here to help. Welcome. Thank you for having me, Lisa. Sorry. I don't know why I just welcomed you. Uh it's been a busy morning already. But yeah, we're here to help. It's all about the children first. It's not about changing things that exist already. It's not about physical traditional schools having to change what they do. We're just all about what's right for the child. And there's sometimes one or two kids that don't suit traditional school, right? That just doesn't suit them. So an alternative might be better for them. That's all we're here to say.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, and I love that because I am a former school leader, led large schools here, and I know that when people hear online schooling, all they think of is oh, these people want to stop traditional schools and they just want to have kids sat in front of a laptop and that's it. But that's not it, is it, Hugh?

SPEAKER_01:

No, it's not. I mean, many of our families choose us because they get to be outside more than in a mainstream school. They get to be moving around more because the way we do online schooling is it's just a bit more efficient. You require fewer lessons, so you can do a couple of hours of lessons and get the same impact as five hours of lessons in a mainstream school and put your laptop down and be outside. And that's what a lot of families choose us for. And I know some teachers find that just bonkers, but we'll get into that, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, we will. But let's go back a bit. Who are you and why online schooling? What's this journey you're on?

SPEAKER_01:

Um, good question, and one I should have expected. Look, a lot of people ask me, yeah, you must be of a teacher background. And you know, did you teach or you were you in schools? And I said, Well, I think it's good that I wasn't. I came at this as a homeschooling expert. So my background was I ran a tutoring business called Minerva Tutors. And before COVID, our growing service was not just tutoring, but it was homeschooling. So I had six years of seeing the needs of families who don't suit mainstream school and the needs of children that don't suit mainstream school. And we were provided them with homeschooling services. Now, homeschooling with tutors, though, is expensive. It's like, you know, you've got a team of five tutors, one-on-one, you know, it can be you know really, really expensive. Like expensive private school, right? So in 2020, in COVID, when most families around the world were having a miserable time in lockdown, there were some families who were having an amazing time. And not an amazing time um because, you know, they were on a desert island or something and they'd escaped the the city. Amazing time because their child was happy for the first time in years. These families were going, hang on, why is my child so happy that they're normally so miserable going to school? And these children were happy for different reasons. Children with mental health needs, for whom traditional school at worst makes them ill, but at best doesn't engage them. They were happy because working from home was better for their anxiety. Working from home made them relax more, meaning they could concentrate more, meaning they could engage, meaning they could learn more. So these were happy kids in COVID. And there was another group of kids, the neurodivergent group, who are miserable going to school often. At best, school doesn't work for them, they find it hard to learn. They were happy and learning and engaging because they were online. So they could focus more and not be distracted by a noisy, busy classroom with 20 other kids in it or 30 other kids. And these parents were going, hang on a minute, you're what you're learning more and you're happier because you're not at traditional education, you're not in traditional school. So those parents thought, hang on a minute, when COVID finishes, when lockdown ends, I don't want to send them back to the mainstream. Yeah, their older brother, oh wow, he was desperate to get back to school, but he suits physical school. Their younger sister, yes, she's desperate to get back in because she loves drama, she's an extrovert. But yeah, that child, and you know, I'm using examples there flippantly. There was a case, there were some children, and I called it it's a minority for sure, an absolute minority, but it's a significant minority. You know, arguably 20% of kids, and they flourished in the lockdown experience. They flourished in their education for the reasons I've described and more. So some parents were going, hang on a minute, I want something else. I don't want to send them back to mainstream education, and they were Googling homeschooling, our company would come up, they'd call, and then and the same problem persisted. We're very expensive. One-to-one homeschooling is expensive. So I thought in 2020, I'm going to come up with a cool idea. I'm going to create an affordable homeschooling solution. And it's going to be a school called Minerva Virtual Academy, where most of the learning's online, most of the learning's flexible, although they'll have some real teachers too. Every child will get a mentor once a week, one-on-one, and we will have community from day one. We will have assemblies, we will have after school clubs, and we will have school trips. And that was unique for an online school. So that was my idea in the summer of 2020. Finished the business plan in September 2020, October, created a website, paid for some Google ads where we captured the keywords online school and homeschool. And we got, you know, 40 phone calls and uh four parents paid. They signed up, they, they, they, they joined our school. So in a four-week trial, we ran in November, December 2020, four families had paid up till the end of June. Why? How? I'll tell you, I'll get that in a second. And 10 families signed up for free as a trial. Four-week trial went really well. And in January 2021, we officially launched with 10 students at the school. And then fast forward to now 1,200 students at the school, full-time, uh, year seven to year 13, fastest growing school in the UK. And um we this last week launched our UAE GCC MVA family community. And uh, I can't wait to tell you about that too.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, it's amazing how sometimes you're on a path because you're on that path of tutoring online, and then another path opens up for you to serve even a wider community. Want to ask you something. When COVID happened and there were so many inquiries, what did that tell you about traditional schooling?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, this is it. What and the same thing, how did four families pay 5,000 pounds or whatever it was back then to join my school, which was a brand new concept that hadn't existed until the like as runners of school until the Monday they joined, those four kids. Why on earth would they do that? Like, okay, one, they saw that we'd come from a tutoring business with some credentials for sure, experience in homeschooling. But I think the main reason is desperation. These families did not want to go back to mainstream education. The idea was awful. So anything would be better, including my weird little, you know, idea. Like that was better than going back to their bricks and mortar school. And those four founding students, those four kids that joined us, those four families, they represent the four categories of kids we have now, which is fascinating. Now we have 1200 kids. Those four uh remained. A child, the first four, a child with a mental health need, school made her very anxious and she couldn't go to school. A child with neurodivergent needs, school was too noisy, too loud, too chaotic for them, so they couldn't concentrate at school. So online was perfect for them. One was an elite athlete, so school, you know, doesn't work because they're training so much. They need a school that fits around their training schedule, like ours. And one was a lifestyle family, a family that moved around a lot, a family that didn't want the constraints of traditional education. And funny enough, those four kids represent the four categories of families we have now at NVA, even though we've grown to 1200. And I want to tell you a great story about the child with anxiety. And this is, I think, something your audience need to listen to because it's an important part of our model. May, her name was our first ever student, she came to us with her mental health needs, anxiety. She couldn't go to school, school didn't know what to do. So she her parents found us. She came to us for two years, year 10 and 11. She got nine GCSEs, you know, eights and nines with us, and her confidence was restored. She'd made friends, she got grades, and she returned to physical school for sixth form. She returned to physical school for sixth form because she felt better, she felt more confident, and she had the grades. She went on to get four A's at A level at her physical school and went to Oxford to read classics. And Lisa, you want to hear something cool? That was my first ever MVA student. Many, many moons ago, Oxford rejected me for classics. So here we are. Here we are. One of my students, my first ever student, you know, the full circle moment. You know, our first ever didn't come, you know, she did two years of GCSEs with us. I just want to caveat that, you know, and remind people. But that that was seminal for her like well-being. It was seminal for her growing up. It was an important two years so she could feel right again, go back to physical school, flourish in sixth form, off to Oxford, did better than I ever did.

SPEAKER_02:

You know what? It's important to talk to our audience because they are the leaders, and they're seeing these students who may have anxiety or other mental illness. Yeah, and they need to make recommendations to parents because parents are looking to them for guidance.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

How do they identify those students? Like, what are we looking for? I know you're not a psychologist or anything, but from your experience, what are they looking for?

SPEAKER_01:

I could tell you about it, you know, with lived experience. 200 of our students out of 1200 now have come to us from schools, physical schools, sending them to us, independent schools, state schools, international schools, and local authorities in the UK. So how have we got here? You know, that wasn't what happened at the start four years ago. How have we got how have we got to the point where schools are calling us, often the deputy head, you know, Hugh, we've got a kid for you. No, it's not me anymore. They call it's, you know, they call our head of EHCPs or ICP a coordinator or head of admissions or we've got someone in charge of school partnerships, and they say, look, we've got a child for you. Often the category is either their neurodivergent needs or mental health needs. Those are often the category. How do we get to that point? Well, we started off, Lisa. This is amazing. But um, a lot of my teachers from my school, I went to an independent school in the UK. A lot of my teachers are now head teachers. It's really cool. They're now heads of like top UK schools, and they knew what I was doing with MVA. So in the first few years, they would just pick up the phone and say, Hugh, I've got a kid for you. Yeah. Um, that's grown to, like I said, they're sort of, you know, working with about 80 schools now across the UK and some and some international schools who are sending as kids. We have a good relationship with all of them. I'm just like setting the scene. It's really natural for us. This is happening. We are getting referrals from schools, school leaders all the time. It started off with my old teachers who are now heads, and now it's a bit more sophisticated. But why? What are they spotting? That's that was your main question. Well, they're seeing a child struggling to attend school. This is obvious. So when they're avoiding school, having emotionally based school avoidance, EBSA, or you might not call it that out in the Middle East, but they are missing school. That's an obvious sign. That's so obvious. They're not attending, their attendance has dropped below 80%. That's a time to think it's not the parents' fault. That's what I want to say. And it's not the school's fault, it's not the teacher's fault, it's the system. It's the system. These kids do not suit the system. It's not the head teacher's fault, it's not the school's fault, and it's not the parents' fault. That's the kind of attendance piece. I think that's obvious. They're missing school, give us a call. And guess what? Their attendance goes to 97% when they're with us. We have those stats now. We have the proof. The others might be the less obvious children are retreating into their shell. Sure, they're turning up every day, but like their grades have dropped off. That's an obvious one. They're not socializing enough, they're avoiding groups, and you think, well, online school, they're not gonna they're gonna socialize even less, and it's just not true. You watch any of our videos of our students, they talk about how they had no friends at their physical school, and at MVA, some of these mental health needs students, they've got dozens of friends now, dozens, all across the world in the UK. Don't so don't tell me that physical school was better for their socializing. They were bullied, they had no friends, and now they have dozens and dozens of friends at the online school and they meet them on the school trips. So I think a really good school leader can spot that. There's there's something up there, and it's not fair to punish these kids every day who are miserable when they've got no friends at your school or they're being bullied. And then the neurodivergent students, these are fascinating when I interview them at our school trips and stuff. They're like, Yeah, I had no friends in my previous school, and an MVA, I've got two, and that's all I need, you know. And they're neurodivergent kids, they don't need dozens of friends, they didn't need it, but they've got their two best mates who are just like them. They're just like them. And an online school like ours, they they you arrive and then you the kids go, I see you, I see you, and they just like relax because oh my god, I'm being seen. Because that traditional school I was at before, there weren't kids like me. And at MVA, there's loads of kids just like you. So those are two really good examples, and there's plenty more.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. And I also wanted to talk about the fact that when you have neurodivergent kids and you have such rigid structures of traditional schools, it is hard for them to take a break, to take a minute, because the bell goes bam, bam, bam, and you have to move with it. And so I wanted to find out from you how do you structure your online school so that neurodivergent kids can flourish by having the breaks, but still have the structure?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, of course. One headline is that these kids can go to the bathroom when they want. And do you know how like transformative that is for a neurodivergent student? It's like a game changer. That was not in my business plan. They're get more bathroom breaks, so therefore they will flourish. It wasn't. But my God, like they talk about that a lot. Do you know what they also say? They say, I get to have lunch at home with my mum's cooking. Do you know how much that relaxes them? Like, they're not getting anxious about what they might eat and what they can't eat, like getting to eat at home. So they talk about that. They say, Yeah, the fact I get to eat at home means I can concentrate better on my work. There's that's bathroom breaks and lunches, and I just never thought that would be the thing. That, but it is, it's often what they say, empowers them and makes them concentrate, makes them think better. And then there's the more obvious stuff. Um, and lots of neurodivergent kids, not all, find the classroom busy and distracting, noisy, smelly, like online, concentrate, focus, engage. And guess what happens when you engage? You learn more, and then you're happier and you make more friends, right? But we do, I'll just explain a bit about how we structure days. So our learning model is this mixture of asynchronous learning on a virtual platform without a teacher, that's 60% of the learning, and that's mixed with 40% with lessons with teachers. So your timetable in the week is about 40% of what you get at a traditional school in terms of teacher interaction. And the classes are average sort of 20 kids per class, but they go lower. And with the some of the neurodivergent students, this means the flexible element of learning, which is 60% of the learning, they can do when they want. Some of them don't function in the morning, so they do it all in the afternoon, some of them do it all on in the evening, that self-directed learning, and they turn up to their lessons in a fixed timetable. So that's amazing. That allows them to work at their own pace when they want. And these kids love that. They can kind of accelerate ahead or they can slow down. But don't get me wrong, some of them, as you'd expect, say, this is whoa, whoa, whoa. I don't, this is too much, like I need a fixed timetable. Meaning they want to know what they're doing at nine till ten. They want to know what they're doing from 10 to 11, even if it's a self-directed learning. And in those cases, we we write a timetable for them and sort of lay it all out for them. So they they don't they want to be nine till three every day because that's what they're used to, and doing outside of that would be distracting and painful. So we we give them those like laid-out timetables too. So that's the best thing about our school is the options.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I I love the fact that there is that mix of asynchronous and live, but there's something I want to touch on hybrid. Because there is so much being said right now about screens and screens and being on the screen. What are your thoughts on this? How are you guys mitigating the excessive screen time that online schooling would actually inevitably cause?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, well, if you think about it, traditional school might have six hours a day of lessons or seven hours a day of lessons or something like that. And there are some online schools that just copy that, you know, Zoom school. You know, it's just sort of back-to-back lessons, lunch break, back to back lessons. But that's just not our way. So I already mentioned only 40% of your week is lessons with a teacher. That's fixed, and the rest is the self-directed learning element, which on average means you're doing half the amount of lessons of a traditional school. So that doesn't mean you're on a screen all day, you're on a screen for half a day, which might be too much screen time for some, but for many, that's the norm or better than the norm. So we mitigate it in those ways. We also do loads of stuff on well-being and when to switch off, and we have a whole well-being team and a well-being program, and and so we do we mitigate in those circumstances. But the best thing really with our model of asynchronous and synchronous is you're not doing the same amount of lessons as a traditional school, you're doing way, way less. So you that means you're not on your screen all day in any way. But it's a great question. I totally get it. It's a great question.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, because I'm kind of channeling my listeners, and I know that that is something that they're thinking about. Oh, it's an online school, which means excessive screen time. But with that mix that you're talking about, I could potentially see how when they're not having a live lesson, how they could be on breaks or they could do the other bits at different times.

SPEAKER_01:

I remember what I said at the start, Lisa. Um, parents choose us families, lifestyle families, athlete families. They choose us because they get to be outdoors more.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, and I also think at school, they're now sticking because my my kids carry a Chromebook with them. Yeah. They are online. I don't think they're online all of the time, but they're online quite a bit doing different things on their Google um classroom and Chromebook. What I know we're segueing into something that I've heard about and wanted to tap, and I think our listeners would be really interested in, is using Minerva to offer the subjects that you can't find the staff for. So we're in an international private school and options are key. They're so important. Like if you can offer more options to your parents, you stand a better chance of making sure your enrollment is top, right? How does Minerva help schools with that optionality when there isn't a teacher physically present to offer certain courses?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and it's great, Lisa. We have a separate arm of the business, which is called MVA Hybrid. And this is our service for schools rather than parents. So if you're a school in the region in the UAE, in the wider Gulf region, and you want to offer Latin GCSE, for example, because you think that would be great, which I agree it would be, having studied Latin and ancient Greek at university. Um, but you think it'd be great for retention, great for your school, all those important reasons why you want to expand your curriculum, but you cannot get the Latin teachers out there. Or it's a bit too expensive to hire a Latin teacher because you're only going to have 10 kids studying it. What you can do is partner with us, and MVA hybrid will provide you with that Latin GCSE. All your kids need to do is go into a quiet room with a laptop, fit it into their timetable, and they've got a Latin GCSE to go with along with their eight other GCSEs they're studying physically in your school. We set that up all for you. But then again, what if you're losing students for sixth form and you want to expand your A-level offering? You want to offer sociology A level, psychology A level. Again, that directly will impact you retaining students for sixth form. We can do the same thing. We can set up sociology A level, psychology A level, any A level you want, really, any level you don't do. MVA hybrid will provide that service for you. So all you need for your students, say you've got 10 wanting psychology A level, they're doing maths, they're doing chemistry, and they're like in with you in your school, as you would expect. And then for psychology, three times a week, they're going down to a quiet room with their computers, and MVA is delivering the psychology A-level for you. So it's just a really good value add for schools that want to increase their curriculum, expand their curriculum offering without the cost of hiring teachers, which of course will help with things like enrollments and retention.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I love that because here you've got so many schools that can't hire physics teachers.

SPEAKER_01:

There you go, physics. I should have spoken about physics, Lisa, there.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, it's such a hard, it's such a hard subject to recruit for. And then there are the examples that you give where you don't have that many students. And we all know bringing someone out to the Middle East for four or five students is very, very expensive because you have to pay that person a full-time salary plus all the benefits. So it's a fantastic offering because I think as a former school leader, that's ideal because you have the students in traditional school, but you're not limiting them to what you can offer in the brick and mortar, you're opening it up, and so they've got all that option. That is a brilliant idea, if I've heard of one.

SPEAKER_01:

You know, it's obviously going that way. Schools are adopting uh using us for this, and I've seen schools doing it themselves, not using someone like MVA. They're just forward-thinking head teachers who are setting up a psychology, for example, A-level online. So it's just it's moving that way. Um, and you can see it with lots of ways. Like I'll give you another couple of examples. There's a school in the UK who don't have a sixth form yet. They grow up to year 11. They'll want to launch a sixth form next year, and you know what? They've got the buildings, we've got the location. They're gonna use MVA to run the sixth form, the learning element. We'll do all the subjects for them, but they'll have the physical education for kids to come in, socialize, have their lunch, do drama, do art, do sport, but the learning, all their A levels will be with us. That's yeah, and there's another school in the UK that closed down this year. You know, there's awful stuff going on in the UK with the VAT on private school fees and these poor private schools getting shut down up and down the country. One of them's come to us and said, you know what, we're gonna we want to reopen. We partner with MVA hybrid. MVA is gonna do the entire curriculum, you know, key stage three, key stage four, GCSEs. The kids are gonna go on their laptops to learn with us, but they're gonna have somewhere to go at the school. The school will do the sport, do the drama, do the lunch breaks, do breakfast clubs, whatever. But the learning is gonna be with MVA, and so it's a full hybrid partnership, and we've saved that school. It was closing down. So these are amazing, you know, that these are tough times for many schools, but there's kind of a really exciting future if we embrace the potential of online schooling and not and hybrid schooling.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I think one doesn't replace the other. I think that we can have brick and mortar, definitely can have hybrid, we can have online. I think it's all about optionality, I think it's all about having that buffet. And we all here in the Middle East know a thing or two about buffets, boy.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, you do. Yes, you do. I was there, I went to my first Dubai brunch the other day, and yeah, that's a serious buffet. That was a serious buffet.

SPEAKER_02:

So we know about offering the good stuff and people's food.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, no, it is. I believe for me, people say, Oh, what's the future for you with schooling? Is it online? Online. I'm like, no, of course not. The future's choice, the future is parents going, I've got physical school to choose for my kids, traditional physical school, which was amazing for me, Lisa. I flourished in a physical environment. But the reason I launched MBA is because there are loads of kids that do not flourish in a physical environment. Well, traditional environment. So for me, the future's choice, traditional bricks and mortar, hybrid, and online. And the parents can choose all three, and there'll be state versions, free versions, and private school versions of all three. And that's what they mean. Parents will have choice, and that's what I think the future's gonna be. It's just it's just a matter of when, you know, is it is it four years' time, is it 20 years' time? You know, I don't, I actually don't know. I I can't make a call on that.

SPEAKER_02:

I like that cheeky question. You see, when I do this, my listeners know I'm coming with something silly. So I have like tens of thousands of teachers that listen to us. Yeah, they want to know how you hire, like, what are you looking for? Please don't kill me, fellow school leaders. I'm not gonna see more teachers. Oh wow, some teachers just want out of the brick and mortar, and they want to know how they can become an online teacher, how can they work with somewhere like Minerva Virtual Academy and change up some lifestyle stuff there? So help us out, Hugh.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, look, and I'm sorry, school leaders, but unless you start offering hybrid, like some forward-thinking heads, this is gonna happen more and more. Look, I think also in the Middle East and UAE, I don't think it's as bad as it is in the UK with this teacher exodus. So many teachers are leaving the profession in the UK right now.

SPEAKER_02:

They're coming here.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, they're coming there, exactly, or coming to my online school. Yeah, yeah, they're doing both, exactly. But so look, when we started out, I just borrowed a bunch of tutors from my tutoring business. It was a ragtag bunch of tutors, right? And it wasn't the same. And tutors, you know, I love them, obviously, but tutors are mercenaries, they want to do their hour, get their money, and then like leave, you know. So in a few months, it was really obvious. My first head teacher, Lawrence, who was from Wickham Abbey, he was like, Um, we need to hire teachers, we need to hire teachers. So we started almost almost like in our first year properly hiring teachers. Fast forward to now, right? With our principal who who became principal in January 2024, Suzanne. Fast forward to now, we've got the kind of structures of an international school faculty, a principal, Suzanne, two vice principals, one vice principal academic, one vice principal pastoral, four assistant vice principals, heads of year, heads of department, all that kind of stuff. And our principal, Suzanne, she was deputy head of the British school in Bangkok. Our vice principal, Middle East, Harry, was an assistant principal at Gems School in Dubai. You know, career teachers in physical schools, often international, but not always. Our vice principal pastoral was uh was assistant head or deputy head, sorry, at um a very like high-performing state school in London, which got loads of kids into Oxbridge and stuff, and she's chosen to come over to us. So that's the let's start with them, the senior leaders. Why on earth are they like leaving careers in international schools or top schools you guys are to come to online? They see the impact we're having on kids and the future and the way the school's going. They see that traditional school isn't right for lots of kids. So they wanted to come to MBA and have a career with us. Now, they don't do it because they get to work from home, but they like that element, I'm sure. And then let's talk about our other teachers. All our other teachers, like middle leaders and teachers, where have they come from? All over. State sector, private school, international schools, more and more are coming from top UK private schools. It's crazy. And right now, like I said, you have to have done if to apply for us, you need three years experience, you need to have a qualified teacher status, all this stuff that Suzanne's brought in since she became principal. And it means, yeah, we We we get hundreds of applicants for single jobs, you know. And look, if you say in an interview, why when we ask you why do you want to come to MVA? And if you say to us, because I get to work from home, wrong answer. But it's okay that that is a good, attractive thing. Of course it is. These are teachers working six day weeks. You know, I just spoke one of our new geography teachers comes from a boarding school in the UK, and he's like, I was working six days a week, you know, 15 hours a day, and he gets to come to MVA where the work life balance is better. He gets to work from home, which is attractive. He's an amazing teacher, wants to do what he can to help kids. And this other thing, we offer four-day weeks and three-day weeks. Many of our teachers are working four-day weeks or three. Some of our leaders are working four days, and not many schools can offer that, can they, Lisa? So it yeah, it's attractive.

SPEAKER_02:

Uh and good luck with the influx now. Good luck.

SPEAKER_01:

I know, thank you. Well, um, we're we're look, we're trying to recruit in the Middle East anyway. We've got our vice principal, Middle East, Harry, is out there. We've got uh one of our careers advisors, she's in Abu Dhabi, and yeah, we're trying to grow. We've got to be recruiting teachers and leaders, you know, for the next for the coming years, based in the region. So I don't mind an influx.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay, I love the sound of that. All right, so uh we're winding down the podcast, but I wanted to ask you um a little bit more about where you see your online academy or virtual academy going. Like what are your plans? What's on your roadmap?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so this year, for the first time ever, we created a second time zone for us. We've always operated out of the UK time zone. We've predominantly been, you know, 85% of our students are UK, 15% are around the world in around 60 countries. And this year I said, hang on a minute, UK, we've got about a thousand kids or more, and we've got a couple of hundred nearly around the world, all scattered. And the the thing these kids aren't getting that in around that are not in the UK, firstly, the time zone isn't that great for them. And secondly, they're not getting the best thing about MVA, which is the school trips, the parent community, the physical meetups, the secret source, which makes us special. Like the international non-UK families aren't getting that. So I was like, right, enough's enough. This is the next phase of our growth. We're gonna put a flag in the UAE or in the in the GCC, we're gonna say we're gonna do a GST time zone, so which we are a gold stream time zone, and we're gonna have another center for our um families, another community. So we launched uh in the region this year. Last week, we we did our launch party for our GCC families. It was in Dubai, we've got 40 families in the UAE now, you know, and that's now the second biggest country for us outside the UK, and it's growing in every week. And a lot of them, you know, they appreciate we're doing the Gulf Stream time zone, but the real magic is the school trips, we're gonna do school trips in the UAE, school trips in the GCC, and the family meetups. That's the stuff these parents really wanted, which we were only doing in the UK for the first four years. So, second region outside the UK, where we've really got a hub, where we've really got a family community, is now in the GCC, particularly UAE. And that is exciting. And so the roadmap for the next five years is opening up two more of these zones around the world. So you can see us really growing to become a global school. 5,000 students, it wouldn't be, you know, wouldn't be a ridiculous thing to say in the next few years. And what do you get with that? And this is my passion and belief, why this can you know really get big one day, we'll see. Imagine that as a that kind of spread of students across the world in full-time education, a truly global school. So imagine the learning and uh experience students will get with friends around the world, you know, a real global outlook in a world that's increasingly becoming looking inward across the world. And I that that excites me and fascinates me. Our students will have this amazing global community that they're part of, and then think about that long term is the alumni network. The alumni network of MVA one day will just be so incredible, so powerful that you can have friends all over the world, and one day, business connections, what have you. And you know, I believe in the power of the alumni network, the kind of school I went to, and a lot of these kids would never have thought about that. They would never think, oh, I'm gonna one day benefit from an alumni network at the school they're at where they're miserable, and an MVA, maybe they're not even thinking about it, but I'm seeing that as a real global school, and that's the future roadmap. I don't like to go ahead for other than three years, but four different regions UK, GCC, and then two others, and a real global school with a global alumni as well.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh wow! Well, I I hope to see the journey unfold and to see that vision come to reality. Thank you for being on the podcast, Hugh.

SPEAKER_01:

I'll keep you updated, Lisa.

SPEAKER_02:

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you for having me. Thank you for having me.

Head Shot

Leisa Grace Wilson

Host

Podcasts we love

Check out these other fine podcasts recommended by us, not an algorithm.

Teach Middle East Podcast Artwork

Teach Middle East Podcast

Teach Middle East