Founder & Director:Next Steps EducationNext Steps TutorsMember:Institute of Recovery from Childhood TraumaAssociation for Child and Adolescent Mental HealthThe Tutors’ AssociationOne AtlanticNorth Devon PINN ForumMindful EmployerSouth West Winner: FSB Service Excellence 2024____________________________It’s been a long, hard rollercoaster ride but I guess I was always going to end up helping the children who are pushed to the margins of education.I left home and a fractured family life at 16, product of a failed adoption. I scived school to work in the Wimpy then partied through college and didn’t reach the grade A potential written about me in reports. By 18 I’d run away to London, had various dead-end jobs and interailed through Europe. I dragged myself up with the support of Islington library and John Peel (reading the classics whilst listening to The Fall). At 21 I got a place at uni studying Geography, which I picked because it was my only A level and I had no idea how uni worked or that I could choose a different subject.Roll on a few years of temp work and I got myself a proper job at the BBC. I had a few awesome years as Global Brand Exec for Top Of The Pops and then in Multimedia licensing SMS games and CD-Roms. Then I left and retrained as a teacher with my 4 year old ADHD son by my side.Up until 2015 I loved, loved, loved teaching. I loved helping children discover their talents and celebrate their achievements. Then I had a few years where it felt like a worksheet factory. Then I left and started Next Steps.Next Steps Education is about providing education for children who find themselves on the margins of mainstream education. It’s a place of joy. It’s a place to grow in whatever direction and at whatever pace, finding purpose and self-esteem in what you do. Which is what my own journey has been too.Should I be posting this as my bio on LinkedIn? I don’t know. Everyone else seems to have the Big I Am on theirs but then I’ve never done something just because everyone else has, which I guess you know by now anyway. In fact, I’ve been ashamed of my education for most of my life but I’m working with so many kids who think they’ve failed before they’ve really started, and they need to hear that you can be fulfilled, successful and happy without fitting into everyone else's expectations of school.