What a genuinely remarkable journey. Looking back, it’s funny how life completely shifts gears. I spent 20 years navigating the tech world—moving from programming to sales, into management, and back again—only to realise I was thoroughly bored and ready for something entirely different.

When I set out looking for a career change in 2003, I originally thought I’d bridge the gap with an IT role at Seaford. But fate had a different plan. When that interview revealed a role that was more network management than actual teaching, a passing suggestion from my wife pointed me toward a school called St. Bede’s.

I walked onto campus in September 2003 for a maths interview, looked around this beautiful school, and thought, “Wow, this is an amazing place, I definitely want to work here.” I then had a call that very evening with a unique proposition from the deputy head: they wouldn’t hire me as a standard teacher, but they would fund my teacher training on the condition that I stayed for at least two years. What a "no-brainer" of a deal, and those two years quickly turned into twenty-three.

Over the next two decades, I have been involved in the school’s academic and co-curricular culture. In 2015, a brilliant Further Maths pupil named Ben Laws approached me about the UK Space Design Competition. I gave them the green light, they put together a three-minute video entry, and suddenly I found myself escorting a group of pupils in full school uniform to the finals at Imperial College. We stood out as the only school in uniforms! But they loved every second of it.

When local logistics made entering the regional rounds difficult the following year, I didn't let the momentum stop. Driven by a bit of healthy aggravation and a determination to get local schools doing something purely academic, I invented the Galactic Challenge for younger pupils.

What started with me personally cold-calling head teachers to get 50 kids from 5 local schools into a room turned into an academic powerhouse. It completely redefined Bede's reputation among its feeder schools, shattering old stereotypes and proving the school was a haven for top-tier academics. The initiative became so successful that the UKSDC adopted it nationally, and the franchise eventually expanded as far as Cyprus and the UAE. For me, it paved the way to becoming a trustee of the Space Science and Engineering Foundation—a role that will keep me busy long after I leave the classroom.

Recently we have secured the Space Education Quality Mark (SEQM) Gold Award for our ongoing demonstration of excellence in using space education to inspire students to be passionate about science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

Through it all, it’s the pupils who have left the deepest impressions—and the ones I left my mark on. I watched pupils find their true voices not through raw formulas, but through people skills, leadership, and research.

There is perhaps no greater testament to this than Ellie Abel. She first walked into the UKSDC in Year 10 as a drama and swimming scholar. With minimal encouragement, she stood up at a table of 15 older pupils, took the lead of the structural engineering team, and completely blew the judges away. That single pivot point changed her life. She went on to visit NASA twice, presented at a conference in Paris, went to Imperial College, and is now stepping into an industrial placement with McLaren Formula One, with Alpine already utilising technology she worked on.

To watch a pupil completely reinvent their future overnight is the real magic of a place like Bede’s! Not many schools would accommodate this change, but Bede’s allowed it to happen seamlessly.

Inside the school walls, I became a fixture of the community—quite literally like a stick of rock with "Camberlot" written all the way through it. While most teachers rotate through different houses, I stayed fiercely loyal to Camberlot House for my entire tenure, even holding the legendary "land speed record" for driving the minibus back and forth from the old boarding house.

I ran the entire co-curricular program for two decades because, as I put it, I’d be entirely bored otherwise. I brought my own deep passion for shooting to the school, building up a thriving program that ran three days a week until developers and the pandemic unfortunately took the range away.

The school even became the perfect anchor for my own family, providing a great environment for my children to thrive.

Now, as I look toward what’s next, the pace isn't slowing down much. I head into retirement with a calendar that beautifully balances the familiar with the excitingly new, including plans to potentially return to campus twice a year to assist with the space competitions while traveling out into the country to support the foundation. I will also be dedicating substantial time to my beloved sport of shooting as I train hard for the 2028 World Championships right here in the UK—all while finally enjoying the sweet, long-awaited perk of booking holidays during term time. 

It has been a sprawling, deeply impactful twenty-three years; a remarkable career built out of a sudden whim for a change, which ultimately changed the lives of countless pupils.