Writing
Essays from inside education.
I write about the classroom, the school office, the parent decision, and the product choices that shape what students experience.
Some essays are practical: how to read a Chemistry question, judge whether tuition is helping, or respond after a disappointing result.
Others ask a larger question: what schools are preparing students for, what technology changes, and which familiar parts of education no longer deserve to be treated as fixed.
The full argument lives here. Shorter LinkedIn and social versions point back to it when the context matters.
When Explanation Becomes Cheap, Teaching Becomes More Human
Recorded lessons and AI can carry an explanation farther than any teacher. The real question is whether that frees teachers to give learners more human attention, or simply removes the person from education.
The Student Who Works Only When Watched Is Not Disciplined
A student can follow every rule and still become helpless when the rules disappear. Good structure should teach responsibility, then slowly make itself less necessary.
IGCSE or O Level? CAIE or Edexcel?
The board is not the education. Choose the route your child can actually travel well.
What If Your Child Didn't Have to Study Eight Subjects at Once?
Cambridge doesn't require the eight-subjects-in-one-May timetable. Schools default to it anyway, and parents pay tutors to cover the gap.
Let's see where this goes
The recorded-teaching experiment started with a designer's tablet, a cheap microphone, and a sentence I said to my own class.
Why Mole Questions Fall Apart, Even When You Know the Chemistry
Mole calculations stop being fragile when you make every conversion, ratio and unit visible.
I Did Not Get the Grade I Needed. What Now?
A disappointing result is information, not identity. Get precise before you decide whether to retake, change route or move forward.
Stop Using Time as a Feeling
Finishing a CAIE paper is not about being faster. It is about refusing to let one question spend the time of three.
The 100% Trap
Most schools spend every timetable hour on the 25% of ability an exam can grade, and none on the other 75%.
The bicycle argument
The case for good-enough education that people can actually reach, against perfect education that they cannot.
The child is watching
Parents audit the child and rarely the example. On a podcast I was asked about the biggest blunder adults make. The answer took one sentence.
State, Describe, Explain, Evaluate: The Command Word Is the Question
Knowing the topic is not enough if your answer has the wrong shape. Read the instruction first.
The Trade Every School Makes Without Admitting It
Getting into a good university is the floor. What a school actually trades away to get there is the real question.
What Kind of School Does the Next Decade Actually Require?
The timetable built for a world that changed slowly is still running, in a world that no longer changes slowly.