Peter Holloway

After a successful career in investment banking in London, Leeds and New York, I took the decision to explore other work options. As my sense of wanting to make a more meaningful contribution to society started to grow stronger, I considered the environment and education sectors, which were and are both of great interest to me. Given I had two teenage boys at the time, I worked for an environmental consultancy for over 5 years, because it paid better than teaching! But I knew deep down, I really wanted to have a go in the classroom, so I took the plunge into re-training as a secondary school mathematics teacher (including A-level), a subject I had not studied since school.

The journey since then has been fascinating and rewarding. As an engaged and enthusiastic father of secondary age boys in the past, I had thought I had a fair understanding of how education works. In reality, you cannot really know until you have worked in the classroom. There are many skills required to be a good teacher including: deep subject knowledge; behaviour management; relationship building; effective and engaging communication and decision making. In my experience, just when you think you have control of the brief, an unforeseen situation or a new idea arises, and so the learning and the striving for excellence continues.

I decided to step down from frontline classroom teaching in school recently. This has afforded me the opportunity to pursue other interests: cooking, learning about wine and keeping fit to name but three. It has also allowed me to grow my tutoring activity, which is something I adore. Working one-to-one, or in small groups, is extremely rewarding for me. It enables me to build strong and individual relationships with tutees, and to create tailored resources and delivery to suit the needs and preferences of each individual student.