#36 - Happiness First Education with Hugh Viney, Minerva Virtual Academy - The School Can't Experience

Episode Transcript
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Leisa Reichelt (00:05):
Hello and welcome to the School Can't
Experience Podcast.
I'm Leisa Reichelt, and thispodcast is brought to you by the
School Can't Australiacommunity.
Caring for a young person who isstruggling to attend school can
be a stressful and isolatingexperience, but you are not
alone.
Thousands of parents acrossAustralia and many more around
the world face similarchallenges and experiences every

(00:26):
day.
Now my friend Mary, who lives inLondon and whose family has
firsthand experience of SchoolCan't introduced me to our guest
for today.
We often talk on this podcastabout how the education
experience needs to be justcompletely redesigned.
Well, Hugh Viney has actuallydone it.
Hugh is the CEO of MinervaVirtual Academy, or MVA.

(00:49):
MVA started in 2020 withliterally just a handful of
students.
Now they have 1200 students andemploy 160 teachers and mentors.
And they're all based on theethos of happiness first
education.
They're built on four pillars.
A virtual learning platform pluslive lessons with teachers.
That enables them to deliver aflipped learning experience,

(01:11):
plus mentoring and community,all of which combine to create a
truly unique virtual learningexperience.
I hope you enjoy learning aboutHugh and MVA.
Welcome, Hugh to our podcast andthank you so much for joining
us.

Hugh Viney - MVA CEO (01:26):
Thank you so much.
Great to be here.

I would love if you can start us off by just
giving us the story of Hugh.
Like what's happened in yourlife to bring you to what you
are doing today?

Good question.
And people often say to me,'cause I founded a school, I'm
the founder and CEO of MinervaVirtual Academy, MVA.
And currently the UK's fastestgrowing school.
People often ask me, so were youa teacher?
What's your background?
And I say, well, probably, oneof the reasons for our success
is I'm not a teacher.
I've come at this from adifferent angle.

(01:58):
I've come at this from a placeof understanding, homeschooling,
understanding the needs offamilies that wanted
non-traditional, or the needs offamilies for whom traditional
education doesn't suit.
Don't get me wrong.
My first ever employee was avery professional teacher, and
we now employ about 160,professional teachers.
I think the way we came at itwas from a different lens to

(02:18):
some of the other online schoolsout there, which perhaps were
started by schools that justwent online, or teachers that
just decided to create onlineversion of school.
And we'll get into that, I'msure.
So, so the background being, Iwas a musician.
I made no money from it.
I want to be rockstar.
And I did that for three years,and, I wasn't making any money.

(02:41):
So I tutored.
I was a one-to-one tutor inLondon for the years I was,
doing music.
And it was the only way I'd madeany money.
I also loved it.
I loved it so much.
So when I eventually gave upmusic, when I gave up on the
Rockstar Dream, I, uh, I wasvery happy because I loved
tutoring so much.
So I sort of started as a careertutor, not a teacher.
I went around people's homes anddid one-to-one tutoring, in

(03:03):
maths and English, I mean.
I started off tutoring thesubjects that I studied at
University, Latin and Greek, butI didn't get any work offering
Latin and Greek tutoring, so Iquickly switched to math and
English.
anyway, after a year of doingthat, I felt a little bit
unfulfilled because, if you'reon your own tutoring, you can
only impact.
15 families a year, 20 familiestops.

(03:24):
So I thought I really wanna havemuch larger impact.
And I have a style of tutoringthat I believe was a forward
thinking philosophy at the timein 2014 in the uk.
And tutoring not to pass exams,tutoring to preserve wellbeing,
motivation, and confidence.
And I thought I'd started atutoring business.
Minerva tutors.

(03:44):
that would be our philosophy.
I would take on tutors and thatwould be our mantra, tutoring
for happiness.
And that was back in 2014.

There was demand for tutoring for happiness?
'cause I, you know, myunderstanding of like a lot of
the tutoring that goes on in theAustralian market and I might be
wrong about this, it's just myperception is that it's all
about high achieving studentswho want to get into selective
schools or get really high marksso they can get into university
degrees.
And so, so much of the demandfor tutoring, it's very much

(04:11):
about like academic excellence.

totally.
I mean, I completely get thatand yeah, I remember.
when we launched it, just me andmy laptop, and I had about 10
tutors that I'd met I said,look, I'm gonna start passing
you jobs, but this is ourmantra.
This is what we are here for.
We tutor for motivation,confidence, and wellbeing.
In our first 10 customers, youknow, I think two would be like,
hang on.
Can you guarantee we get intothis School?

(04:34):
Can't you guarantee we get thesegrades?
And I said, no, no, no.
That's not what we're about.
We're about motivation,confidence, and wellbeing.
And they said, okay, cool.
You're not the tutoring companyfor me.
And I said, yeah, that's fine.
That's okay.
But so, no, it was certainlyweird to be doing that.
But there was enough of a demandfor it.
to get off the ground.
And over six years we built areally nice small tutoring
business, premium tuitionservices in London, servicing

(04:57):
families who wanted after schooltutoring, you know, maths and
English and topping up, but agrowing number of families that
didn't want tutors after school.
These are growing number offamilies that wanted
homeschooling home ed, and theywere like, no, no, no.
My kids don't go to school.
I want your tutors to deliver.
Home education programs and thatbecame our biggest service

(05:18):
really.
but the problem was using tutorsfor home ed, using tutors for
homeschooling is expensive.
This is a team of tutorsdelivering one-to-one lessons It
was amazing what we did.
The programs are amazing.
The stuff the kids learned wasamazing.
we took them to museums and didall sorts with my team.
We had a big homeschoolingdepartment, but it was
expensive.

(05:38):
So 95% of the families thatfound us on Google, they
couldn't afford it.
you know, it's private schoolfees.
So COVID here and we have thisexplosion of awareness in the
uk.
for learning from home, onlinelearning, often the children
with wellbeing or mental healthneeds just being at home is what
made them happier.

(05:59):
And perhaps the neurodivergentstudents being online made them
happier.
So they are two separate things,but both were having this
awakening.
'cause moms and dads up and downthe uk and I dunno if you saw
this, but this is 2020 and I'msure it was the same around the
world.
While most families hatedlockdown, while most families
were miserable, that their childwas locked up.
Some families saw their child,being happy for the first time

(06:21):
in years.
Happy because they got to learnfrom home or'cause they got to
learn online.
Not happy.
'cause they're missing school.
No, they were doing more school.
They were engaging more becausethey were happier.
Often they were engaging more'cause they could concentrate
better than a loud, noisyclassroom, you know, distracting
them and these kids learningaccelerated.
So this explosion occurs acrossthe UK of awareness of this.

(06:44):
While most families weremiserable and their kids needed
to be in mainstream school.
But a good 20%, I call it asignificant minority.
Saw a new way.
So suddenly these families weresaying, we don't want to go back
to mainstream school.
They were Googling,homeschooling Minerva pops up,
Minerva tutors, The phone wasred hot.
Everyone was calling to gethomeschooling programs, but it
was the same problem, right?

(07:05):
It's expensive to hire tutors tohomeschool.
So I said, how can we create anaffordable homeschooling product
that serves the needs of thesefamilies?
Both the children with mentalhealth needs, the needs of the
neurodivergent kids, and othertypes, you know, elite athletes
and performers or lifestylefamilies that just don't like
traditional school.
they want flexible education.

(07:25):
How can I serve those familieswith something that is
affordable and still has some ofthe best things about school,
which is community pastoralcare.
And so I came up with the ideaof Minerva Virtual Academy,
which is an online school withcommunity and personal
interaction as one of its corefeatures.
So yes, we have the flexiblelearning kids learning on a

(07:47):
platform without a teacher.
But we also have learning withteachers'cause that's important.
Every child was gonna get amentor one-on-one once a week,
because that's my tutoringbackground.
I believe there's so much powerin that.
But the final piece of thepuzzle, the, fourth pillar, the
magic dust was there will beschool trips from day one.
And originally we were like,let's do one school trip a year
where all the kids around the UKcan come together.

(08:07):
Now we do six a term.

Wow.

even better, when we grew from 500
kids up, we are getting pocketsaround the UK using this app
called Class List of Families.
Just meeting up MVA, momsmeeting up, kids meeting up,
working together.
socializing together.
They're even doing their ownschool trips and that's without
us organizing them.
So that's the magic dust,really.
And so, yeah, I just came upwith this idea for what I
thought a cool school would looklike and four and a half years

(08:32):
later, 1,200 students full timewith the fastest growing school
in the uk.
You know, it's crazy.
This is just a cool idea.
I thought my idea of a coolschool, but it seems to work.

What a great story.

Thank you.

So we've got a few different options for school
here in Australia, but, notmany, I'll be honest.
And I think that part of thereason for that is just a
bureaucratic process of making aschool.
It's pretty hard work.

Yep.

Is it difficult bureaucratically in the UK or is
it relatively easy to go, I'vegot an idea, I'm gonna make a
school.
Off I go.

Really cool question because yeah, UK
has.
For now and has donehistorically some of the most
relaxed laws about home ed andhomeschooling in the world.

Hmm.

We really do.
there's a lot of freedom to whatparents are allowed to do.
we've got these, national examsat GCSE and you should be taking
them when you're 16.
in theory, they don't mind howyou get to those exams.
As long as they take some examsat 16, that's cool.
So that's the important bit ofthe exam.
We don't get a diploma for everyyear.
You don't pass through to thenext year.
It's just these exams at 16.
And if you wanna do even better,maybe for university, you should

(09:43):
take these A levels at 18 aswell.
But they're not compulsory.
So compulsory editing in the UKis up, is up to 16 anyway, so
there's relaxed rules about howyou learn one.
So.
we were able to launch as anonline school, even though we
weren't officially a school.
We were a homeschoolingbusiness, calling ourselves a
school.

(10:03):
But that was okay Like no oneminded.
but it was important for me thatwe did get the accreditation and
recognition of the departmentfor education, that was really
important to me from day one.
So I said to the head teacher,from day one, we're gonna make
sure we're ticking all the boxesto be what a real accredited
school should do fromsafeguarding perspective, from
attendance perspective, andkeeping records.

(10:24):
All those stuff, we werewatertight from day one.
So when.
The Department for education inthe UK decided to create an
accreditation process for onlineschools, which did not exist
until 22.
We were right there at the frontof the queue and we were like,
please, please, accredit us.
Dunno how it works in Australia,but there's two systems.
Offstead inspect you, so they'rethe heads of inspection and

(10:46):
depending on how your inspectiongoes.
They passed a report over to theDepartment of Education who then
decides to accredit you or not.
so Ofsted came and inspected us.
That's his own fun thing.
How do you inspect an onlineschool?
They came and sat at the office.
They were called John, John andJohn from Offset in their suits
and ties, and their briefcasesand my office buildings, hasn't

(11:07):
seen a tie in in a long time.
they set up in this room next toour office for, for two days and
they, they wander the virtualcorridors, they sort of, they go
to assemblies, they go to thelessons, they interview parents,
interview teachers.
they go to clubs for two daysand then they write this report.
And then that report issubmitted to Department of
Education, and we did this in2024, last year.

(11:27):
and we got accredited.
So we are now accredited.
but even in the uk.
they will just, full short ofcalling us a school.
We're accredited provider ofonline education.
and that's all they can say fornow.
but that's great for us.
It works for us and we're theonly online school of our size
to have that accreditation.
So it's a wonderful thing.

(11:48):
Oh, and our osted report, I'vegot framed in the office.
I've got it over there in theoffice, five pages.
'cause it reads like a marketingdocument.
This is a government inspection,but it's amazing.
the first line says wellbeing isat the heart of everything they
do.
that's such a wonderful thing tobe recognized for that by a
government department.
Right.
So an inspection department.
So there's a brief history ofthe laws and bureaucracy of home

(12:10):
ed in the uk.

Oh, I think it's super interesting Hugh, because
know, there's no shortage ofpeople saying we need to
redesign how education isdelivered because the standard
way of rolling out education isjust not suitable to a sizable
chunk of kids who want to learn.
But thinking about going, okay,well you know what we gonna do

(12:34):
start a school.
How long is that gonna take?
I, I did a quick Google today,to prepare for meeting you.
the first thing I saw was, putin all the information that you
want to start the school onMarch 31st, the year before you
want the school to open.
And our school's open in likeJanuary, February.
So you gotta really be ready ayear ahead of when you wanna
open the school.
How can you sustain that in abusiness?

You can't, I mean, think about what we did
in 2020.
I had the idea in the summer,sort of mid to late COVID.
in August, wrote the businessplan.
September, set up the website.
October ran Google ads where wepaid for the keyword online
school parents started coming tothe website, typing in online
school or homeschooling, and ourphone number was coming up.

(13:18):
The phone was ringing, and wesaid, Hey, November 20th, we are
launching a new type of onlineschool We're doing a four week
trial.
You can come for four weeks forfree.
and 10 signed up for the freetrial, but four paid.
Full paid to the end of theyear.
They said, yeah, we're justgonna join.
We said, what?
We just, we just, you know,we've just invented a, new kind
of school and you wanna join.

(13:39):
And there's two reasons why.
One is the sad reason.
Desperate.
traditional school was awful forthem.
So anything else can be betterstill, you have to part with
5,000 pounds to do it.
for the rest of the year.

Hmm.

How come they did that?
And we were lucky, as Iexplained at the start of this.
I had an established tutoringand homeschooling business,
Minerva tutors.

Hmm

And look, we used that a lot.
We said, look, this is MinervaVirtual Academy.
It's a new school.
It's a new business, yes, butit's come from a place of
homeschooling expertise.
And that was enough for someparents, the early adopters to
sign up.
the four week trial happened andthen over Christmas we recruited
some more students.
And then January the seventh, orwhatever it was, 2021, we
officially launched with about10 kids.

(14:19):
Maybe 12 and, we haven't lookedback, but yeah, you are right.
how on earth have you done aschool that way?
And it's, I guess maybe the UKis more relaxed about those
things Maybe there's harderbarriers to entry now, but It is
crazy that we did it in a coupleof months.

I think that's the trick is to think about how
you can deliver the service andthe experience within the
constraints of what'slegislatively required.
Yeah, so hopefully there'ssomebody entrepreneurial and
enterprising out there who'sbrain cogs are clicking into
place and going, aha, I think Iknow how to do this

I hope so

Either that or Hugh, you are like going, I
sense a great market opportunityin Australia.

well.
We've just launched in theMiddle East, in the UAE, you
know, for our second time zone.
'cause we're currently runningon the UK time zone.
We've gone east by four hours.
We've launched our Gulf familyMiddle East community, a couple
of weeks ago.
So yeah, give it a couple ofyears the more east we go.

hmm.

we'll be in the Pacific region.

Alright, well tell us a little bit about what
it's a student at MVA.
You mentioned before assemblies,and I'm like, for kids in a
typical school, assembly isprobably one of the worst parts
of the day because it's likemassive and overwhelming and

Yeah.

Talk me through a bit of like a day in the life.

of course.
now one thing we managed to dowell is cater for those four
different types of students whenwe launched those four kids.
the founding four one wasneurodivergent and that's why
they chose us.
One had mental health needs,that's why they chose us.
One was an athlete and 1 was alifestyle family where they
wanted flexible education.
And now those four categories,are spread across the 1,200.

(15:57):
But, so a typical day will varydepending on the type of child.
let's do a week Monday morningassembly, which is run by the
principal or the vice principal,we have two vice principals, an
academic and pastoral lead.
And that will be, you know, atypical assembly, 20 minutes to
30 minutes, but notices for theweek praising students that have
done some good stuff.
what's happening at the week,there'll be themes like

(16:18):
assembly.
This week was run by our newassistant vice principal for
student development, who's allabout enrichment.
So we have a leader who's solejob is.
Creating after school clubs,more school trips.
We're doing our firstresidential school trip, away
days and stuff.
her job is to make sure we enterinto competitions, you know,
internally, but compete againstother schools, all that sort of

(16:40):
stuff.
so assembly was all aboutenrichment week, where all the
kids were finding out about allthe clubs they could sign up for
and all the trips they couldsign up for.
And so that's the theme for theweek at the assembly.
That's great.
And they're like

And dialing

They're dialing in on a big Google Meet.

that live.

Yeah,

okay.

Dialing in a big Google meet and, you know,
you get like a thousand kidsfrom mostly UK, but all over the
world.
We've got kids in 60 countriesdialing in for assembly.
There's lots of emoji usage, youknow, there's lots of praise,
there's lots of cheering.
Some people come in and studentsare invited to speak, For some
kids assembly in a mainstreamschool, is a terrifying place.
But those kids, all that stuff,they're fearful of that's all

(17:16):
removed.
And you're in a kind of warm,welcoming room, online so that
kicks off the week.
They'll have on a Wednesday,their year group assembly, so
the year nines or year eightwill have their own version of
assembly with their heads ofyear running it, which is much
more personalized to their yeargroup, different notices,
different trips happening,different events, getting ready
for your mock exams if you'reyear 11, that sort of stuff.

(17:37):
So that will happen onWednesday.
and once a week you see yourmentor that could be on any day
or time suitable to your needs.

Who is a mentor,

yeah, it's a good question.
'cause now we have concurrentlyevery week 1,200 mentor sessions
running, which is crazy, right?

yeah.

crazy.

How does that scale?

well, everyone asked me that when we
had a hundred kids.
'cause Yeah, good question.
From a business perspective,it's the most expensive part of
our model.
Every child getting a mentalhalf an hour week, it's the
highest cost, some of ourcompetitors have seen it and
gone, hang on, that's one ofyour unique selling points.
It's our third pillar.
How, how do we do that?
And they've all looked into itand gone, it's too expensive.
but I've had it from day one, soit's locked in.

(18:16):
how does mentor work?
Mentors are selected on yourtype of student, like who you
are, what you like, and whatyour needs are.
So we've got ex-professionalathletes that are mentors to the
athletes.
You've got neurodivergentspecialist teachers who are
mentors to some of the SEND kidsyou're matched with your mentor
depending on your uniquepersonality or your needs.
The mentors are sometimes.

(18:38):
A teacher.
So a teacher might be a scienceteacher four days a week mentor
one day a week.
or you might have a math teacherwho's teacher three days a week,
but they mentor two.
But we have quite a fewfull-time mentors who are
mentoring every day.
they can fit in about 20 kids aweek, with their mentoring
because it is not just thatmeeting, it's the follow-ups,
the report they write every twoweeks, which gets sent to

(18:59):
parents.
And that's the mentor report,which is so crucial to our
model.
Not to, parents are like worriedabout online school,
understandably.
but the mentor sending them afortnightly report.
Which says how the kid'sfeeling, how are they doing and
how are they progressingacademically?
It's just a great little touchpoint.
So you see a mentor once a week,going back to the typical week.
then you've got, far fewer ofthe lessons that you have in a

(19:22):
traditional school.
so on a Monday, you might have amaths live lesson and a
chemistry live lesson.
On a Tuesday, you might havethree.
On a Wednesday, you might haveonly one.
You might have any Englishlanguage, right?
It depends.
But fitting around those lessonsare your self-directed learning.
'cause 60% of your learning isdone without a teacher.
It's done on a platform whereyou log in and go through
modules each fortnight, at yourown pace.

(19:45):
This is the kind of flexibleelement which suits so much of
our students, and we operate ata model called Flip Learning.
So to bring that together,you're learning a topic for the
first time without your teacher.
You're learning on the virtualplatform with a mixture of
video, audio, text, imagery, andsoon to be ai.

(20:06):
That's the first time you'relearning that topic, and then
you're going into the livelesson.
You've got a prior understandingof that topic.
You've got a lesson with 20 kidsin it, the teacher, you've got
questions ready for them or someunderstanding already, and the
lesson is interactive andengaging.
It is not a lecture.
It is not 30 kids staring at awhiteboard, hearing a topic for
the first time.

(20:26):
it's the opposite.
It's interactive, it's engaging.
then you come out of the livelesson and maybe straight away,
but sometimes the next day yougo back onto the virtual
platform, look at that topicagain, and that's where you
consolidate the learning, maybesome quizzing and then you move
on.
Now, it's not always as pure andslick as that, but that is the
model of flipped learning thatwe employ.
That's the academic model.

Hmm.

So that's how those are covered in the
week.
some kids, especially the NDkids, they want you to build
them a timetable from nine tillthree where you say this is when
you're gonna do self-directedlearning, this is when your
fixed live lessons are And thisis when you have an article club
or whatever.
But some of the other kids arelike, cool, I'm gonna do, all my
self-directed learning in theevenings.
'cause I work better in theevening.
Someone like, I'm gonna do itall in the early morning'cause I

(21:08):
work better in the earlymorning.
This is about building a systemthat suits them, suits the
child, That's a typical week.

suppose could do things like have part-time jobs

Oh yeah.

time that they want, and then do their learning

A hundred percent.

that.

A hundred percent.
one of the first videos wefilmed with our students for
marketing.
in the first couple of years wecould only get the athletes to
do videos, it was really hard toget someone who suffered with
mental health needs to do areally cool testimonial.
And then we found Georgie inScotland and she just did this
amazing video and it's reallytransformed the way we tell our
story.
this is like three years agonow.
And one of the awesome storieswas this is a girl that had

(21:43):
really suffered with mentalhealth, needs awful bullying,
had been missing school for twoyears, came to MVA flourished,
got her GCSEs, and she was like,and the best thing is.
I work part-time as a waitress.
So she's had like lifeexperience, she's made money and
then she's got this kind ofrounded character.
She's got the GCSEs she needed.
That's our British qualificationI mentioned earlier at 16.

(22:06):
She's happy.
Sorry, that's the main thing.
She's happy she's gonna school.
Got her GCSEs and she said,yeah, and I've had a part-time
job so you just mentioned one ofthose benefits which we love.
So, so typical week, like I say,You've got the flexible learning
element.
You've got fixed live lessons,but nowhere near as many as you
have in a traditional school.
So those you should turn up to,but they are recorded and you're

(22:26):
allowed to miss them.
If you give us advanced warning.
You'll have a mentor sessiononce a week.
You'll have assemblies on Mondaymorning, year group assembly and
Wednesday morning, and then youhave after school clubs.
Which usually run between threeand four and we've got like 40
clubs now.
Anything from art to film tobaking all online.
and then, AI coding, that sortof thing.

(22:46):
We've got exercise clubs, fourexercise clubs now.
There's a hit class, a yoga one,a running club, these are all
online, but they're amazingopportunities for that.
student development, which isn'tacademic in Richmond.

I am interested in this idea of having the year
group assemblies and afterschoolclubs.
Is that sort of building a senseof a cohort and community
amongst the students as part ofthe model?

I completely think it is.
You know, I wanted to take thebest bits about school, and
bring them into my version of aschool.
And I think often the best bitsabout school is enrichment.
learning stuff outside of thecurriculum.
it's learning how to interactwith students, in a positive
way.
Learning how to listen, givingpeople space to speak.
learning how to speak yourselfand feeling confident enough to

(23:33):
do so.
And often in an onlineenvironment, it's better
practice, less nerve wracking.
So, yeah, I mean, after schoolclubs integral to our model.
the whole community pillar,which involves clubs,
assemblies, trips, is like.
What I thought online schoolswere missing, and I thought, if
we did that right, we're gonnasmash it.
that pillar is often thechildren's best bit.

(23:55):
That's like the student'sfavorite part of MVA is the
community, which is assemblies,clubs, trips, The third pillar
is often the parent's favoritebit.
And then you've got the learningpillars, the self-directed
learning and the the live lessonpillars, which, yeah, they're
quite typical of an onlineschool, to be honest.
And we do them very well.
the secret sauce with our modelcame with the mentor, which

(24:17):
parents love and the communityelement, which the students
love.

Hmm.
One of the reasons that we knowkids struggle in mainstream
school is that they just don'thave a sense of safety or a
sense of belonging in thoseenvironments.
of things are you thinking aboutto help address that in the
online context?

there's a vibe with NBA kids.
Where they find their people.
I've seen it so often when a newkid joins MVA, their class could
be an assembly year groupassembly.
It could be a main big assembly,but it could be in a lesson, you
know, math lesson for the yearnines.
And the new kids feel seenbecause, so many of the kids in

(25:02):
that class have been throughwhat they've been through.

Hmm.

You know, half our students have been what
we call over here upset,emotionally based school
avoiders.
'cause they're not schoolrefusers.
It's not their fault, you know,they're emotionally based school
avoiders It's the system'sfault.
That's half our students androughly half of that half, you
know, are like that.
And it's pretty much for twodistinct reasons.
For neurodivergent reasons orfor mental health reasons.

(25:27):
Sometimes they overlap.
I know they do.
So they come to our school andthey feel really seen.
'cause that's, I know you, I'vebeen in your situation.
So we encourage peer to peerencouragement and warmth.
we do so much to help supportchildren feel settled.
So I'll give you some examples.
I've mentioned the mentor socrucial on your journey.
Like you meet your mentor inyour first week and they're your
buddy.
Hopefully.
for the whole time at yourschool.

(25:49):
But what we do is things like,especially kids that have come
with serious trauma, they don'thave to have their camera on.
we say, look, In your own time.
And after a term, their camera'son in their lessons and stuff,
and the parents are so grateful.
Thank you for letting us slowlytake steps to become integrated
into some sense of normal.
all our teachers are firstnames, so our principal is

(26:11):
Suzanne and our vice principals,you know, Becky and Harry and,
and.
The kids find that so weird anddisarming sometimes.
Some immediately love it.
Some are like, this is tooweird.
But almost all end up loving it.
We interviewed some kids twoyears ago and I said, what's
your favorite thing about NVA?
they were saying, oh, the trips,the community.

(26:34):
And then one said for me, it wasthe first name, teaching them
first names.
And I said, yeah, cool.
Why?
And they said,'cause it brings abarrier down.
it makes me feel comfortable.
It makes me feel welcome.
And I said, you know what?
That's amazing.
cause we debated it inSeptember, 2020 when we were
writing the model.
What should we do aboutteacher's names And I said, I
think first names would be cool,but let's debate it.

(26:56):
me and Lawrence our firstemployee, the first headmaster.
We talked about it we were like,no, I think it'd be cool.
It'd be nice.
We didn't realize it'd have thisimpact on students' wellbeing.
First name for a teacher, firstname, a head teacher brings down
a barrier, makes a child feelwarm, makes child feel welcome,
and therefore, guess what?
They learn better.

(27:17):
Isn't that nuts?

connected relationship between student and
teacher

nuts.

a massive difference.

It's absolutely nuts.
so look, we, we've got.
You know, amazing thing happenedlast term.
We've got all these clubs and abunch of our neurodivergent
students created theNeurodivergent Society.
So they've got this peer ledgroup of 30 kids meeting weekly
to talk about ND and their livesand stuff.
It's just really cool.
we do a lot of catering fordifferent types of learners,

(27:44):
certainly with children withmore mental health.
needs that need support.
We've got a mental healthsupport team for the
neurodivergent students.
We've got a pretty large specialeducational needs, team.
Obviously there's crossover,like I say, so, we go outta our
way to really make kids feelwelcome.
'cause that's just like, that'sour, happiness first model.

(28:04):
and luckily it seems to work.

Hugh, a really common thing that happens that
I've seen in Australia whenpeople switch outta mainstream
school, finally give up onmainstream school and go, right.
My only option that I have ishome education, is that they.
often see people who will thensign up for some big online
package of learning and then putthat in front of the kid and the

(28:31):
kid goes, no way, Jose, Icannot, will not engage with
that at all.
I imagine you have lots of kidswho land with you, who have come
out of a mainstream experience

Yep.

Do you find a similar thing with kids when
they're first getting started,that there's a resistance or a
kind of inability to engage ina, you know, kind of substantial
way at first?

Yeah.
it's a really fair point.
there's two types of kidsjoining, right.
In that situation, kids comingoutta mainstream, and then
there's kids coming from home edright?
And you're talking about kidscoming from a mainstream school.
They finally decided to homeeducate.
they come to something like myschool thinking that's quite a
good halfway house, right?
'cause the parents aren't doingworksheets at home.

(29:15):
They're coming to an onlineplatform.
Yeah.
exactly that.
A lot of online schools, when westarted out have this model of
seven hours a day of livelessons.
Right.
I just think that's Zoom School.
I call that school online.
I think for some parents thatactually makes more sense than
my model because they're seeinga teacher seven hours a day.

(29:36):
for some parents, particularlydads, that seems to be like a
sort of, oh, well that's better.
they're learning more, doingthat way.
And I said, well, look,sometimes that's the case, but
often, more often than not, notalso in those models, it's often
a lecture.
There's 300 kids dialing in withtheir cameras off, With our
model, small class sizes lots ofself-directed learning, a

(29:58):
mentor, and then the communityelements.
What we find being really honestis some kids struggle with the
self-directed learning element.
You gotta be disciplined andparents just go, oh God, I
didn't realize how much thekid's gotta learn on their own.
It's not on their own.
It's with an amazing platform,which engages with them.
But their parents are like, thatmeans I need to get him to his
desk.

(30:18):
There's no teacher right at 10o'clock.
No, no, no.
He's got two hours of learningon his own.
and for some parents theystruggle with that.
And of course we've had parentsjoin us and it hasn't worked.
And it's more often than notthat the parents are kind of,
even though they know whatthey're signing up to, They
certainly don't get it until itstarts.
And I think we do everything wecan to support those kids that

(30:41):
struggle with the self-directeddiscipline element.
sometimes we turn'em around, thementor gets involved and says,
right, we need to fix yourtimetable.
That starts at nine and you'vegot two hours of self-directed
learning.
Then you have a lesson and we'lldo all that for you.
sometimes that helps turn thekids around.
But ultimately there are kidsthat our version of online
schooling.
It doesn't work because of theself-discipline required with

(31:02):
the self-directed learning.
they might suit an online schoolwith seven hours a day of a live
lesson with a teacher or alecture, I don't think they do
suit it often.
That's just what a parent thinksis learning and they're just,
they're logging in and sittingthere.

Yeah.
I think what I'm thinking of iskids who come outta school and
they're in burnout

Yeah.

because they've been trying so hard and not been
working and so there's gatheringthe ability to show up for
something that looks or soundslike school at all, I think, can
be very challenging for a periodof

Yeah.

and that you just need like a bit of space
and a bit of patience.
And a bit of support, I think,to be able to reengage again and
to be able to test and see thatit's different to what you were
experiencing before.

Hugh Viney - MVA CE (31:50):
Definitely.
with those types of kids that weare, we often suited to them.
If they've been burnt out bymainstream, then our model suits
them really well.
you need parents to besupportive.
You need parents to understandthat is not their child is at
fault.
Here is the system.
This one size fits all systemthat parents have been sold a
lie about for 200 years.
what parents need is choice.

(32:11):
And our version of school is oneof those choices.
the kids that have been burntout, the kids that Main Street
doesn't suit, they often come tous and it's a relief.
they get the chance to rebuild,

Hmm.

chance to be happy again, most
importantly.
And then they get a chance tolearn.
'cause once you're happy, youlearn more and then you make
more friends.
Kids like that sometimes theyare with us.
Two years, they're happier.
They've got exam qualifications.
They've made way more friendsthan mainstream school.
They might return to traditionalschool for their final two years

(32:43):
of high school, which we call,six form or A levels.
They're happy and ready to doso, and they have a flourishing
final two years.
And in that case, we've done agreat job as well.
We lose them as a student, whichis bad for business, but hey,
who cares?
We've done an amazing job andput them back on their feet that
is quite a common tale.
Particularly for the kids withburnout who've had problems with

(33:04):
mental health needs, They getback on their feet after two
years or three years of us andthey're like confident enough to
return to physical school.
And that's cool'cause that for alot of parents, that's the
golden goose they ultimatelyreally want deep down their kid
to not be in an online school.
And that's okay.
I'm okay with that.
so when we kind of have thatmodel, they're like, everyone's
happy.
'cause the kid's gone fromcompletely disengaged, at best

(33:28):
not learning at worst,physically sick like school is
making them ill.
And that's awful.
They've gone then had two yearsof happiness of MVA and then
they've returned to phony teaserhigh school and they're happy
kids and they're engaging withlearning in a physical school
that.
arc is a very positive place forparents to be.

Absolutely.
What do you need to think aboutwhen you're recruiting your
teaching staff?
Are you looking for somethingdifferent than

Yeah.

school would be looking

Really good question.
So, when we started off, Iborrowed a bunch of tutors from
my tutoring business, they'remercenaries.
They wanna do their hour, getpaid and get out.
You know, they're not, they'renot teachers, you know, they're
amazing one-to-one.
But often tutors are not greatclassroom teachers.
we saw that quite quickly andwithin about five months we were
employing teachers with teachingqualifications and teaching

(34:15):
experience.
ragtag bunch to begin with.
Sure.
There were some gems, there wereabsolutely some gems.
but now it's quitesophisticated.
Since our principal took overSuzanne.
she came from, she was deputyhead, and then she became
principal in January 24.
We've really become sort of wehave the professional structure
of a big international schoolprincipal, two vice principals.

(34:38):
We now have four assistant viceprincipals, so that's like the
senior leadership team, heads ofyear, heads of department, that
sort of stuff.
we now recruit teachers who haveto have three years experience
teaching.
Gotta be qualified teachers andthey have to have three
experience teaching, and thatincludes our mentors too.
what are we looking for?
Yes, we're looking for someonewho.
understands the principles ofour happiness First approach,

(35:02):
and understands the needs of ourtypes of kids.
And we're getting more and moreteachers coming to us from
mainstream, in the uk teachingis having a retention crisis.
Teachers are leaving in droves.
But many of them are thinking,hang on, this online stuff looks
cool.
Not'cause I just get to workfrom home.
Which they do.
And if they bang on about thatin their interview too much,

(35:24):
they're not right for us.
not'cause they wanna work lifebalance.
That is true.
That is good.
It's because they believe in themission that's cool.
Hasn't changed with 200 years.
And they can be part ofsomething different, which is
perfect for some kids and goodfor other kids.
we are looking for thatunderstanding of the model.
Understanding of the types ofkids that we serve and a spark,
a desire to innovate and be partof something special.

(35:45):
But, some of our teachers, in nooffense, are kind of good old
fashioned teachers in a way.
And they just happened to be anonline school and we need that
too.
this goes back to when Istarted, I had some entrepreneur
kind of guys, further down theroad than me, investor types
being like, Hugh, screw thesystem.
tear it all up.
forget GCSE qualifications.
Forget A levels.

(36:05):
don't employ teachers, onlyemploy entrepreneurs.
And I was like, no, no, no, no,the model we've created is
enough of innovation.
We want our kids to get thatBritish qualification, GCSE and
the A level

Mm.

We wouldn't have 90% of our
customers come to us.
Maybe 10% would be like, yeah,cool.
You're only teaching AI andentrepreneurship great, but like
maybe 1% to be honest.
Maybe in 10 years time we mighthave to change our thought on
that, The majority of ourfaculty, which is like 160
teachers and mentors.
Are from physical schools,mainstream schools with three
years plus experience teaching.

(36:38):
Some are crazy innovative,teaching science for 10 years at
a mainstream school.
some are kind of good oldfashioned teachers, but that's
okay.
'cause the model is innovativeenough.

I'm going to ask some wrapping up questions now.
I think Hugh,'cause we arebecoming short on time.
If you could say something toparents who are listening who
are in the middle of strugglingwith kids who just can't attend
mainstream school, what advicewould you have for them?

Don't panic.
it's not your fault.
It's not the parent's fault.
and it's not the child's fault.
It's the system's fault.
When you understand that, youcan sort of breathe and think,
oh, wow.
so much you worry and panicabout your own child and, the
guilt you feel as a parent.
But you know, it is not yourfault or their fault.
It's the system's fault.
The system is really great forsome kids, good for some and bad

(37:36):
for some.
And that bad is like a third ofall kids, I would argue.
And that bad has a spectrum atthe one end, it just doesn't
excite them.
It doesn't work for them.
And at the bottom end, it makesthem ill.
That's a whole group of kidsthat's like 30% of kids.
The system's not good for, andfor some kids it's really bad.
So when you know it's thesystem's fault, not yours, start

(37:57):
to think about how you can helpyour child with alternatives
Obviously we are a greatalternative.
our type of school, our onlineschool, for some families, but
we're not for all families.
in person home ed could be theway.
And there's amazing communitiesof home educators in the UK
where, we are too much likeschool for them.
We're too standardized, which isinteresting.
So homemade communities,homeschooling, Online schools

(38:19):
like mine can be an incredibleopportunity to either
temporarily get your childengaged with education again or
long term, bring out theabsolute best in them.
there is another way, and thechoice for alternatives is
growing and the demand foralternatives are growing.
so yeah, don't, don't blameyourself though.
That's the most important thing.

Just look out there for all of the different
opportunities that could beavailable that might suit or
might not suit.

Yeah.

Just explore.
Fantastic.
What about for professionalfolks?
teachers, psychologists, you

Yeah.

in educational policy.
What kinds of things would youlike them to be thinking about
when creating educationalenvironments that are suitable
for more kids?

The future's gotta be choice.
So like, let's take the UK forexample.
we've got 1.5, 1.6 millionstudents in the UK are
persistently absent from schoolat the moment.
We have a pupil, absentee crisisstudents persistently not
attending school.
And the solution from theprevious government, and this
government is to improve thephysical schools we have

(39:22):
already.
invest in bigger SENDdepartments.
they think that will fixattendance and it won't.
What they don't realize iscertain kids, the traditional
bricks and mortar school doesnot suit them.
So that's what's causing theattendance crisis.
It's not bad parents.
It's not bad teachers.
Teachers are trying the best.
So just like, just trying to domore with the model you have.

(39:45):
Isn't gonna fix it.
what will fix it is creatingalternatives.
we have proven for the fastestgrowing secondary school in the
UK that appear online.
Pure online model can be amazingfor some kids, but there's a
halfway house.
There are hybrid models as well,which will probably end up being
the mainstream.
online schools like minecreating physical hubs or

(40:05):
physical schools having anonline option, and education
leaders around the world need torealize they need to start
creating choice, Hiring moreteachers for the physical
schools, could that all helpwith the teacher student ratio?
That is not gonna fix thestudent absentee crisis in the
uk all around the world, whatthey need to invest in is
different models of schooling.

(40:25):
I'll give you a really goodexample.
the UK Department for Educationpolicy is online is not an
effective form of schooling.
It should only be temporary.
But there are local authoritiesaround the country.
who are semi self-governed, whocan dictate some of their own
education policy 50 are workingwith us now, sending students to
us.
They're saying MVA is the bestpossible school for this kid

(40:48):
who's a motion based school,avoider mental health, or ND and
the local authority is sendingto us and paying, ignoring the
government's advice.
And this is a local governmentsaying, no, we've discovered
this and it works.
So that is happening.
And I think as soon asgovernments around the world get
on board with this idea thatSchool Can't come in different
forms and home ed, you know, isone end of the spectrum.

(41:10):
It doesn't have to be pure homeed, even though I'm a big
believer in supporting home ed.
I love it.
But if that's too extreme, itdoesn't have to go that far.
they've gotta realize that whatparents need a choice because
kids will suit different typesof schooling.
and I think that's the futurewe're gonna get there
eventually.

That sounds very sensible.
I'm also intrigued by how otherorganizations could take your
happiness first agenda and thinkabout how applying that might
shift the way they approach howthey deliver education.

I did this Sky News interview two years ago
and the interviewer came to theoffice he tried to get me on
this.
He was like, look, yourhappiness first stuff, it's,
it's rubbish, right?
All parents care about hisresults and getting their kids
into top universities, and Isaid, no, they don't.
Some parents do and that's okay.
Parents think about results andthat's all they care about.
That's okay.
But not all parents do.

(42:03):
Not all parents do.
And he said, yeah, they do.
And I said, no, they don't.
this clip of me and him on Skysaying this and that, they
dropped it on Instagram andthere were a thousand comments,
Half were parents probably justangry men saying This is
rubbish.
all that matters at school is,results half were comments from
moms and dads saying, I wishthis existed when I was younger.

(42:24):
This is the right approach.
All I care about is happiness.
a good enough number offamilies.
care about happiness first.
I promise.
I've proven it.
So people can start their ownschool, own education, business,
own ed tech company, or teacherscan start talking about it.
school leaders can start talkingabout this with more confidence.
'cause at least half I wouldargue, of parents do care about

(42:44):
happiness first, and I thinkwe're living proof of that.

Well, I think Hugh, if you are a parent who's
been through an experience witha child who is unable to attend
school.
all you want is to see themhappy again because they've had
such a torrid time of it.
And you know, though a lot of usworry about our kids' survival
and wellbeing.

(43:10):
Happiness just seems like adistant dream in a lot of cases.
So yeah, I think you'recompletely spot on the money
there for, plenty of us.

Exactly.

If people wanna learn more about you and all the
work you're doing, where is thebest place for us to direct
them?

Our website, minervavirtual.com.

Mm-hmm.

then, you know, more of my ramblings, or,
thought leadership, whicheverway you sit find me on LinkedIn.
Hugh Viney.
Or if you're on other socialmedias, just check out
hughviney.com.
I'm quite active on other socialmedias, but LinkedIn, where it's
at.

I have seen some pretty cool tiktoks lately.

Okay, good.
Thank you.

thank you so much for your time.
I really, really appreciate it.

Thanks so much for having me on.

Well, how inspiring to hear Hugh's story
of how they went from just anidea to an operating
organization with students injust months.
And with such a student centeredand happiness orientated ethos.
We can only hope that more andmore different types of
educational experiences continueto open up around the world in
response to the desperate needof School Can't families and
people who just want a differentand better approach to

(44:11):
education.
I've put links to the MVAwebsite in the episode notes so
you can learn more there.
And also, I encourage you tofollow Hugh on social media for
regular entertaining updates.
If you found our podcasthelpful, please do take a moment
to subscribe or give us a ratingor a review.
This makes a a huge differencein helping us get the podcast in
front of more people who haveSchool Can't kids, and haven't

(44:33):
yet found our community, and allthe information and support that
we share.
If you have some feedback for usor a suggestion for a future
topic or a guest, perhaps you'vebeen inspired to share your own
lived experience of schoolcurrent, please drop me an email
to schoolcantpodcast@gmail.com.
I would love to hear from you.

(44:53):
If you are a parent or carer inAustralia and you're feeling
distressed please remember youcan always call the Parent
Helpline in your state.
A link with the number to callis in the episode notes.
Sadly, on the 31st of October,the Victorian government is
shutting down their Parent Line,which is very disappointing.
I have put a link to thepetition to protest this in the

(45:14):
episode notes if you areinclined to do so.
Thank you again for listening.
We will talk again soon.
Take care.

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#36 - Happiness First Education with Hugh Viney, Minerva Virtual Academy

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}#36 - Happiness First Education with Hugh Viney, Minerva Virtual Academy