South Shields, England, United Kingdom
Former Teach First English teacher researching cover lessons in UK secondary schools, campaigning to replace poor quality cover with carefully designed lessons and structured enrichment. Cover lessons are a national blindspot, having barely changed in over half a century. The system sets every participant up to fail: from ill teachers setting poor quality cover from their sickbeds, to covering staff wrestling with escalating behaviour, to students feeling unsafe while their learning time is wasted. I’m developing a range of solutions that target the factors that make cover lessons fail, from lesson design to the technicalities of cover booking.
I built the UpCover social enterprise from scratch, with the aim to transform cover lessons in secondary education through enrichment provision and universal retrieval lesson design. From inventing the initial concept in November 2025 to the founding of the organisation in June 2026, I researched different approaches, created prototype resources and worked with my web designer to produce our website and branding.
Caring for my two wonderful daughters.