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

In this episode, host Leisa Reichelt speaks with Hugh Viney, CEO of Minerva Virtual Academy (MVA), the UK’s fastest growing school that specifically caters to kids whose needs are not met by the mainstream school system.

MVA's unique model centers on a 'happiness first' ethos, providing a blend of self-directed online learning, live lessons, mentoring, and community activities. Hugh explains how MVA caters to diverse student needs, including those facing mental health challenges and neurodivergent learners, creating an educational environment where happiness and well-being are prioritized. 

The conversation also touches upon the challenges and opportunities in setting up such a venture and the broader implications for the future of education.

00:00 Introduction to the School Can't Experience Podcast

01:28 Meet Hugh Viney: From Musician to Education Innovator

03:14 The Birth of Minerva Tutors: Tutoring for Happiness

05:44 COVID-19 and the Rise of Online Learning

07:25 Creating Minerva Virtual Academy: A New Kind of School

09:55 Navigating Bureaucracy: Accreditation and Recognition

15:15 A Day in the Life of an MVA Student

22:37 Exploring Online School Clubs and Activities

22:59 Building a Sense of Community in Online Schools

24:22 Addressing Student Safety and Belonging

25:36 Supporting Neurodivergent and Mental Health Needs

28:06 Challenges and Solutions in Online Education

33:46 Recruiting and Training Online Teaching Staff

36:53 Advice for Parents and Educators

39:02 The Future of Education: Choice and Flexibility

42:49 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Recommended Resources

• Minerva Virtual Academy: https://www.minervavirtual.com/
• Hugh on LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/hugh-viney
• Hugh’s website & links to other social media: http://hughviney.com/ 
• Save Victorian Parent Helpline Petition: https://www.megaphone.org.au/petitions/save-parentline

Transcript

Leisa Reichelt: 0:05

Hello and welcome to the School Can't Experience Podcast. I'm Leisa Reichelt, and this podcast is brought to you by the School Can't Australia community. Caring for a young person who is struggling to attend school can be a stressful and isolating experience, but you are not alone. Thousands of parents across Australia and many more around the world face similar challenges and experiences every day. Now my friend Mary, who lives in London and whose family has firsthand experience of School Can't introduced me to our guest for today. We often talk on this podcast about how the education experience needs to be just completely redesigned. Well, Hugh Viney has actually done it. Hugh is the CEO of Minerva Virtual Academy, or MVA. MVA started in 2020 with literally just a handful of students. Now they have 1200 students and employ 160 teachers and mentors. And they're all based on the ethos of happiness first education. They're built on four pillars. A virtual learning platform plus live lessons with teachers. That enables them to deliver a flipped learning experience, plus mentoring and community, all of which combine to create a truly unique virtual learning experience. I hope you enjoy learning about Hugh and MVA. Welcome, Hugh to our podcast and thank you so much for joining us.

Hugh Viney - MVA CEO: 1:26

Thank you so much. Great to be here.

Leisa Reichelt: 1:28

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

Hugh Viney - MVA CEO: 1:37

Good question. And people often say to me,'cause I founded a school, I'm the founder and CEO of Minerva Virtual Academy, MVA. And currently the UK's fastest growing school. People often ask me, so were you a teacher? What's your background? And I say, well, probably, one of the reasons for our success is I'm not a teacher. I've come at this from a different angle. I've come at this from a place of understanding, homeschooling, understanding the needs of families that wanted non-traditional, or the needs of families for whom traditional education doesn't suit. Don't get me wrong. My first ever employee was a very professional teacher, and we now employ about 160, professional teachers. I think the way we came at it was from a different lens to some of the other online schools out there, which perhaps were started by schools that just went online, or teachers that just decided to create online version of school. And we'll get into that, I'm sure. So, so the background being, I was 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. So I tutored. I was a one-to-one tutor in London for the years I was, doing music. And it was the only way I'd made any money. I also loved it. I loved it so much. So when I eventually gave up music, when I gave up on the Rockstar Dream, I, uh, I was very happy because I loved tutoring so much. So I sort of started as a career tutor, not a teacher. I went around people's homes and did one-to-one tutoring, in maths and English, I mean. I started off tutoring the subjects that I studied at University, Latin and Greek, but I didn't get any work offering Latin and Greek tutoring, so I quickly switched to math and English. anyway, after a year of doing that, I felt a little bit unfulfilled because, if you're on your own tutoring, you can only impact. 15 families a year, 20 families tops. So I thought I really wanna have much larger impact. And I have a style of tutoring that I believe was a forward thinking philosophy at the time in 2014 in the uk. And tutoring not to pass exams, tutoring to preserve wellbeing, motivation, and confidence. And I thought I'd started a tutoring business. Minerva tutors. that would be our philosophy. I would take on tutors and that would be our mantra, tutoring for happiness. And that was back in 2014.

Leisa Reichelt: 3:50

There was demand for tutoring for happiness?'cause I, you know, my understanding of like a lot of the tutoring that goes on in the Australian market and I might be wrong about this, it's just my perception is that it's all about high achieving students who want to get into selective schools or get really high marks so they can get into university degrees. And so, so much of the demand for tutoring, it's very much about like academic excellence.

Hugh Viney - MVA CEO: 4:13

totally. I mean, I completely get that and yeah, I remember. when we launched it, just me and my laptop, and I had about 10 tutors that I'd met I said, look, I'm gonna start passing you jobs, but this is our mantra. This is what we are here for. We tutor for motivation, confidence, and wellbeing. In our first 10 customers, you know, I think two would be like, hang on. Can you guarantee we get into this School? Can't you guarantee we get these grades? 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 company for me. And I said, yeah, that's fine. That's okay. But so, no, it was certainly weird to be doing that. But there was enough of a demand for it. to get off the ground. And over six years we built a really nice small tutoring business, premium tuition services in London, servicing families who wanted after school tutoring, you know, maths and English and topping up, but a growing number of families that didn't want tutors after school. These are growing number of families that wanted homeschooling home ed, and they were like, no, no, no. My kids don't go to school. I want your tutors to deliver. Home education programs and that became our biggest service really. but the problem was using tutors for home ed, using tutors for homeschooling is expensive. This is a team of tutors delivering one-to-one lessons It was amazing what we did. The programs are amazing. The stuff the kids learned was amazing. we took them to museums and did all sorts with my team. We had a big homeschooling department, but it was expensive. So 95% of the families that found us on Google, they couldn't afford it. you know, it's private school fees. So COVID here and we have this explosion of awareness in the uk. for learning from home, online learning, often the children with wellbeing or mental health needs just being at home is what made them happier. And perhaps the neurodivergent students being online made them happier. So they are two separate things, but both were having this awakening.'cause moms and dads up and down the uk and I dunno if you saw this, but this is 2020 and I'm sure it was the same around the world. While most families hated lockdown, while most families were miserable, that their child was locked up. Some families saw their child, being happy for the first time in years. Happy because they got to learn from 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 because they were happier. Often they were engaging more'cause they could concentrate better than a loud, noisy classroom, you know, distracting them and these kids learning accelerated. So this explosion occurs across the UK of awareness of this. While most families were miserable and their kids needed to be in mainstream school. But a good 20%, I call it a significant minority. Saw a new way. So suddenly these families were saying, we don't want to go back to mainstream school. They were Googling, homeschooling Minerva pops up, Minerva tutors, The phone was red hot. Everyone was calling to get homeschooling programs, but it was the same problem, right? It's expensive to hire tutors to homeschool. So I said, how can we create an affordable homeschooling product that serves the needs of these families? Both the children with mental health needs, the needs of the neurodivergent kids, and other types, you know, elite athletes and performers or lifestyle families that just don't like traditional school. they want flexible education. How can I serve those families with something that is affordable and still has some of the best things about school, which is community pastoral care. And so I came up with the idea of Minerva Virtual Academy, which is an online school with community and personal interaction as one of its core features. So yes, we have the flexible learning kids learning on a platform without a teacher. But we also have learning with teachers'cause that's important. Every child was gonna get a mentor one-on-one once a week, because that's my tutoring background. I believe there's so much power in that. But the final piece of the puzzle, the, fourth pillar, the magic dust was there will be school trips from day one. And originally we were like, let's do one school trip a year where all the kids around the UK can come together. Now we do six a term.

Leisa Reichelt: 8:09

Wow.

Hugh Viney - MVA CEO: 8:10

even better, when we grew from 500 kids up, we are getting pockets around the UK using this app called Class List of Families. Just meeting up MVA, moms meeting up, kids meeting up, working together. socializing together. They're even doing their own school trips and that's without us organizing them. So that's the magic dust, really. And so, yeah, I just came up with this idea for what I thought a cool school would look like and four and a half years later, 1,200 students full time with the fastest growing school in the uk. You know, it's crazy. This is just a cool idea. I thought my idea of a cool school, but it seems to work.

Leisa Reichelt: 8:41

What a great story.

Hugh Viney - MVA CEO: 8:42

Thank you.

Leisa Reichelt: 8:44

So we've got a few different options for school here in Australia, but, not many, I'll be honest. And I think that part of the reason for that is just a bureaucratic process of making a school. It's pretty hard work.

Hugh Viney - MVA CEO: 9:01

Yep.

Leisa Reichelt: 9:01

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

Hugh Viney - MVA CEO: 9:09

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

Leisa Reichelt: 9:20

Hmm.

Hugh Viney - MVA CEO: 9:20

We really do. there's a lot of freedom to what parents are allowed to do. we've got these, national exams at GCSE and you should be taking them when you're 16. in theory, they don't mind how you get to those exams. As long as they take some exams at 16, that's cool. So that's the important bit of the exam. We don't get a diploma for every year. You don't pass through to the next year. It's just these exams at 16. And if you wanna do even better, maybe for university, you should take these A levels at 18 as well. But they're not compulsory. So compulsory editing in the UK is up, is up to 16 anyway, so there's relaxed rules about how you learn one. So. we were able to launch as an online school, even though we weren't officially a school. We were a homeschooling business, calling ourselves a school. But that was okay Like no one minded. but it was important for me that we did get the accreditation and recognition of the department for 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 boxes to be what a real accredited school should do from safeguarding perspective, from attendance perspective, and keeping records. All those stuff, we were watertight from day one. So when. The Department for education in the UK decided to create an accreditation process for online schools, which did not exist until 22. We were right there at the front of 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're the heads of inspection and depending on how your inspection goes. They passed a report over to the Department 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 online school? They came and sat at the office. They were called John, John and John from Offset in their suits and ties, and their briefcases and my office buildings, hasn't seen a tie in in a long time. they set up in this room next to our office for, for two days and they, they wander the virtual corridors, they sort of, they go to assemblies, they go to the lessons, they interview parents, interview teachers. they go to clubs for two days and then they write this report. And then that report is submitted to Department of Education, and we did this in 2024, last year. and we got accredited. So we are now accredited. but even in the uk. they will just, full short of calling us a school. We're accredited provider of online education. and that's all they can say for now. but that's great for us. It works for us and we're the only online school of our size to have that accreditation. So it's a wonderful thing. Oh, and our osted report, I've got framed in the office. I've got it over there in the office, five pages.'cause it reads like a marketing document. This is a government inspection, but it's amazing. the first line says wellbeing is at the heart of everything they do. that's such a wonderful thing to be recognized for that by a government department. Right. So an inspection department. So there's a brief history of the laws and bureaucracy of home ed in the uk.

Leisa Reichelt: 12:12

Oh, I think it's super interesting Hugh, because know, there's no shortage of people saying we need to redesign how education is delivered because the standard way of rolling out education is just not suitable to a sizable chunk of kids who want to learn. But thinking about going, okay, well you know what we gonna do 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, put in all the information that you want to start the school on March 31st, the year before you want the school to open. And our school's open in like January, February. So you gotta really be ready a year ahead of when you wanna open the school. How can you sustain that in a business?

Hugh Viney - MVA CEO: 12:56

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 business plan. September, set up the website. October ran Google ads where we paid for the keyword online school parents started coming to the website, typing in online school or homeschooling, and our phone number was coming up. The phone was ringing, and we said, Hey, November 20th, we are launching a new type of online school We're doing a four week trial. You can come for four weeks for free. and 10 signed up for the free trial, but four paid. Full paid to the end of the year. They said, yeah, we're just gonna join. We said, what? We just, we just, you know, we've just invented a, new kind of school and you wanna join. And there's two reasons why. One is the sad reason. Desperate. traditional school was awful for them. So anything else can be better still, you have to part with 5,000 pounds to do it. for the rest of the year.

Leisa Reichelt: 13:51

Hmm.

Hugh Viney - MVA CEO: 13:51

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

Leisa Reichelt: 13:58

Hmm

Hugh Viney - MVA CEO: 13:58

And look, we used that a lot. We said, look, this is Minerva Virtual Academy. It's a new school. It's a new business, yes, but it's come from a place of homeschooling expertise. And that was enough for some parents, the early adopters to sign up. the four week trial happened and then over Christmas we recruited some more students. And then January the seventh, or whatever it was, 2021, we officially launched with about 10 kids. Maybe 12 and, we haven't looked back, but yeah, you are right. how on earth have you done a school that way? And it's, I guess maybe the UK is more relaxed about those things Maybe there's harder barriers to entry now, but It is crazy that we did it in a couple of months.

Leisa Reichelt: 14:34

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

Hugh Viney - MVA CEO: 14:51

I hope so

Leisa Reichelt: 14:51

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

Hugh Viney - MVA CEO: 14:56

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

Leisa Reichelt: 15:13

hmm.

Hugh Viney - MVA CEO: 15:13

we'll be in the Pacific region.

Leisa Reichelt: 15:15

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 is probably one of the worst parts of the day because it's like massive and overwhelming and

Hugh Viney - MVA CEO: 15:31

Yeah.

Leisa Reichelt: 15:32

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

Hugh Viney - MVA CEO: 15:34

of course. now one thing we managed to do well is cater for those four different types of students when we launched those four kids. the founding four one was neurodivergent 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 a lifestyle family where they wanted flexible education. And now those four categories, are spread across the 1,200. But, so a typical day will vary depending on the type of child. let's do a week Monday morning assembly, 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, a typical assembly, 20 minutes to 30 minutes, but notices for the week praising students that have done some good stuff. what's happening at the week, there'll be themes like assembly. This week was run by our new assistant vice principal for student development, who's all about enrichment. So we have a leader who's sole job is. Creating after school clubs, more school trips. We're doing our first residential school trip, away days and stuff. her job is to make sure we enter into competitions, you know, internally, but compete against other schools, all that sort of stuff. so assembly was all about enrichment week, where all the kids were finding out about all the clubs they could sign up for and all the trips they could sign up for. And so that's the theme for the week at the assembly. That's great. And they're like

Leisa Reichelt: 16:51

And dialing

Hugh Viney - MVA CEO: 16:51

They're dialing in on a big Google Meet.

Leisa Reichelt: 16:53

that live.

Hugh Viney - MVA CEO: 16:54

Yeah,

Leisa Reichelt: 16:55

okay.

Hugh Viney - MVA CEO: 16:55

Dialing in a big Google meet and, you know, you get like a thousand kids from mostly UK, but all over the world. We've got kids in 60 countries dialing in for assembly. There's lots of emoji usage, you know, there's lots of praise, there's lots of cheering. Some people come in and students are invited to speak, For some kids assembly in a mainstream school, is a terrifying place. But those kids, all that stuff, they're fearful of that's all 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 eight will have their own version of assembly with their heads of year running it, which is much more personalized to their year group, different notices, different trips happening, different events, getting ready for your mock exams if you're year 11, that sort of stuff. So that will happen on Wednesday. and once a week you see your mentor that could be on any day or time suitable to your needs.

Leisa Reichelt: 17:43

Who is a mentor,

Hugh Viney - MVA CEO: 17:44

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

Leisa Reichelt: 17:52

yeah.

Hugh Viney - MVA CEO: 17:52

crazy.

Leisa Reichelt: 17:54

How does that scale?

Hugh Viney - MVA CEO: 17:55

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 mental half an hour week, it's the highest cost, some of our competitors have seen it and gone, hang on, that's one of your unique selling points. It's our third pillar. How, how do we do that? And they've all looked into it and gone, it's too expensive. but I've had it from day one, so it's locked in. how does mentor work? Mentors are selected on your type of student, like who you are, what you like, and what your needs are. So we've got ex-professional athletes that are mentors to the athletes. You've got neurodivergent specialist teachers who are mentors to some of the SEND kids you're matched with your mentor depending on your unique personality or your needs. The mentors are sometimes. A teacher. So a teacher might be a science teacher four days a week mentor one day a week. or you might have a math teacher who's teacher three days a week, but they mentor two. But we have quite a few full-time mentors who are mentoring every day. they can fit in about 20 kids a week, with their mentoring because it is not just that meeting, it's the follow-ups, the report they write every two weeks, which gets sent to parents. And that's the mentor report, which is so crucial to our model. Not to, parents are like worried about online school, understandably. but the mentor sending them a fortnightly report. Which says how the kid's feeling, how are they doing and how are they progressing academically? It's just a great little touch point. So you see a mentor once a week, going back to the typical week. then you've got, far fewer of the lessons that you have in a traditional school. so on a Monday, you might have a maths live lesson and a chemistry live lesson. On a Tuesday, you might have three. On a Wednesday, you might have only one. You might have any English language, right? It depends. But fitting around those lessons are your self-directed learning.'cause 60% of your learning is done without a teacher. It's done on a platform where you log in and go through modules each fortnight, at your own pace. This is the kind of flexible element which suits so much of our students, and we operate at a 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 virtual platform with a mixture of video, audio, text, imagery, and soon to be ai. That's the first time you're learning that topic, and then you're going into the live lesson. You've got a prior understanding of that topic. You've got a lesson with 20 kids in it, the teacher, you've got questions ready for them or some understanding already, and the lesson is interactive and engaging. It is not a lecture. It is not 30 kids staring at a whiteboard, hearing a topic for the first time. it's the opposite. It's interactive, it's engaging. then you come out of the live lesson and maybe straight away, but sometimes the next day you go back onto the virtual platform, look at that topic again, and that's where you consolidate the learning, maybe some quizzing and then you move on. Now, it's not always as pure and slick as that, but that is the model of flipped learning that we employ. That's the academic model.

Leisa Reichelt: 20:47

Hmm.

Hugh Viney - MVA CEO: 20:48

So that's how those are covered in the week. some kids, especially the ND kids, they want you to build them a timetable from nine till three where you say this is when you're gonna do self-directed learning, this is when your fixed live lessons are And this is when you have an article club or whatever. But some of the other kids are like, cool, I'm gonna do, all my self-directed learning in the evenings.'cause I work better in the evening. Someone like, I'm gonna do it all in the early morning'cause I work better in the early morning. This is about building a system that suits them, suits the child, That's a typical week.

Leisa Reichelt: 21:14

suppose could do things like have part-time jobs

Hugh Viney - MVA CEO: 21:16

Oh yeah.

Leisa Reichelt: 21:17

time that they want, and then do their learning

Hugh Viney - MVA CEO: 21:19

A hundred percent.

Leisa Reichelt: 21:20

that.

Hugh Viney - MVA CEO: 21:21

A hundred percent. one of the first videos we filmed with our students for marketing. in the first couple of years we could only get the athletes to do videos, it was really hard to get someone who suffered with mental health needs to do a really cool testimonial. And then we found Georgie in Scotland and she just did this amazing video and it's really transformed the way we tell our story. this is like three years ago now. And one of the awesome stories was this is a girl that had really suffered with mental health, needs awful bullying, had been missing school for two years, 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 life experience, she's made money and then she's got this kind of rounded character. She's got the GCSEs she needed. That's our British qualification I mentioned earlier at 16. 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 of those 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 allowed to miss them. If you give us advanced warning. You'll have a mentor session once a week. You'll have assemblies on Monday morning, year group assembly and Wednesday morning, and then you have after school clubs. Which usually run between three and four and we've got like 40 clubs now. Anything from art to film to baking all online. and then, AI coding, that sort of thing. We've got exercise clubs, four exercise clubs now. There's a hit class, a yoga one, a running club, these are all online, but they're amazing opportunities for that. student development, which isn't academic in Richmond.

Leisa Reichelt: 23:00

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

Hugh Viney - MVA CEO: 23:13

I completely think it is. You know, I wanted to take the best bits about school, and bring them into my version of a school. And I think often the best bits about school is enrichment. learning stuff outside of the curriculum. it's learning how to interact with students, in a positive way. Learning how to listen, giving people space to speak. learning how to speak yourself and feeling confident enough to do so. And often in an online environment, it's better practice, less nerve wracking. So, yeah, I mean, after school clubs integral to our model. the whole community pillar, which involves clubs, assemblies, trips, is like. What I thought online schools were missing, and I thought, if we did that right, we're gonna smash it. that pillar is often the children's best bit. That's like the student's favorite part of MVA is the community, which is assemblies, clubs, trips, The third pillar is often the parent's favorite bit. And then you've got the learning pillars, the self-directed learning and the the live lesson pillars, which, yeah, they're quite typical of an online school, to be honest. And we do them very well. the secret sauce with our model came with the mentor, which parents love and the community element, which the students love.

Leisa Reichelt: 24:20

Hmm. One of the reasons that we know kids struggle in mainstream school is that they just don't have a sense of safety or a sense of belonging in those environments. of things are you thinking about to help address that in the online context?

Hugh Viney - MVA CEO: 24:40

there's a vibe with NBA kids. Where they find their people. I've seen it so often when a new kid joins MVA, their class could be an assembly year group assembly. It could be a main big assembly, but it could be in a lesson, you know, math lesson for the year nines. And the new kids feel seen because, so many of the kids in that class have been through what they've been through.

Leisa Reichelt: 25:05

Hmm.

Hugh Viney - MVA CEO: 25:05

You know, half our students have been what we call over here upset, emotionally based school avoiders.'cause they're not school refusers. It's not their fault, you know, they're emotionally based school avoiders It's the system's fault. That's half our students and roughly half of that half, you know, are like that. And it's pretty much for two distinct reasons. For neurodivergent reasons or for mental health reasons. Sometimes they overlap. I know they do. So they come to our school and they feel really seen.'cause that's, I know you, I've been in your situation. So we encourage peer to peer encouragement and warmth. we do so much to help support children feel settled. So I'll give you some examples. I've mentioned the mentor so crucial on your journey. Like you meet your mentor in your first week and they're your buddy. Hopefully. for the whole time at your school. But what we do is things like, especially kids that have come with serious trauma, they don't have to have their camera on. we say, look, In your own time. And after a term, their camera's on in their lessons and stuff, and the parents are so grateful. Thank you for letting us slowly take steps to become integrated into some sense of normal. all our teachers are first names, so our principal is Suzanne and our vice principals, you know, Becky and Harry and, and. The kids find that so weird and disarming sometimes. Some immediately love it. Some are like, this is too weird. But almost all end up loving it. We interviewed some kids two years ago and I said, what's your favorite thing about NVA? they were saying, oh, the trips, the community. And then one said for me, it was the first name, teaching them first names. And I said, yeah, cool. Why? And they said,'cause it brings a barrier down. it makes me feel comfortable. It makes me feel welcome. And I said, you know what? That's amazing. cause we debated it in September, 2020 when we were writing the model. What should we do about teacher's names And I said, I think first names would be cool, but let's debate it. me and Lawrence our first employee, 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 this impact on students' wellbeing. First name for a teacher, first name, a head teacher brings down a barrier, makes a child feel warm, makes child feel welcome, and therefore, guess what? They learn better. Isn't that nuts?

Leisa Reichelt: 27:18

connected relationship between student and teacher

Hugh Viney - MVA CEO: 27:21

nuts.

Leisa Reichelt: 27:22

a massive difference.

Hugh Viney - MVA CEO: 27:23

It's absolutely nuts. so look, we, we've got. You know, amazing thing happened last term. We've got all these clubs and a bunch of our neurodivergent students created the Neurodivergent Society. So they've got this peer led group of 30 kids meeting weekly to talk about ND and their lives and stuff. It's just really cool. we do a lot of catering for different types of learners, certainly with children with more mental health. needs that need support. We've got a mental health support team for the neurodivergent students. We've got a pretty large special educational needs, team. Obviously there's crossover, like I say, so, we go outta our way to really make kids feel welcome.'cause that's just like, that's our, happiness first model. and luckily it seems to work.

Leisa Reichelt: 28:07

Hugh, a really common thing that happens that I've seen in Australia when people switch outta mainstream school, finally give up on mainstream school and go, right. My only option that I have is home education, is that they. often see people who will then sign up for some big online package of learning and then put that in front of the kid and the kid goes, no way, Jose, I cannot, will not engage with that at all. I imagine you have lots of kids who land with you, who have come out of a mainstream experience

Hugh Viney - MVA CEO: 28:42

Yep.

Leisa Reichelt: 28:43

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 in a, you know, kind of substantial way at first?

Hugh Viney - MVA CEO: 28:55

Yeah. it's a really fair point. there's two types of kids joining, right. In that situation, kids coming outta mainstream, and then there's kids coming from home ed right? And you're talking about kids coming from a mainstream school. They finally decided to home educate. they come to something like my school thinking that's quite a good halfway house, right?'cause the parents aren't doing worksheets at home. They're coming to an online platform. Yeah. exactly that. A lot of online schools, when we started out have this model of seven hours a day of live lessons. Right. I just think that's Zoom School. I call that school online. I think for some parents that actually makes more sense than my model because they're seeing a teacher seven hours a day. for some parents, particularly dads, that seems to be like a sort of, oh, well that's better. they're learning more, doing that way. And I said, well, look, sometimes that's the case, but often, more often than not, not also in those models, it's often a lecture. There's 300 kids dialing in with their cameras off, With our model, small class sizes lots of self-directed learning, a mentor, and then the community elements. What we find being really honest is some kids struggle with the self-directed learning element. You gotta be disciplined and parents just go, oh God, I didn't realize how much the kid'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, that means I need to get him to his desk. There's no teacher right at 10 o'clock. No, no, no. He's got two hours of learning on his own. and for some parents they struggle with that. And of course we've had parents join us and it hasn't worked. And it's more often than not that the parents are kind of, even though they know what they're signing up to, They certainly don't get it until it starts. And I think we do everything we can to support those kids that struggle with the self-directed discipline element. sometimes we turn'em around, the mentor gets involved and says, right, we need to fix your timetable. That starts at nine and you've got two hours of self-directed learning. Then you have a lesson and we'll do all that for you. sometimes that helps turn the kids around. But ultimately there are kids that our version of online schooling. It doesn't work because of the self-discipline required with the self-directed learning. they might suit an online school with seven hours a day of a live lesson with a teacher or a lecture, I don't think they do suit it often. That's just what a parent thinks is learning and they're just, they're logging in and sitting there.

Leisa Reichelt: 31:16

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

Hugh Viney - MVA CEO: 31:21

Yeah.

Leisa Reichelt: 31:21

because they've been trying so hard and not been working and so there's gathering the ability to show up for something that looks or sounds like school at all, I think, can be very challenging for a period of

Hugh Viney - MVA CEO: 31:37

Yeah.

Leisa Reichelt: 31:38

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 that it's different to what you were experiencing before.

Hugh Viney - MVA CEO: 31:50

Definitely. with those types of kids that we are, we often suited to them. If they've been burnt out by mainstream, then our model suits them really well. you need parents to be supportive. You need parents to understand that is not their child is at fault. Here is the system. This one size fits all system that parents have been sold a lie about for 200 years. what parents need is choice. And our version of school is one of those choices. the kids that have been burnt out, the kids that Main Street doesn't suit, they often come to us and it's a relief. they get the chance to rebuild,

Leisa Reichelt: 32:21

Hmm.

Hugh Viney - MVA CEO: 32:21

chance to be happy again, most importantly. And then they get a chance to learn.'cause once you're happy, you learn more and then you make more friends. Kids like that sometimes they are with us. Two years, they're happier. They've got exam qualifications. They've made way more friends than mainstream school. They might return to traditional school for their final two years of high school, which we call, six form or A levels. They're happy and ready to do so, and they have a flourishing final two years. And in that case, we've done a great job as well. We lose them as a student, which is bad for business, but hey, who cares? We've done an amazing job and put them back on their feet that is quite a common tale. Particularly for the kids with burnout who've had problems with mental health needs, They get back on their feet after two years or three years of us and they're like confident enough to return to physical school. And that's cool'cause that for a lot of parents, that's the golden goose they ultimately really 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 that model, they're like, everyone's happy.'cause the kid's gone from completely disengaged, at best not learning at worst, physically sick like school is making them ill. And that's awful. They've gone then had two years of happiness of MVA and then they've returned to phony teaser high school and they're happy kids and they're engaging with learning in a physical school that. arc is a very positive place for parents to be.

Leisa Reichelt: 33:45

Absolutely. What do you need to think about when you're recruiting your teaching staff? Are you looking for something different than

Hugh Viney - MVA CEO: 33:52

Yeah.

Leisa Reichelt: 33:52

school would be looking

Hugh Viney - MVA CEO: 33:53

Really good question. So, when we started off, I borrowed a bunch of tutors from my tutoring business, they're mercenaries. They wanna do their hour, get paid and get out. You know, they're not, they're not teachers, you know, they're amazing one-to-one. But often tutors are not great classroom teachers. we saw that quite quickly and within about five months we were employing teachers with teaching qualifications and teaching experience. ragtag bunch to begin with. Sure. There were some gems, there were absolutely some gems. but now it's quite sophisticated. Since our principal took over Suzanne. she came from, she was deputy head, and then she became principal in January 24. We've really become sort of we have the professional structure of a big international school principal, two vice principals. We now have four assistant vice principals, so that's like the senior leadership team, heads of year, heads of department, that sort of stuff. we now recruit teachers who have to have three years experience teaching. Gotta be qualified teachers and they have to have three experience teaching, and that includes our mentors too. what are we looking for? Yes, we're looking for someone who. understands the principles of our happiness First approach, and understands the needs of our types of kids. And we're getting more and more teachers coming to us from mainstream, in the uk teaching is 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 work from home. Which they do. And if they bang on about that in their interview too much, they're not right for us. not'cause they wanna work life balance. That is true. That is good. It's because they believe in the mission that's cool. Hasn't changed with 200 years. And they can be part of something different, which is perfect for some kids and good for other kids. we are looking for that understanding of the model. Understanding of the types of kids that we serve and a spark, a desire to innovate and be part of something special. But, some of our teachers, in no offense, are kind of good old fashioned teachers in a way. And they just happened to be an online school and we need that too. this goes back to when I started, I had some entrepreneur kind of guys, further down the road than me, investor types being like, Hugh, screw the system. tear it all up. forget GCSE qualifications. Forget A levels. don't employ teachers, only employ entrepreneurs. And I was like, no, no, no, no, the model we've created is enough of innovation. We want our kids to get that British qualification, GCSE and the A level

Leisa Reichelt: 36:17

Mm.

Hugh Viney - MVA CEO: 36:18

We wouldn't have 90% of our customers come to us. Maybe 10% would be like, yeah, cool. You're only teaching AI and entrepreneurship great, but like maybe 1% to be honest. Maybe in 10 years time we might have to change our thought on that, The majority of our faculty, which is like 160 teachers and mentors. Are from physical schools, mainstream schools with three years plus experience teaching. Some are crazy innovative, teaching science for 10 years at a mainstream school. some are kind of good old fashioned teachers, but that's okay.'cause the model is innovative enough.

Leisa Reichelt: 36:47

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

Hugh Viney - MVA CEO: 37:10

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, you can sort of breathe and think, oh, wow. so much you worry and panic about your own child and, the guilt you feel as a parent. But you know, it is not your fault or their fault. It's the system's fault. The system is really great for some kids, good for some and bad for some. And that bad is like a third of all kids, I would argue. And that bad has a spectrum at the one end, it just doesn't excite them. It doesn't work for them. And at the bottom end, it makes them ill. That's a whole group of kids that's like 30% of kids. The system's not good for, and for some kids it's really bad. So when you know it's the system's fault, not yours, start to think about how you can help your child with alternatives Obviously we are a great alternative. our type of school, our online school, for some families, but we're not for all families. in person home ed could be the way. And there's amazing communities of home educators in the UK where, we are too much like school for them. We're too standardized, which is interesting. So homemade communities, homeschooling, Online schools like mine can be an incredible opportunity to either temporarily get your child engaged with education again or long term, bring out the absolute best in them. there is another way, and the choice for alternatives is growing and the demand for alternatives are growing. so yeah, don't, don't blame yourself though. That's the most important thing.

Leisa Reichelt: 38:37

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

Hugh Viney - MVA CEO: 38:43

Yeah.

Leisa Reichelt: 38:44

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

Hugh Viney - MVA CEO: 38:50

Yeah.

Leisa Reichelt: 38:51

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

Hugh Viney - MVA CEO: 39:02

The future's gotta be choice. So like, let's take the UK for example. we've got 1.5, 1.6 million students in the UK are persistently absent from school at the moment. We have a pupil, absentee crisis students persistently not attending school. And the solution from the previous government, and this government is to improve the physical schools we have already. invest in bigger SEND departments. they think that will fix attendance and it won't. What they don't realize is certain kids, the traditional bricks and mortar school does not suit them. So that's what's causing the attendance crisis. It's not bad parents. It's not bad teachers. Teachers are trying the best. So just like, just trying to do more with the model you have. Isn't gonna fix it. what will fix it is creating alternatives. we have proven for the fastest growing secondary school in the UK that appear online. Pure online model can be amazing for 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 mine creating physical hubs or physical schools having an online option, and education leaders around the world need to realize they need to start creating choice, Hiring more teachers for the physical schools, could that all help with the teacher student ratio? That is not gonna fix the student absentee crisis in the uk all around the world, what they need to invest in is different models of schooling. I'll give you a really good example. the UK Department for Education policy is online is not an effective form of schooling. It should only be temporary. But there are local authorities around the country. who are semi self-governed, who can dictate some of their own education policy 50 are working with us now, sending students to us. They're saying MVA is the best possible school for this kid who's a motion based school, avoider mental health, or ND and the local authority is sending to us and paying, ignoring the government's advice. And this is a local government saying, no, we've discovered this and it works. So that is happening. And I think as soon as governments around the world get on board with this idea that School Can't come in different forms and home ed, you know, is one end of the spectrum. It doesn't have to be pure home ed, even though I'm a big believer in supporting home ed. I love it. But if that's too extreme, it doesn't have to go that far. they've gotta realize that what parents need a choice because kids will suit different types of schooling. and I think that's the future we're gonna get there eventually.

Leisa Reichelt: 41:25

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

Hugh Viney - MVA CEO: 41:41

I did this Sky News interview two years ago and the interviewer came to the office he tried to get me on this. He was like, look, your happiness first stuff, it's, it's rubbish, right? All parents care about his results and getting their kids into top universities, and I said, no, they don't. Some parents do and that's okay. Parents think about results and that's all they care about. That's okay. But not all parents do. Not all parents do. And he said, yeah, they do. And I said, no, they don't. this clip of me and him on Sky saying this and that, they dropped it on Instagram and there were a thousand comments, Half were parents probably just angry men saying This is rubbish. all that matters at school is, results half were comments from moms and dads saying, I wish this existed when I was younger. This is the right approach. All I care about is happiness. a good enough number of families. care about happiness first. I promise. I've proven it. So people can start their own school, own education, business, own ed tech company, or teachers can start talking about it. school leaders can start talking about this with more confidence.'cause at least half I would argue, of parents do care about happiness first, and I think we're living proof of that.

Leisa Reichelt: 42:49

Well, I think Hugh, if you are a parent who's been through an experience with a child who is unable to attend school. all you want is to see them happy again because they've had such a torrid time of it. And you know, though a lot of us worry about our kids' survival and wellbeing. Happiness just seems like a distant dream in a lot of cases. So yeah, I think you're completely spot on the money there for, plenty of us.

Hugh Viney - MVA CEO: 43:17

Exactly.

Leisa Reichelt: 43:19

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

Hugh Viney - MVA CEO: 43:25

Our website, minervavirtual.com.

Leisa Reichelt: 43:28

Mm-hmm.

Hugh Viney - MVA CEO: 43:29

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

Leisa Reichelt: 43:42

I have seen some pretty cool tiktoks lately.

Hugh Viney - MVA CEO: 43:44

Okay, good. Thank you.

Leisa Reichelt: 43:45

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

Hugh Viney - MVA CEO: 43:48

Thanks so much for having me on.

Leisa Reichelt: 43:49

Well, how inspiring to hear Hugh's story of how they went from just an idea to an operating organization with students in just months. And with such a student centered and happiness orientated ethos. We can only hope that more and more different types of educational experiences continue to open up around the world in response to the desperate need of School Can't families and people who just want a different and better approach to education. I've put links to the MVA website in the episode notes so you can learn more there. And also, I encourage you to follow Hugh on social media for regular entertaining updates. If you found our podcast helpful, please do take a moment to subscribe or give us a rating or a review. This makes a a huge difference in helping us get the podcast in front of more people who have School Can't kids, and haven't yet found our community, and all the information and support that we share. If you have some feedback for us or a suggestion for a future topic or a guest, perhaps you've been inspired to share your own lived experience of school current, please drop me an email to schoolcantpodcast@gmail.com. I would love to hear from you. If you are a parent or carer in Australia and you're feeling distressed please remember you can always call the Parent Helpline in your state. A link with the number to call is 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 the petition to protest this in the episode notes if you are inclined to do so. Thank you again for listening. We will talk again soon. Take care.