Aneira Roose-McClew , London, United Kingdom

I have worked with young people in some capacity for the past fifteen years, since being a young person myself. In each of my roles, whether it has been that of peer motivator, youth support worker, workshop leader, academic tutor, or secondary school teacher, I have witnessed how our current educational provision is not empowering each individual to shine with their unique brilliance. A one-size-fits-all education system risks alienating students, making them feel undervalued and misunderstood, whilst the championing of data and standardised testing risks fostering insecurity by reducing a student's sense of worth to a grade. Moreover, and worryingly, if success is linked to uncovering the ‘right’ answer, then we risk limiting a student’s capacity to think critically and to develop an understanding that the world is complex: most problems lack simple solutions, there is no clear right or wrong.

In a polarised time such as ours, we must, therefore, be ensuring that students are not easily led and are driven to question, dissect and critique the world around them. In addition to teaching students to think critically and for themselves, we need to be equipping them with the skills to communicate effectively, to disagree respectfully, and, importantly, to love who they are: it is difficult to have compassion and love for others, if one does not have them for oneself. In my work as and education consultant, I seek to empower teachers to develop dynamic classroom environments that foster critical thought, empathy and engagement, and that prepare students to be active participants in the world beyond school.

In my role as an education consultant, I advise and assist not only pupils, but also teachers, notably English teachers, and I have run CPD training both as a visitor in schools and in conjunction with well-respected organisations, such as the British Library and Facing History and Ourselves. With the latter organization, I have been involved in the creation and development of a new unit of work, Standing Up for Democracy, which is available for free to teachers all over the world. The unit is designed to inspire students to participate constructively in their communities, and to help foster in them the skills of maintaining and sustaining a society together.
I have recently been working with a new EdTech start up to create resources for verbal reasoning - these lessons and exam papers cover 50 topics anc contain over 600 original questions on the subject.

For the past two years, I have worked as a GCSE English examiner for AQA - I am regarded as a top examiner and my standard of marking has been rated as excellent. I have been invited back to mark for the 2019 Summer GCSE series.

Prior to this, I worked as a secondary school English teacher. During my three years in this role, I made excellent resources to boost the writing skills of my pupils, and was a big proponent of essay writing as a means of boosting one's ability to communicate succinctly and persuasively. My students made outstanding progress under my teaching, all of them outshining their target grades and doing very well indeed. In the first year of what were regarded as tougher GCSEs (nationwide the pass rate dropped), my class achieved the highest grades for English Literature and English Language combined that the school had ever seen, among them: twelve 7s (A), nine 8s (A*), and two 9s (A**) - only 2.2% of students in the UK achieved 9s in English language. This was a real achievement as the school I worked in had an intake that placed it in the bottom 10% of UK schools. The results were, in the words of the Head of English, “a fantastic set of class result, a brilliant achievement by a brilliant teacher”.

The private students I tutor have also gained top grades in the subjects I have taught them, be these at GCSE level or A Level (grades 8s & 9s, As & A*s). Many of my students have elected to work with me for extended periods: I have worked with one student in particular since 2013, tutoring him to get his English up to an appropriate level to apply to a UK school, then coaching him through his successful application, and, subsequently, his English Literature and Language GCSEs (he achieved two As, despite his teacher’s prediction he would achieve Bs). He has since gained a placed at Oxford University.

In addition to the above, since 2010 I have run yearly courses for young people in creative writing and journalism, working in partnership with organisations such as Camden Council, the British Library, the British Museum, and 1843, the Economist's bi-monthly cultural magazine.