Hugh Viney MVA And Minerva Tutors

This is, sadly, true.
And it has been for a long time. What about being happiness-obsessed?

The typical UK mainstream school model is fantastic for getting most kids through their exams with good grades that will nicely fill out a CV, but soft skills, socialisation, emotional intelligence, and even things like real-world financial literacy aren’t always given the priority they deserve. It’s just not built into the system.

What this means is that, if you’re not a child who naturally takes to making friends and managing relationships, there’s often very little to encourage you to develop those skills.

Don’t get me wrong, I think the British curriculum is broadly great, and filled with deeply important things for kids to learn, but I also believe that school should be just as concerned with happiness, connection and wellbeing as it is with academic success. Obsessed with it, even.

We all knew kids at school who were highly academic, hyper-focused on exams and results, and were largely considered by the school itself to be ‘successful’. But some of those same kids found the adult world quite a shock initially, when they realised it’s far more about problem-solving and people skills than about demonstrating your knowledge on a test.

That’s not a failure of the child; that’s a failure of the system. And teachers know it.

Minerva Virtual Academy turned 5 this year, and we’re celebrating in style.

This summer, we’re throwing the very first MVA Festival to bring together students, staff and families to celebrate together in style in the heart of Battersea Park for an afternoon of music, food, and great company with the best school community (in my opinion) in the world.

Building this school has been the privilege of my career, and to mark its fifth anniversary with the single biggest event we’ve ever thrown feels appropriately monumental.

In that 5 years we’ve grown from 10 to 1500 students, having helped thousands of kids get the education they need at a school they love.

We’ve spread to more than 60 countries, and begun to set up regional hubs when enough students concentrate together.

We’ve become the fastest growing school in the UK, online or otherwise.
We’ve achieved phenomenal results, often outperforming national trends, despite our happiness-first philosophy.

I cannot wait to spend a day enjoying the company of just a small selection of the people who’ve helped us get there.

Bring on the summer 😎

The conversation around the harmful effects of social media is rightly a hot topic at the moment, but it is often a binary one about who should and shouldn’t be using it, rather than examining the issues that could be addressed within it.

ScrollAware is a fantastic organisation I’ve been supporting for a while now, looking to tackle the ways that social media platforms and apps are often intentionally designed to be addictive and drain our attention.

Even something as simple as the scrolling experience that we’re all so familiar with is an intentional piece of design intended to be addictive in itself, eeking out hits of dopamine with every swipe.

But social media doesn’t need to be like this. It’s not intrinsic. It’s a choice. And it’s a choice that can be undone.

ScrollAware are currently running a free webinar on ‘Business Responsibility in The Age of Overwhelm’. If you’re at all interested, you can sign up to join here: https://zurl.co/WxM6L

Somewhere along the way, teachers stopped being seen as employees.

In a business, personal development, team building, and the importance of a feeling of support is seen as something obvious, even necessary. Otherwise, why should your employees not just jump ship and look for somewhere else to work?

But teachers, it seems, are assumed to be driven purely by a passion for the craft.

It’s a passion that is there, don’t get me wrong. You don’t get into teaching without it. But even the most dedicated teacher is still a person with wellbeing needs.

Events like this obviously don’t solve the teacher retention crisis in the UK overnight, but the fact that this is seen as remarkable should tell you just how much we need to change.

Treat your teachers like people, not machines.

All it took was one change for this family.
Saying “enough is enough” when it came to mainstream school- and switching to online school.

They’ve got their child back, learning and happy again.

This is why I do it. is so much more than a school; it is truly a place where children heal from school trauma, and I couldn’t be more proud.

UK parents- did you know that you have other options?

This feels like a long-time coming.

I have always been someone who thinks that embracing technology is the way to open new doors and find new solutions, but recent years have made it clear that devices like smartphones are designed to be addictive and attention-hogging.

For a school environment, particularly a mainstream physical one, this just isn’t compatible with learning.

And it’s not like schools don’t know this. This has already been policy at many schools across the country, but it’s been difficult to enforce – this should go some way towards changing that.

I’m interested to hear what my community on here thinks, though. Is an outright ban the way to go? 👇

What would you have voted- and which school system issues are the most pressing in your opinion?

Thoughts?

For a long time, if your child didn’t suit the mainstream, your only other real option was to pull them out and homeschool. For many, this just wasn’t possible.

Many families simply can’t afford to have one parent stop working, or to pay expensive tutors long-term. Many parents simply don’t feel they have the skills or knowledge to be so directly responsible for their child’s education. For single parents, it was an impossibility.

And so, for years, a huge chunk of families were left stranded between the two paths, one that didn’t suit the child, and one that didn’t suit the family.

This is why I’m such a vocal proponent of schooling becoming a spectrum, with a range of online, hybrid, and traditional options available across the state and private sectors.

Because there is zero reason why education needs to be a binary choice in 2026.