About Dominic

A word from our director about what brought him here.

Hi I'm Dominic!

From the time I was at secondary school - I was always curious as to the content of the ‘curriculum’. I was fortunate to have discovered the internet at this age and the vast amount of free information it had to offer. I would go in to school, learn what I was told to learn and then go home and explore topics and interests at my own leisure. I didn’t think much of it back then but now I can now appreciate how this was the building blocks of my passion for teaching and learning. After working a handful of different jobs I decided to branch out into Swim Teaching. This was the first job that I whole-heartedly enjoyed and ignited within me a passion for working with children. I worked with people of all ages, all the way down from parent and toddler sessions, singing nursery rhymes with the parents in the pool, up to adult only sessions and everything in between. I only realized how natural it was for me after a year or so into the job - my boss said to me “whatever you’re doing, keep doing it! I have parents of children begging me not to graduate them out of your classes because they want to stay in YOUR class”. At the time I didn’t really understand because I was just doing what I thought was best for the kids at the time, so I just shrugged it off. My most significant memory of this time is when I had a pre-school 3 + 4 year old’s class. I worked with the same children every week with a big emphasis on acceptance, play and exploration. Through my relaxed but supportive teaching methods - before I knew it these 3 and 4 y/o began to swim, unaided, up and down the pool! I was in shock when I saw it, it was not the explicit intention of my lessons as I wouldn’t expect such a young child to actually swim unaided. It was the product of my approach to teaching and working with children that allowed them to explore and find their own way.

After a while of Swim teaching I applied for a position as a 1:1 Teaching Assistant in a reception class for a lovely little chap with ASC (autism spectrum condition). The school had experienced a very high turn over in staff in this position due to the challenge the role brought. I learnt many things in this role but I am very happy and proud to say that I stayed with him throughout Reception and Year 1 and I quote the then Headteacher “you have completely changed this boy's educational prospects for the better”. During my time in this position I was also asked by many of the Teachers within the school “WHEN are you going to University to become a Teacher?”. At the time I had no intention of even attending University but I had recognised that I truly loved, and apparently was very good at, working with children. I began to take the hint that perhaps this was something I should pursue… so off I went to Uni. I studied ‘Primary Education (3-7) with QTS + Physical Education specialism at Brighton University. I’m so glad that I waited to find my passion before going to University, upon leaving college I thought I’d never go! It was an incredibly transformative experience for me and began to shape me into the practitioner I am today. I enjoyed researching education philosophies and practises. I remember very fondly coming across ‘Summerhill school’ and the philosophies of A.S Neill. I was captivated by this, apparently, extreme take on education but I personally found it to be the most natural method of learning - purely based on acceptance, passion and consent.

I culminated my education at Brighton with our final essay where we chose our own area of research. The title: A critical exploration of the relationship between politics and education with a focus on the Hidden Curriculum. Perhaps I’ll share it one day but for now, know that it ended with the quote: “In the multitudes of education’s, education is forgotten”. After graduating I immediately took a position as a Teaching Assistant in a secondary school so I could see first hand where the children end up after Primary school. The position was aimed at supporting those that required extra help in lessons. It meant I was able to focus on building relationships and figuring out how to support different pupils to access their education. After a year of that I took a position as a PPA cover teacher in a big inner city Primary school. Whilst I am grateful for the Teaching experience - it was around this time where I saw the constraints of the ‘Curriculum’ once again but from a different perspective. I was now the one at the front of the class trying my hardest to get these 30 children in front of me to remember everything I was exposing them to, often to my dismay. It felt like trying to keep 30 spinning plates up simultaneously. I then moved back down south to Poole where I took my first position as a ‘Class Teacher’ at a school for children with Special Education Needs and Disabilities. This was another incredibly transformative experience as I was, for the first time, in sole charge of educating my little group of children. I learnt so many things here; about disabilities, about teaching, about Emotional regulation, about people (Staff) management, about independence and about myself! As it was a SEND school - we had the privilege to create a bespoke curriculum for the children in our class. I helped make long term plans, pick class texts, allocate my own resources and most importantly I created my own class ethos. I created a consent-based system for the purpose of ‘emotional regulation’. Emotional regulation was often the biggest barrier to learning in this setting, so I chose to make it the biggest focus in our class. It took some fine tuning, some re-training for the staff in my room, some direct teaching to the children and a specific use of language but the impact it had on the children was profound. The message was: “If you are not ‘ready to learn’ - that is okay and you are not in trouble. Now you must (with appropriate support) choose to do something which will help you get back to being calm and ready to learn”. This looked different for everyone - some went for 5 minute walk, some went to a run around outside, some went to the toy corner to play quietly, some went out in the playground to scream and, honestly, some didn’t come back in for the WHOLE lesson. Ultimately what this meant is that if the children were with me in the lesson, I knew it’s because they chose to be and for the most part, they did! They knew that they had the freedom to back out of the lesson if they chose and it totally removed the pressure of staying and circumvented the traditional fear based approach that missing lessons is bad. It was in this experience of consent-based ethos that I began to feel how education was supposed to feel.

And now that brings me to The Tony Pony project! I knew Lottie as a friend for a few years before she invited me on board. I was so thrilled to be part of something so akin to my approach to education and working with children. I am very excited to be a member of the team and look forward to meeting you all!