While our model may not be suitable for every child, we are the perfect school for a significant minority. This group is in the thousands, and we firmly believe that each and every one of these children deserves to be happy in school. I was very fortunate to have a very happy time at school, and it is my passion to help others have this same experience. My team shares this passion, and we will not waiver in our mission to achieve this.

Our primary objective is to maintain the quality of our education, regardless of our growth. This means that no matter how large we become, we shall always:

Maintain the same class sizes for Live Lessons
Ensure that every student continues to receive weekly one-on-one mentor sessions with the same high standard of mentors
Adjust our community offerings to benefit every pupil, no matter our size, meaning year group assemblies, more after-school clubs, and more school trips per term

There are significant benefits to growth, especially within our community. For example, when we launched in January 2021, we ran one trip a year. In 2023, we ran seven trips in the summer term alone, and we are making plans for year-group and subject-specific trips spanning the UK and Europe starting next year. Initially, MVA had one assembly every Monday for the whole school. Now, we also have year-specific assemblies run by Heads of Year. From September, we will offer over ten clubs and societies, up from the four we started with.

Growth also benefits the quality of education we offer. Increased revenue has enabled us to invest £500,000 in our school for the 2024/5 academic year. This investment translates to more English and maths classes, additional teachers, more senior leaders, and increased staff for mental health support, special educational needs, and athletes. Such enhancements are possible only because of our growth over the past year.

Growth also has a huge impact on the social lives, personal growth, and global awareness of our students. The more students who join us, the higher the chance you will live closer to an MVA family. Last year, I visited our communities in Cornwall and Scotland and saw the effect of this firsthand. There’s a global benefit too—exemplified by our Taiwanese year 10 student visiting London for a recent school trip, meeting her "best friends" from Spain, Italy, Germany, and the UK for the first time in two years. Growth cultivates an incredible international network for our students, benefiting their futures in ways that ten years ago seemed impossible.

However, despite all this, we are mindful that there may be a maximum pupil number that allows us to maintain our quality. We will review this at 1,000 pupils, 2,000 pupils, 3,000 pupils, and so on. If we determine that further growth is detrimental rather than beneficial, we will establish a new school and cap each subsequent school at the optimal number. In this scenario, we will have multiple MVAs such as MVA Alpha, MVA Beta, MVA Gamma, etc. This approach ensures operational soundness while maintaining the community benefits and network advantages across all our schools.

It may be too early to start talking about “hubs”, but as I joked in the very first days when we were launching, MVA could easily be teaching the young people of the future, living on the moon or Mars. These visions of becoming “the school of the future” are all very well, but we’re also the school we all need right now, and we will always remain grounded in this fact.

Thank you for your continued support and trust in Minerva's Virtual Academy.

Warm regards,

Hugh Viney

Founder, Minerva’s Virtual Academy

‍

No items found.

Hugh Viney

CEO & Founder