Our people

Matthew Hood

Matthew Hood (’07) Politics, Philosophy, Economics, York
Taught Business Studies Nightingale Academy (formerly Turin Grove school)
Now Policy Advisor, Department for Education

Hello, my name is Matt Hood, I’m a Policy Advisor at the Department for Education. Whilst on Teach First I taught Business Studies and Economics at Turin Grove School in Edmonton. And I joined Teach First in 2007.

I think the Leadership Development programme is outstanding. Obviously being a graduate and coming from a group of friends who have all gone to do a whole range of different career options it is really easy to compare the training and development I’ve had with the training and development they’ve had.

Actually what I have found is that time and time again the opportunities I have had to push myself and to learn are significantly better than any of the opportunities that they’ve had.

The low points in school are for me personally were working really, really hard and not having that standard ‘you’ve done really well’ pat on the back that you often get through school and through university.

Every school has their dreaded Ofsted inspection and everything goes a little bit crazy. The goal for me in this Economics lesson was to get that ‘penny drop’ moment and to get them to understand something and audibly give me that big ‘oh I get it’ in front of this Ofsted Inspector at the back of the room.

We were learning about supply and demand and they just understood the concept of elasticity, why is the price going up, what is the relationship with that demand for this product.

They gave me some examples and it was absolutely spot on and it was just learning objectives on there, they were supposed to be learning about elasticity, they gave me the audible ‘ah’. Thank you Mr Ofsted Inspector, you can now go on your way.