045 - Pit Pony Ilana King - Classroom to Educational Consultant

In this episode, we’re joined by the unstoppable Ilana King - educational consultant, entrance exam specialist, home educator, and all-round powerhouse.

Ilana’s journey is far from typical. After just two years in the classroom, she knew it wasn’t the right fit - and rather than settle, she built something new. Literally. She created her own nursery from the ground up (on land she negotiated with a secondary school), ran it successfully, then sold it and pivoted again. She home educated her three children for 20 years and now sits at the heart of the tuition community, supporting families through 7+, 8+, and 11+ entrance exams and training other tutors to do the same.

This episode is a masterclass in self-belief, values-led decisions, and building a career on your own terms. Whether you’re still in the classroom or already planning your escape, Ilana’s story will show you what’s possible when you refuse to be boxed in.

Highlights include:

• Why she walked away from teaching after just two years
• The toxic school culture that helped her make up her mind
• Building and running two nurseries before age 30
• Why she home educated her children — and how
• The secrets of the selective school entrance exam world
• Creating a sustainable, empowering tutoring business

Ilana didn’t just leave teaching - she rewrote the script.

You can find Ilana here:

Website: Become An Entrance Exam Tutor 

Linkeding:  https://linkedin.com/in/educationpathfinder

Instagram @ilana_trainsentranceexamtutors

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Edited with finesse by our Podcast Super Producer, Mike Roberts of Making Digital Real

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the Pit Pony podcast with myself Sharon Cawley and me Sarah Dunwood in which we talk to teachers from all walks of life who exited the classroom from what they thought was a job for life and thrived on the other side of teaching. Coming up in this episode the nursery was Ofsted registered then parents could use these vouchers for two sessions two hours a day or whatever it was and initially and Sarah you won't be surprised by this I said no we're not going to be registered by Ofsted because a I could right and I'd had this bad experience at school and I thought no you see I don't want to do what Ofsted tells me to do I want to do what I know is right for these kids and and I don't want Ofsted to have any word in this. Hello Pit Pony listeners, lovely episode today special episode really because our guest is Ilana King and Ilana is a friend of Conexus. 

Myself Sarah and Ilana have worked together for I think it's fair to say many years in the world of tuition and we've got a very very strong bond with Ilana so there's going to be a lot of warmth on this episode I can feel it and Ilana's not a typical Pit Pony route in and out of teaching because Ilana started teaching in 1996 and stayed in the classroom for two years and we're going to dig into that and find out what her experience was like in the classroom, her decision for leaving, what was the strategy behind those choices and follow her journey through the wonderful world she's created for herself outside of the classroom. So welcome friend, hello Ilana and what is it you do today? Thank you for having me so today I am an educational consultant which involves both teaching children and advising parents on school choice mostly within the private sector at 7 plus, 8 plus and 11 plus. Beautiful there's going to be so many people intrigued to find out about that that ever-growing world so let's let's go back how many decades? Oh I feel old. 

Three decades? Oh we all feel old we all feel old because I think you probably started teaching in reception the same year there and there abouts that I started teaching which was the mid 90s so cast your mind back to 1996 and your two years that you spent in the classroom. So I actually would like to go back slightly further than 1996 to when I was a teenager and I read a series of books and I couldn't tell you the name of them now but I do remember that the author's last name started with an h that's all I can actually remember she was an educational psychologist an American educational psychologist she worked with children in the classroom in sort of special ed classrooms as they were then mostly children who were autistic and I read this series of books which were written as if they were true stories but they were kind of an amalgamation they weren't exactly any one particular child that she had taught and I was hooked fascinated and I decided that was what I was going to do I was going to be her Tori Hayden I've just remembered the name Tori Hayden I believe was the author I think I hope I haven't got that wrong couldn't tell you the name of the books now but I mean I was absolutely hooked and I was like I want to be her and so from that point I decided I was going to be an educational psychologist between reading those books and finishing school I moved countries so I was no longer in America and I was back in the UK and the route into being an educational psychologist at that point in the UK was becoming a teacher first so I needed qualified teacher status I needed to go and teach in the classroom I can't remember the number of years that were specified then and then you could do further training to be an educational psychologist so that was the route that I took and I went to and did a psychology degree and then I went and did my PGCE and I did that in I was able to specialize I did that in Roehampton, Roehampton Institute and I was able to specialize in early years and I was particularly interested in early years so that is what I did so then we go to 1996 when I started teaching as a qualified newly qualified teacher at the time they were called NQTs and everything was very different back then so there wasn't the same support for NQTs that you have now and NQT year was only one year back then as well so I went straight into reception at an infant school and it was a slightly special school in that it was one of the beacon status schools which I don't even know if they exist anymore but but no okay so this is so long ago I know so so this was a beacon status school and the the head was was very involved in all of this and really had incredibly high standards and we were because it was beacon status that meant that people were constantly coming into the school to observe to look at the paperwork to learn from the school so that could have gone very well as an NQT I mean it could have been a really wonderful school to be in and learn from an example it didn't really quite go halfway unfortunately so I went in very naive fresh faced you know very kind of I was going to conquer the world and wasn't this wonderful and I and I went in feeling like everybody was on my side which wasn't the case so my experience didn't match what I'd hoped would happen when I went it when I went into it the pressures were ridiculously high in this school I mean we had we had whole staff meetings on how to double back your presentation materials for your display boards and and I have one memory I have to share this memory because I mean you know anybody who knows me really well knows I actually don't retain memories very well I have I'm I'm not visual and I think when you're not visual I'm sort of on that scale I'm very far on that scale of not being able to create pictures in my head and I think that goes with not remembering things because when you remember things in your life you remember it visually so I actually not very good at remembering things but this moment was so awful but I wasn't great at art didn't like doing display boards this was not a school to be in and if you weren't really creative and I found that all very very challenging but I had a parent um helper in my class who was loved this stuff loved cutting and sticking and and creating things and in my naivete I thought that my time would be better spent actually preparing for teaching the children and you know teaching the children rather than actually creating this outfit so this parent offered to come in and do some display boards and I took her up on this so that I could actually use that time after school to prepare for teaching the children oh how foolish of you how foolish I have never been so told off so publicly in all my life I mean I I was um I was I can't remember the words that were used but um I had made a huge error um I was meant to be doing those boards you know handing them over to a parent was the worst possible thing I could have done and and she berated me in front of the parents and I think probably later in the staff meeting as well I don't remember exactly but so it's a minor moment but it was very kind of it showed what the ethos of the school was and the pressure that as a newly qualified teacher that I was under was also at a time where things were a little bit different so I had 30 children in my reception class with no teaching assistant I had nobody it was just me in there occasionally we would get one of these work experience students in and I mean literal work experience the 16 year old work experience not um not not an actual teacher on training so it was really pressured in that way and then I think I was also quite naive about the other teachers I think I kind of just I hadn't really learned how people could be at that point I kind of just thought everybody was nice and that they were what they seemed to be on the surface and I was very unlucky I was very unlucky that there was a a member of staff who was on the senior leadership team who I thought was my friend and I thought was helping me and it was you know quite the opposite um to the point of just really some quite horrible things going on and I spoke to a I still have one very good friend teacher from that school and I said to her you know help jog my memory about those days and what she really remembered was me in tears in the in the staff room over this teacher who who was just horrible so I think it was a combination of all those things endless paperwork this was the the time of um the literacy hour and the numeracy hour because we were a beacon state of school they were obsessed with the plans and the paperwork we had to just endless amounts of plan the paperwork had to go in and they had to go in in folders and the head had to it's almost like handing in homework the head had to kind of approve it and ticket and all of this so everybody was expected to arrive very early and stay late I mean there was no I didn't have family I didn't have children at that time I was married but I didn't have children so I mean I didn't have those pressures but it just it was just incredibly pressured and then and then I you know I am who I am and I I speak up when I see things I don't think are right for the children and that didn't go down well so that was kind of my experience so I knew probably within eight months that I didn't want to be there I just I just think just to before we move into how you left this is the bit I find fascinating what do you think you've just captured there we started laughing and joking going well god it's it's 29 years ago it's 30 years ago there is nothing you've said there that could not apply to a pit pony podcast guest who left two weeks ago you've talked about micromanagement you've talked about becoming involved in backing display boards we've had guests on who've talked about they weren't and this was only recently weren't sticking handouts in books straight I'm sure I probably got told off for that as well you've talked about leaks within the school the bullying when their faces didn't fit because they were a threat and and it's really opened my eyes because before you started talking I go back to 1996 and if I could click my fingers and it'd be like it was then I would still be in the classroom so it's been a real eye-opener for me that that nearly 30 years you were experiencing the same level of toxicity so it it makes me realize that it is teaching sometimes you touch lucky and sometimes you don't but those behavior traits those toxic behaviors were there and probably if we were speaking to a teacher who was an NQT in the 1950s something similar would be happening so it's fascinating really that it's almost like this institutionalized behavior that we have the minute we have a hierarchical structure and then to say and after eight months I knew this is absolutely typical of what our guests say now where our pit ponies come on stock alarmers yeah they don't leave so I'm a little different and I'm suspecting you're telling me that yes you're a little different so I mean you know me Sharon and um you know so just take a step back for a second before I tell you how I left it is sad that this is still the case today that I experienced back then I think I could have had a different experience so I could have landed in a different school I could have had a different experience would I still have left I think the answer is yes because even I think it would have taken me a lot longer to to leave I think I would have stuck it out longer but I don't think I ever fit that system so landing in the school I landed in and having the experiences that I had pushed me out the door extremely quickly but I think I would have left who knows because I didn't experience it but you know I think that I never would have stayed in teaching for long because I was never going to agree with the way things were being done and anybody who knows me I I just I can't fit that you know if I don't agree with it I'm not going to do it or not for long anyway so so I think I would have probably reached that same crunch point but probably in a nicer way being bullied out and and experiencing things I experienced is not a nice way to leave but I think that I could have probably come to the same conclusion in the end that the classroom wasn't for me because for me separate to all those issues I just talked about I actually didn't agree with the way the children were being taught so I had 30 reception age children in my class and um and I was doing things that I because I had to that I didn't agree with in terms of how they were being taught and that kind of is what pushed me out the door and in the direction that I went because I felt that I could create a better environment for those children but that wasn't going to happen in the school because I had to if I stayed in the system I had to do what the system told me to do and there was going to be no room for me to change that so I knew I wanted to leave and I wanted to stay with small children because I really liked them I mean that that that that bit was the good bit of school which I'm sure it is for most teachers the kids was not the bit that was the problem so you know and I wanted to stay with that age group so I decided that what I wanted to do was create a better environment for them and that wasn't going to be school but it was going to be preschool so I I ended up opening a nursery initially with the intention to have preschool or what I would have called at that point preschool education so three to five uh pre-reception um but actually it expanded and and it was um all the way from babies so we had um from three months old which was the age you could take at that at that time um through until they left for school now it was a different time so again we've got to go back in time slightly this was not pre-Ofsted so in my two years I had Ofsted come in so the two years I was at school I had to experience I don't think it was the first year I think it was the second year but I did have to experience Ofsted and that put me off Ofsted for life so um going into nurseries at that point into private nurseries you could opt out of Ofsted so Ofsted existed but not in that realm yet so nurseries were um regulated by the local council rather than Ofsted so anyway I left and I in my mind I didn't so I hadn't left in my mind I'd left and I decided I want to set up a nursery couldn't do this just you know like that it took time so I stayed for that second year while I put sort of plans into place that nobody knew about um and there had to be secret plans and I ended up approaching a secondary school that had land so I was not in London at that point I was in Essex and there was more land and I approached a secondary school that had land and um put the proposal to them that I would build and set up a nursery on their site uh in exchange they could put their teachers children in that nursery if they saw that as a huge plus um so it was a it was a private arrangement a private business and and that is what I did I built literally not with my own hands but builders hands a building so um on land um on this um secondary school site built a small nursery that had a baby room for so three to two year olds three months old two year olds and then a preschool room for for two up till when they went to school and when I left the school that I think I've the head teacher wasn't just disappointed but I think she felt personally wronged that I had come under false pretenses in her view so I you know had signed up to do this and I think she took it really personally when I when I left I don't think I cared at that point yeah like like the way like the way I'd have taken it really personally when she wiped the floor with me in front of that parent but just bringing Sarah in because Sarah's been sat listening along she knows Ilana she knows the energy we were going to get on this podcast but when he said you found a plot of land and built a nursery bear in mind how old were you then Ilana oh well let's see I did I I went to uni late I did the international baccalaureate over three years when I came back from the US so I didn't graduate till I was 19 then I took a year off to swan around and do nothing so by the time I went to uni I was 21 so let's see 21 I mean I don't know I must have been 26 27 so I mean it wasn't that young but no but come on the ripe old age of 26 and you've gone I've got an idea I'll find a plot of land I'll go and approach a head teacher and I'll go and build a nursery I mean Sarah we didn't even know this about her did we no no and honestly I knew because because the Darren doesn't share the details of the of the pre-conversations with me deliberately to get to get a reaction from me it's very calculated and I and I I'm stunned I had no idea and and now I'm thinking what I was like at 26 and thinking I just wouldn't have the gumption to even start to think about that never mind figure out how it all works that says a lot about you well you know me yeah we do but think about it Sarah if you take Ilana's situation she's gone into teaching yeah okay there's a strategic decision made I need these two years I know this is probably not just a job for life but I am sure even with that strategic decision in mind you could have been really diminished and eroded over those two years with the behaviours you had somebody who was a smiling assassin who was turning on you you had a head teacher who humiliated you all of those pressures and you can see how people folded very very quickly and yet you decided and I think this is the difference with what I heard from you your head teacher was right you did use them you used that last year for exactly what you needed and when that transactional relationship is shifted I don't need you I'm detached from the outcome of what's going to happen I think that's possibly where you were in a position to go right now I'm going to do what I want to for the rest of my life and I think that's quite important for our listeners if you're building your exit strategy from within like the great escape you're tunneling from within then that should be your hope and the strength that you need because you've got oh my god I'm on the great escape you've got a light at the end of your tunnel and you had it knowing it was still in education so you you build a nursery correct yeah so so remembering that I'd gone into this because I wanted to be an educational psychologist at this point I knew I was not going to become an educational psychologist because I would have had to stay in the school I can't remember the number it might have been five or six years I don't remember the number of years that was required so I had to make that choice then that that I wasn't so it wasn't just a choice about leaving that school it was actually a choice about changing my future because my plan had been to be an educational psychologist and if I left I couldn't be an educational psychologist anymore so so I made that decision and said right it's not worth it I can't stay in the classroom for the amount of years that I need to do it to become an educational psychologist so I completely changed my plan then and I thought well I really enjoyed working with children I'm going to go and have a nursery so I took loans and you know it cost a fair amount of money to build a building from scratch um and I and I set up this nursery so it was regulated by the local council at that point uh we opened with um you know I can't remember how many children in it and you know it all went well then Ofsted complicated things I don't remember the year that it happened but but things changed and there was voluntary Ofsted for nurseries and this was at the point that the vouchers came in so if the nursery was Ofsted registered then parents could use these vouchers for two session two hours a day or whatever it was and initially and Sarah you won't be surprised by this I said no we're not going to be registered by Ofsted because a I could right and I'd had this bad experience at school and I thought no I don't want to do what Ofsted tells me to do I want to do what I know is right for these kids and and I don't want Ofsted to have any word in this that wasn't sustainable so that that lasted for however many years but I mean the reality was that system took over and if you didn't take those vouchers that was going to have a negative financial impact so and and then at one point anyway all nurseries had to be Ofsted registered so there was a shift but initially I didn't do that and I just did things the way that I felt that they should be done things went well with this nursery and then I decided to open a second I opened a second branch in a different town not on a school site so this was just in a building and at that point then I was moving between so I I'd moved from kind of day-to-day management of the nursery and being on site as one of the numbered named people looking after the children to not doing that anymore and I and I moved between sites and I had a manager at each site I also had children at that point so you know in all of this I was married so at the point that I did my PGCE I got married at the just after my PGCEs when I went into school I was already married same person I'm married to now all these years later we are still together and then I had I had a child when all this was going on so um my role had to to change a little bit in that I I had a baby and I luckily could bring my baby to work so you know not only was I the boss but I actually had a nursery so it was it was fairly easy to do that but but my role did shift so I enjoyed I think I did it for about seven years I'd have to go back and check the years I think it's about seven years and I did enjoy it but two things happened so one I tend to like a challenge and something new and and once I've done it I tend to like a new challenge so I had kind of done this challenge and succeeded at it and sort of got a little bit bored I suppose by that and I wasn't really in it's not it's like you're not in the classroom anymore at that point and then I got pregnant with my second child and I was still living out in Essex managing these two nurseries and and I decided I didn't actually want to be in Essex anymore I'm from London my family was in London and actually wanted to go back to London so to facilitate that I needed to do two things one not be there anymore because it was a long drive from central London back out to Essex and also financially needed to sell the nurseries so I sold them as as a chain a small chain of two nurseries I sold them on and moved into London at that point I couldn't tell you what year that was now either. Wow Ilana Ilana Ilana that is pretty it's quite special that isn't it Sarah to just have somebody in their mid to late 20s build the nurseries and then say no I'm going back to London you will not be hooked in will you there's something about you Ilana that's going I don't chain myself the things what do you think Sarah this is this is quite revealing from the woman we've danced with on the dance floor at the national tutors conference this is this is really good stuff what are your thoughts Sarah Dunwood? The thing that's really stuck with me and in a slightly different context but you said made a complete change I chose to make a complete change to the life plan and that for me goes back to what so many of our kind of group members and guests what Sharon was alluding to before they're getting stuck because of the the fears the expectations all of the worries and I think there's a real clear personality trait with you and something inside you that goes yeah no I'm done next thing let's go and I'm going to do that and I'm going to excel at it and then I'm going to find the next thing and actually that's really refreshing to hear particularly as I've gone back to 25 26 27 in my head not a chance I'd have been doing that but I think about my own missed opportunities where actually my my heart was telling me go and do something else but my head was going oh you can't do that so I think it's really into genuinely really inspirational to hear somebody just go yeah no that's what I did. 

I think what it is Sarah when I was listening words pop into my head you had no fear of the unknown and I think that's people talk about the fear of leaving and the it's not necessarily the financial fear it's it's that factual statement the fear of the unknown I would rather stay where I am where it's known even though it might only meet 60 percent of my needs because the fear of the unknown is too great a risk you didn't have an issue with taking risks and you did not fear the unknown. So I think I'd love to pick up on a couple of those things so you're absolutely right I am a risk taker in life not in physical things you will never catch me jumping off buildings I I'm scared of all those kind of you know those sort of adventure things never going to happen I'm not a risk taker in that sense but I am a risk taker in in other ways in my life I'm not tied to outcomes I'm happy to change direction and I like that shift in that challenge and it's definitely a personality trait but I'd hate for any of the listeners to sort of think well I'm I'm not that person I'm not a risk taker therefore I will never leave teaching so that that's not the message to take away from this and I've got um I've got friends who are still in teaching okay so so I I know what as you know I've been a long time out of the classroom I know those decisions and I and I and I know you know I have my one of my best friends who is still in teaching who is at that school with me let me add so so this is a friend that goes right back to that school and I'm and I'm still friends with her you know she's not going to leave teaching she doesn't have that same personality but that doesn't mean that it's the wrong decision for her she has she has found other ways to make teaching work and I know the podcast is about leaving teaching but I think it's also worth thinking about you know if you're not a risk taker and you're not going to do what I do which is I know I want to go and you know do this and just jump out you can make other changes and this is what my friend has done and she she has reworked her plan within teaching to make it work better for her found a better school to be at found um a different teaching role so so you know I am who I am and I and I genuinely think I was born this way you know I just you know my personality is what it is and that's allowed me to to take some of the leaps that I've taken over my lifetime but it you don't have to have that to make changes in your life brief interlude to dear listener a couple of questions are you a tutor or even a pit pony considering tutoring and do you fancy getting in the room with myself and Sarah Dunwood learning about the wonderful world of tuition then why not join us at the National Tutors Conference hosted by Conexus Tuition on the 29th of July 2025 it's at Chesford Grange Kenilworth links to the tickets are in the show notes below and we will both see you on the other side and I I think that goes to something because obviously the podcast is tied really tightly with with the Facebook group and we occasionally get it where people are asking about applying to another school or doing this or doing that and just occasionally someone somebody will pipe up with why are you in the group and our our groups quite clearly define that life after teaching doesn't necessarily mean life after teaching full stop it might actually mean life after teaching in the environment that you are in and you find something else so I think it's really important that you said that thank you so uh put me for sorry go ahead carry on look I've got the kettle I've got the kettle on here this is absolutely fascinating where are we up to so you moving back to London I sold the nursery moved back to London and at that point had two of my three children I have three but at that point had two and they were young about you know at that point so people who know me because the next bit is is public I mean it's not I don't talk much about the classroom and the bit that you've just heard about you're probably the first people that have in fact you you will you will be the first people who probably know that so but the next bit most people know and that's that having had that experience and it directly relates to that time in the classroom I chose not to put my children in the classroom and and it's a fairly common story you will find amongst the home education community lots and lots of teachers or ex-teachers because having been in that environment they don't actually want to put their children into it and that was certainly the case for me and I had decided before I even got pregnant with my first child after I'd left the classroom and was in nursery and was just thinking one day I'm going to have children that child was not going to school so so that decision was made before that that child was even conceived which is different to many people who end up in home ed and the home ed landscape has changed and I'm not going to turn this into home ed discussion but it's changed if we think back this was a long time ago so so I was quite unusual as I always am in that respect I've made that decision back then so I was in London and I had two young children and they were not going to school uh they weren't old enough at that point but but at one point the then then became old that's why I was home educating so my next career and I actually do consider it a career so we think my first career was teaching my second career was the nurseries my third career was home educating my children and I did that for 20 years it's actually only just come to an end last year so my youngest is 16 and is in uh sixth form so all of my children were home educated up to sixth form and then went in at sixth form so my youngest went into sixth form this year so officially last summer was the end of 20 years of home ed um now I didn't just dedicate those years to home ed but in the early years when my children were young it was a full-time career 100 full-time career for me so um I wasn't doing anything else but I was living in London and London is very expensive and it was very expensive back then and you know my husband had a job in London but it wasn't a particularly high paying job or certainly not for London and it just couldn't go on and he came home one day and he said to me you've got to work and I had two two of the three children at that point he said he said we can't go on like this you've got to work and I was pissed sorry I probably shouldn't say that on the podcast I was absolutely pissed off at him and it wasn't his fault god bless him it really wasn't his fault but it was the situation I didn't want to work you know I was looking after these children I was finding children that was not what I wanted to do that was not where I was in my mind in my life but I had no choice at that point and that is how I got into the last career I'd like to think of it as the last career where I am now where I've been for 13 or more years now so um so I got into tutoring because what skills did I have well I had a lot of skills a lot of skills at that point because I had set up successfully you know business and um and I I had done business mentoring and things at that point and I could have done a number of different things but I had two young children so and these children weren't at school so so I couldn't work during school hours you know I was fairly tied that there was very few things that were going to fit with my life so the obvious thing obviously was was to tutor at that point and I was very lucky I lived across the street from my mother so my mother was on hand to look after the children and without I don't know what we would have done without that I don't see how it would have been possible for me to tutor or do or do any job in reality we couldn't have afforded child care and you know I don't know what I would have done but I was very lucky my mother literally lived across the street in the building across the street from us so um so she had the children and I this was back in the days of of you know face-to-face tuition and I went off to tutor and I I signed up to some tutoring agencies local I was living right in the heart of London for anyone who knows London I lived right around the corner from the Sherlock Holmes museum I mean I was in Madame Tussauds I was literally in in the very very center of London and local agencies would send me out to very young children because that was my background I had a you know I had a specialism in early years from teaching I had my earliest teaching experience in school and then I'd run nurseries I mean you know so so my my early years knowledge and experience was was pretty good so the obvious place for them to send me was to very young children and in central London what are very very young children doing who are being tutored even back then they are doing entrance exams because in London we have the seven plus entry point and the children who are taking uh tuition for seven plus so seven plus is the entry point to get you into prep school for year three but it's taken in year two early in year two so the children are five and six that you're tutoring so when they had me on their books they were like you're central and you have all this phenomenal early years experience you know you are the obvious person so I was I was highly sought after to send out these jobs there was only one very very minor little issue with any of this which was I'd never even heard of the seven plus my background wasn't in private school so you've just heard my background so I mean I did go to a private school so you know in my teen years in doing international school when I came back to the UK I was in an international school but but not a not a prep school in that sense so I had zero background in prep school of any kind and I'd never heard of the seven plus that didn't stop agencies from sending me out to these jobs with absolutely zero knowledge but that's how I was thrown into this world of entrance exams that I now sit in and um it was a very steep learning curve but I mean as you've learned from from me you know in what you've known me before and just listening today it doesn't usually phase me and I don't mind a complete change and I see it as a challenge and I did I mean I you know I love this age group but I love the kids and so all I actually needed to do and it didn't seem hard to me was to learn about the entrance exams right so that that wasn't hugely problematic except that it's an incredibly secretive world and nobody would tell me anything so it seemed like it wasn't going to be a challenge but it was an enormous challenge because nobody will talk about it it's almost like it doesn't exist so so I had to kind of learn on the fly and work it out for myself which I did over time and I can honestly say and I'm not embarrassed to say this I'm sad to say it but I'm not embarrassed to say it that I failed those children in those first couple of years because I didn't have the knowledge that that I needed and and I blame the agencies for that 100 percent but the you know so I was a great teacher but I didn't have that specialist knowledge and I and I feel very sorry for those children who didn't get the best chance they could have had at those entrance exams because of the situation that I was put into and that they were it really is specialist knowledge isn't it hugely specialist yeah hugely and can differ between boroughs and towns and cities it is a really really specialist area and you're absolutely right in what you're saying these kids only get one bite of the cherry and no I completely completely hear you and but you you found your way here into this world you you accept that the early the early days of it and and I suspect you were probably tinkering around the edges like I was with tutoring probably at the same time in the same period where we'd not hit social media so they didn't feel like a saturation of tutors but every man and his dog had a tutor but we just didn't know about it and I mean we are going to do an episode on mainstream tutoring at some point we've got some great guests lined up for that but this is this is really really specific it is becoming an entrance exam tutor so how long Ilana did you do solo tutoring because and that was your route because I know now you offer so much more in terms of that world but how long did you do that for how long did you hot foot it to kids houses I still I'm still doing it Amy yeah I have not stopped doing it so 13 14 years I mean it's counting I have no plans to stop the only shift happened between the in-person and the online just to go back to something you said there Sharon so the differences and the difficulty is even worse at seven plus and remember I was thrown in at seven plus and I hadn't even heard of 11 plus at that point I was literally only going to seven plus jobs and seven plus varies school to school not even borrowed to borrow it's even it's a whole other world to 11 plus so it was even more ridiculous to go in and not have this this knowledge and it was only later that I also went into the 11 plus world as well so I still tutor and I still tutor one-to-one that has not changed I still have and you know before I came in to do this today just before I had a five-year-old and just before I had a six-year-old that I'm teaching for seven plus exams so and every day after school I have usually about five students that I teach for a combination of seven plus eight plus and 11 plus so I go the whole sort of gamut of those so I'm not planning to leave it I still love it although I do that wide age range you know if you look at that history and everything I did I still love the young the youngest children and that hasn't changed I have a mixture between the age groups but you know what lights up my face and what what makes me happy every day is these very very young children and and that that hasn't changed you know what doesn't light up my face is very very young children and to be perfectly honest if they're not wearing long trousers and in year 10 and above no tolerance whatsoever so you and I differ I think that's where our paths have slightly gone in different routes and and I can feel your enthusiasm for what you're doing so so let's chart this teacher built your own nursery home educated your kids and you've gone into the world of an entrance exam tutor in London now what else do you do because you've now almost gone on a quest in many ways to support the tutoring community and you are a figurehead within that community oh thank you so again if we think about my personality and the kind of path that I've taken I was never going to just be satisfied with tutoring every day because I love it and I'm never going to leave it but you know you can see from my life history that that a I am an entrepreneur I think that was probably born in me and you know another reason why I think I never would have stayed in the classroom because it didn't allow for those skills to kind of come out so there was always going to be more than that but it all sort of developed from what we just talked about that secretive world that lack of being supported it was almost like being back in the classroom again where you know I didn't really have support technically support was there structurally support was there in the classroom but I never felt any of it when I then went into entrance exams again you can make comparisons structurally there was support there because I was working for agencies at that point so there should have been people to support me to give me the information that I needed that would give these children the best possible outcome the reality just like in the classroom was something completely different and I have one really clear memory that mirrors exactly what happened in the classroom so I was working for a few different agencies I was working for one in particular and they said to me I'd like you to do an assessment on a seven plus student a formal assessment never done that before and I said sure can you give me some information and show me what it is you want me to actually do no now keeping in mind that the person who asked me the owner of this agency was regularly running assessments it was part of what she did for older children you know that there was a structure there that she could have shared but in this world it was very much what's mine is mine and I'm never sharing it and I saw that in the classroom I mean just going back I know we're trying to go forward but going back to the classroom I had again there's one of these memories of Playmobil I know it sounds ridiculous but another of these very clear memories you know I was in the reception classroom we didn't have Playmobil it was in the year one classroom and I can remember one day going in and asking could I borrow the Playmobil I can't remember why it was relevant but you know I wanted to borrow it no you can't borrow my Playmobil that's my Playmobil in my classroom and you can't have it essentially that wasn't the words that were used but it was it was it was this ridiculousness and but I see that I saw this with agency and I still see it today I mean this hasn't changed so so there was no support for me and I didn't want that for other people so what happened was I was working with an agency when I had become much more experienced so this was sort of down the line I'd become much more experienced in entrance exams become more of a specialist working with this agency on a more consulting basis and they asked me to develop a training program for their tutors who wanted to teach for entrance exams so that they weren't in this position and I was so on board because suddenly here is an agency that was getting it right there's no point putting them out there to parents if they don't actually know what they're doing so let's provide that for them so it was a great initiative and I was very on board with that and I was involved in the recruitment of these tutors and the teaching of them the structuring of the program etc so it was great but it didn't go far enough in my view so it's again it's kind of like going back to the classroom going I don't like the way they're doing this I'm gonna do it my own way because I know my own way is better and you know that mirrors through my life I left the classroom because I didn't like the way they're doing it I set up the nursery so I could do it my way ended up leaving the nursery doing it my way with my own children because why are my children not in school because I could do it better my children had no reason I mean I had decided they weren't gonna be at school before I even met my children so it wasn't like it wasn't like nowadays where people pull their children out of school for various reasons of not fitting it wasn't like that it was it was that same path I could do it better so I was going to do it better and it was the same thing you know here was something I set up with this agency it was good it was better than what other agencies were doing but it wasn't good enough in my view so then the obvious next step was to make it good enough so I set up my own training program and support program for tutors who wanted to move into this market because I could do it better so it makes me sound really conceited and it's not a I don't think I don't come from a place of conceit I just I come from a place of control I guess that that if I see something I don't like I want to be able to change it and control it and make it better so that that's the motivation and it started you know way back in school for me and it hasn't changed now so I developed a training program for for tutors that has the support that was so missing so not just here's how you do it but here I am so you can actually ask me questions so you know unlike the head or the senior you know staff in the school who wouldn't help me and support me or the agencies who said no that's mine I'm not sharing that with you because you might use it and take it away from me the everything is sort of geared around here's everything I know and everything I can share with you and let me help you and I mean that is so important because I find in the main the business world is incredibly collaborative I think LinkedIn is a great place and and for those who may or may not know Sarah and I sit in the tuition world because we sit at the helm of a franchising business Connexus Tuition and how I first discovered you Ilana was on your LinkedIn through your presence Sarah has started following you first I think and she was alerting me to follow this woman follow this woman and three years ago we actually invited you to our franchisee conference day and then the following day the national tutors conference where through workshops and keynote speeches you shared your information then what we actually did was we bought into your course and that's hosted now on our online training platform because you're absolutely right 11 plus 7 plus it's almost like fight club the first rules of 11 plus is nobody talks about 11 plus but here you've stepped into a world where you are sharing your knowledge and yes it is your business and rightly so because if you have something of value there has to be a financial transaction but when you become the authority on something then you're almost duty bound I think in in many ways to share that for exactly the person who you or the couple of people you alluded to about 10 minutes ago the kids you felt you let down in the early years I don't want that happening again and it doesn't have to happen again because if we have that abundant mindset there will always be more children than can meet the demands of tutors 100 percent and I've I've loved working with you and it is you're absolutely right there's always that professionalism but warmth there's the knowledge and the willingness to share it and support the community and I know you you do you do work outside you're great in networking events your work with the tutors association you are really very much within the world of tuition and I know that many people will find your links in the show notes below and will reach out to you and have a look what you do and what you offer and and they will be better off for it. Hello loyal listeners it's that time in the episode when me and Sarah put out our little begging bowl and ask you to help fund our podcast because it's coming out of our pockets and our kids have been living on beans on toast for months while we've been messing about pretending we live on loose women there's going to be a link in the episode notes and it's called buy us a coffee this is your chance to help fund the podcast give a little something back thank you. 

I can't believe I'm going to ask you now in light of that story I have no idea what you're going to say Ilana what's your sliding doors moment that had you have not decided to go and build a nursery with your own hands then home educate your kids and crack the seven plus market in central London had you have stayed in the classroom give me a sliding doors moment in your life that you know for a fact wouldn't have happened had you not have left your school I think it's going to be my children I would have had my children but I think the sliding doors moment is if I hadn't stepped out of the classroom and stuck with my belief that the system was wrong I wouldn't have home educated my children and the lasting implications of that are huge so as well it being such a big part of my life and my identity for a long time and sort of enriched my life it would have changed the life of all three of my children who have gone on to do amazing things because of that journey that they went on so I think I think it's very likely I wouldn't have come to home education if I had stayed in the classroom and that's probably not I'm thinking that the the answer you're expecting was related to entrance exams and what I do now and and and to be fair you're right in what you're saying you didn't remove your children from school because it wasn't working that was a conscious decision that you had I'm I'm going to use the word the luxury of being able to do because of the sacrifice you made yeah when stepping outside of the classroom well at our conference right we do this thing we do this thing it's a free raffle and it's called the B&M raffle okay and we raffle stuff from B&M that I can get for under a pound Ilana King was I think the only person BAL won last year at our conference who when I announced the B&M raffle said what's B&M you'd never heard of B&M in my defense I spent the first you know I grew up in the US there is no B&M in the US and I moved back to central London there is no B&M in central London peasants peasants are behind the times however I love that raffle that was one of the highlights of the conference for me it was very educational I think the moment somebody on your table won a packet of scented pink bin liners and by the time I'd drawn out the next ticket you lot had fashioned them into fancy dress you were wearing them I think that gives the flip side to the authority the entrepreneur the all-round inspirational pickpony guest that we've had on today Ilana King from the bottom of our heart thank you thank you thank you thank you for having me well oof that was a roller coaster wasn't it I feel like I've had three triple shots of coffee that's Ilana King that's why she's in our world that's why she's in our mix-up because that energy it really to me it was it wasn't a typical pickpony episode but I think it stands it stands well within what we are trying to achieve particularly with the aspirational elements of of our podcasts if Ilana had a strap line if she had a marketing you know for her as a person doing it my way because I can do it better and and it was interesting because at no point during any of of of what she talked about and and everything that she's achieved which is mind-blowing the different things that she's done um at no point did did it come across as as anything other than she knows her values she knows what drives her and she goes for what she wants to do and and I that's so empowering to hear somebody with that level of energy and that level of commitment to their own self-worth and goals absolutely phenomenal she's very humble she is a very very humble person she's very wise as well she just doesn't suffer fools gladly and there is something very very special about her and it's it's an absence of imposter syndrome there's an absolute absence of imposter syndrome and what she said was I will take risks calculated risks but I will take risks because at any given time she should still be in that classroom she should still probably have four nurseries now or five nurseries she's she's really carved a niche for herself in the business world with the entrance exam market that she does because she's sharing and she's collaborative and she went back didn't she to that mentality of no you're not having my play mobile or no I'm not sharing that planned out with you because we'll duplicate the work that scarcity mindset I think I think it goes to something for me that that and it is I'm sure it's a phrase that I have seen said I definitely haven't made it up but but there's enough to go around what whatever it is that we're doing there's enough to go around it I mean you and I know we sit in the world of tuition I I've recently redone my research stats on the on the size of the market for tuition in the UK and it's mind-blowing it's mind-blowing the potential spend that's sat out there and I think that's one of that's one of the joys of the tutoring community generally is that is that collaboration is important and that might be networking or it might be paying to go on a an online training course or a face-to-face or whatever it is but generally because I think because because the tuition sector in terms of the people who are delivering has become increasingly teachers who've exited away from that that environment that that we talk about so often here and in the group I think generally in the main people are bringing a different human approach to it in terms of how they interact and work with each other even if they're in the same local area or or whatever there's collaboration and kindness and consideration and a willingness to give advice and support and lend a listening ear and I think that's something that Ilana does is so much and and she does have an amazing community of her own and all the rest of it but she is so I was about I was about to like do an arm gesture she doesn't close it all off and keep it to herself and I think I think that's one of the the magic bits about about the tuition sector is that it is evolving in that way there's always going to be whenever you get humans together in groups there's always going to be little pockets I think I think in some respects the tutoring community and the life after teaching community reflect everything that we've come away from that was wrong within education and it's almost like once bitten twice shy isn't it actually we know people who've been involved in that level of toxicity and and jealousy and the scarcity mindset so actually you find your tribe once you've been burnt or once you've been exposed to something you now recognise what you don't want and I always talk about that personal checking I have with myself how does this make me feel and if it makes me feel like I used to feel when I was in a toxic school environment I am out of there because there's that many opportunities out there once you leave the classroom or you're trying to exit the classroom you can start to build your own tribe Ilana could see the red flags at the age of 26 before red flags was even an expression she had a head teacher who publicly roasted her in front of a parent she had a smiling assassin of a colleague that was out to sabotage her so she was very savvy from an early age and actually it's not just part of the problem is some people don't recognise that this is not normal and acceptable because they've got low self-worth and they think well that's okay to treat somebody like that well it's okay to treat me like that so number one they accept it they're unaware that these things can be happening sometimes and then they don't know what to do about it and they sit in it for too long you can vote with your feet and I think I think that's what you do you might be a bit nomadic and you go from tribe to tribe because tribes change you know but that's why she's in our world you know that's that's why we spend time with Ilana because you you know what you're gonna get with her and she is passionate about what she was talking about and I'd not heard all of that you know Sarah the early doors with her and now I didn't I didn't have any idea that that was that was her route through her through her adult life and I think what was really interesting for me is that reflecting back on 96 when she started I first started in 95 I think you started in 94 it made me realize that I touched very lucky in my first two schools my first eight years in fact the first the first 15 16 years of my career I touched very lucky because I didn't experience that I didn't have that experience as an NQT in fact I was the NQT year where there was no probation year you literally qualified went in crack on and I think my year and your year was was the the two years where that was the case so it really has made me reflect kind of from a position of gratitude that how lucky I was in in finding the the schools that were right for me at that point in time but also how how desperately sad it is that that that level of conformity that requirement to to to do things in a particular way and it is it probably started happening around that time to be honest well she was did it she was in a beacon school and I think that was a forerunner for what they wanted all schools to be like so if you weren't in a beacon school like I wasn't and you had a great head of department called Harry Morofsky who didn't even have a scheme of work who let you get on with it who trusted you on site it it blows my mind when I think about it that that I just walked in second year of teaching my first year I I worked in one school it was a fixed term second year of teaching I walked in I was the only business studies teacher there was no scheme of work and it was basically you know the syllabus teach it the way you want to teach it and I don't think there was no there was no book scrutiny that I've talked about this before no lesson observations nobody came and took my planner I probably I was probably about six years in aside from one Ofsted inspection I was about six years in before somebody came and sat in a classroom with a clipboard and and even then it was supportive so when you sit and listen to what's happening now in schools not all schools but a lot of schools that and and particularly poignant this week with the announcement of the new Ofsted framework which is supposed to be shifting us away from one-word judgments and now it's gone to five judgments and multiple criterias and it's just going to make it worse and and and we can we could sit and talk about that for hours the the whole thing to do with accountability conformity and how that's impacted on on over over 25 30 years multiple generations of children in real terms that makes me really really sad but yeah I think that attitude of it's okay to make a complete change to your life plan and if you do that four five six times in your life then so be it because actually what I'm finding in my support calls with members of life after teaching their life plan does change but it's not with them in control so you might sometimes have to accept that your life can't be mapped out as you want it to be because things happen and they either happen because you're in the driving seat or they're going to happen because somebody else is and it's how you roll with it and how you deal with what's thrown at you and having the foresight to sit there and go this isn't right so I just I just thought she's an absolute powerhouse she's always she's always high energy and it was a fascinating podcast episode it really was it was unusual but again what she said was tutoring particularly entrance exams huge market out there and actually what I think is quite important about the 11 plus for want of the easiest route to talk about particularly the non-verbal element it isn't taught in schools so if you are not an English specialist or a if you're a DT teacher or if you are a modern foreign languages teacher you can actually skill yourself up in a brand new curriculum with the likes of Ilana with your own research with lots of organisations we work with and that can be your skill that you take out and tutor so there's it was a very rich episode for me it really was but also to be fair her workshops the last two years have been they there have been so I mean last year people got I mean goody bags full of little things tactile things for for helping with and and the year before I've never seen a room full of adults jump up on command and dash to walls to go and grab things you know she's so she's so good. Well speaking of our conference this year our keynote or one of our keynotes this year is again Mr Drew Povey star of stage and screen and we are going off are we not now to go and get our glad rags on because we're meeting Povey in the pub yeah and Povey in the pub Povey in the pub pit pony meeting Povey in the pub there's your there's your alliteration because we're nailing him on aren't we for an episode so that'll be that'll be one with an e in brackets if I know him right so let's go and get our glad rags on and let's go and see the main man and as always Sarah fantastic episode and tonight I'm not going to say I'll see you on the other side I'll see you in the Saracen's Head.  Thank you so much for staying with us throughout another great episode and on behalf of myself Sarah Dunwood and all at the production team we appreciate your continued support if you wish to contact me directly for a support session or a clarity call for your next steps please find my link in the comments below see you soon