Meet the team.
Headmaster Lawrence Tubb has been instrumental in developing the school’s groundbreaking online learning experience and is responsible for the day to day running of the school.
Prior to joining The Academy, Lawrence was Director of Music for nine years at top private school Wycombe Abbey and led a team of 45 full-time teachers taking on ambitious projects across multiple departments including leading several international concert tours. Prior to Wycombe Abbey, Mr Tubb taught at Leweston School in Sherbourne as Head of Music.
In his role as Headmaster, Lawrence works closely with our teaching and mentoring staff, hosts our weekly assemblies, supports pupils and parents on a weekly basis, and continues to build on the Academy’s principles and values of self-reliance, resilience and spirit of community.
Lawrence is also our Designated Safeguarding Lead, and responsible for planning the school’s unique co-curricular programme, including its school-wide World Changers programme where pupils learn outside of the curriculum to solve real-world problems creatively.
Our Mentors & Teachers
Along with their subject teachers, each pupil is assigned a personal mentor to ensure they make the most out of their time with us. It is the mentor’s job to oversee all aspects of our pupil’s personal and academic development, including their self study schedule, pastoral wellbeing, and involvement in school life. A true ally on our pupil’s educational journey, Our mentors are highly trained and experienced, with 1000s of hours of 1-2-1 mentorship under their belt, either in traditional bricks and mortar schools, or online.
Katy has been a Geography teacher, form tutor, boarding assistant, and Head of Department for nine years in a private school in Kent. She is also an experienced private tutor and home-schooling tutor, and has spent many a summer hosting foreign students at her home in East Sussex. She has marked exams for both GCSE and A level students with Pearson, AQA and OCR exam boards, and she knows what it takes to get her pupils to do their very best on exam day.
Katy
- Mentor
- Geography teacher
Wayne completed his degree in International Business Studies with Spanish and began his busuness career in hospitality and property management in Spain. In 2007, Wayne then completed his PGCE and switched to teaching, where he has remained ever since. Recently Wayne has completed the National Award for SEN coordination, which has helped him specialise his teaching and mentoring for MVA pupils who have SEN or require expert assistance with their learning.
Wayne
- Mentor
- Business Studies teacher
Jack has been teaching for the last 6 years, three as a Senior Pro Tutor at Minerva Tutors. Throughout his Minerva career, Jack has worked in home-schooling roles teaching Maths and Science, as well as mentoring students aged 14-18, and has totalled a staggering 2500+ worth of teaching hours, with at least half of those being online. Recently, Jack created a series of live follow-along experiments as a part of "Minerva Tutors TV", which saw students all over the UK beating lockdown boredom by creating everything from insect habitats to rocket launches!
Jack
- Head Mentor
- Chief Canvas Officer
- Chemistry teacher
With over 20 years of experience, including Head of Science positions at schools in Central London, with a BSc in Biomedical Science and a PGCE, Lana brings an enormous amount of experience and energy to the MVA teaching and mentoring team. A lifelong learner, Lana knows exactly what it takes to transform her pupils into the Attenborough-loving, science gurus of the future.
Lana
- Mentor
- Biology Content Creator
A former head of department and examinations officer, Maricarmen has been teaching Spanish to children of all ages for 15 years. Initially, Maricarmen read Psychology at the Pontifical University of Salamanca, in Spain, gained her PGCE and subsequently accomplished an MSc in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, before arriving in the UK - where she didn’t speak a word of English! - to embark on learning the language and teaching others to love her own.
Maricarmen
- Mentor
- Spanish teacher
A former assistant headteacher and Head of Department with a vast 17 years of teaching experience, including being nominated for a regional teaching award in his beloved home country of Yorkshire, Joe brings his brilliant passion for mathematics and online learning straight into the Minerva classrooms. It’s not a tricky subject, he says. It’s misunderstood. Fun fact: by coincidence, Joe has a cat called Minerva!
Joe
- Mentor
- Maths Teacher
Alexia has taught Geography in both the state and private sector in England as well as coaching lacrosse in America. In addition to being Head of Department and Head of Year, she has also been Deputy Head in two Independent Schools. Alexia has marked A Level exam papers for the AQA exam board for over 5 years and is currently a Team Leader for the Physical Geography paper.
Alexia
- Mentor
- Geography teacher
Jessica
- Psychology teacher
Coming to us from various art and head of creative arts roles in schools, Gráinne has been working as a passionate teacher of art in the UK, Ireland, and further abroad for the last 10 years, including time spent teaching her craft in a private settings. She is currently based in Abu Dhabi, from where she runs our brilliant art department, bringing our pupils creativity to life in interesting and inspiring ways, no matter where they live in the world.
Gráinne
- Art teacher
Jamie has over five years' experience teaching in the UK and internationally, having taught in schools in England, Germany and Vietnam, and pupils who live as far away as Hong Kong and China. For MVA, he teaches English Literature and History, two subjects that he is very passionate about, and enjoys firing the imaginations of our diverse pupil population, who collectively live across eight different time zones!
Jamie
- Mentor
- English Literature teacher
- History teacher
Ruby has taught English as a second language (2011), drama (2016), and literature (2017) since graduating in Anthropology in 2011. She teaches English at the Academy whilst completing a Masters in Anglophone Literatures, Culture and Media. In her lessons, Ruby draws on her MA to create advanced schemes of work for her pupils, transferring her knowledge of literary and linguistic theory to the classroom so her students can gain a wider, cultural perspective of how literature is produced.
Ruby
- Mentor
- English teacher
Emily has worked as a private tutor with Minerva since the very beginning. Over the last ten years, she has successfully tutored thousands of students in Maths, English, Science, French, Spanish, and History up to GCSE level, and English Language and Literature up to A Level. She read French and Spanish at university and has taught in EFL schools in the UK and Internationally. In her lengthy stint as ‘Head Tutor’ for Minerva Tutors, Emily ran the ‘confidence and motivation’ training modules for new tutors.
Emily
- Mentor
- English teacher
Could this be you?
We're expanding quickly and always on the lookout for brilliant teachers and mentors to join our diverse and growing teaching faculty. If you would like to be considered for a position, please send the relevant information to lawrence@minervavirtual.com
You?
Jo has been teaching for 18 years in the UK, Lesotho, Tanzania, Oman, Abu Dhabi and recently in Dubai. She also works for Apple in the Middle East as an Apple Professional Learning Specialist, working with local schools to embed creativity and Apple technologies into their curriculum. Computer science is such a critical subject for our pupils and Jo leads the lessons with invaluable real world experience.
Jo
- Computer Science teacher
One of Minerva’s top online learning specialists, Coco has amassed over 1000 hours of private tutoring and home-schooling hours in the last three years alone. Her subject specialty is in English Language and Literature and her all-round confidence-boosting skills and exam-technique wizardry make her a brilliant mentor for any of our pupils.
Coco
- Mentor
Maria has worked as a Modern Foreign Language teacher, form tutor, resident boarding tutor and Housemistress for twelve years at an independent school in East Sussex. She is well experienced in preparing pupils for their GCSE and A Level exams and has worked as a speaking examiner for both levels. Maria has a particular passion for Spanish culture and incorporates this into her lessons wherever possible, resulting in dynamic and relevant classes.
Maria
- Spanish teacher
- Mentor
Laura is an experienced and skilled English Teacher and school leader, with over 20 years of experience as a Head of English, Assistant Headteacher in charge of Teaching and Learning and a Pastoral Deputy Headteacher. For the last 3 years she has focused on working as a part-time tutor of English at KS2 and 3, GCSE and A-Level, as well as supporting EAL students and those who are home schooled. She has extensive experience of preparing students for both GCSE and A-Level examinations and understands what examiners are looking for!
Laura
- English teacher
- Mentor
Laura has been teaching ICT and Computing for the past 22 years. Spending many of those years as Head of Department alongside Consulting work in relation to Computing and Online Safety. She has been a Form Tutor for the majority of her teaching career and has also done GCSE Exam Board Marking for both ICT and Computer Science. Laura has worked in a mixture of educational settings and has taught all age ranges from Reception to 6th Form - “I love how much my subject evolves and am a big believer in addressing the gender gap in the Tech industry”
Laura B
- Computer Science teacher
- Mentor
Claire is a very experienced teacher with many years of academic teaching and pastoral mentoring behind her. She has taught at all levels and worked in a variety of schools, Claire has always taught in the British Education system and has travelled a lot doing so. She has 3 children of her own and has always enjoyed working with teenagers in-particular. She has experience with SEMH needs, writing EHCP applications and has training on therapies and techniques used to help teenagers cope and manage this particularly challenging stage of their development.
Claire
- Mentor
Alex is an international teacher and has been teaching history, philosophy and literature for many years, within various curricula. When not teaching at Minerva, he also teaches at the University of Urbino in Le Marche, Italy, and develops assessment content for the International Baccalaureate Organization.
Alex
- Mentor
- History & Global Citizenship Teacher
Andrea
- MFL teacher
- Mentor
Chris proudly holds a Masters degree in Astrophysics and has previously taught at prominent international schools in Beijing, Switzerland and Prague. He finds Physics fascinating and the development of problem solving skills to be invaluable. Chris finds that the most gratifying consequence of studying any science is that the student learns to think critically, to form evidence-based opinions and to approach things with a healthy skepticism.
Chris
- Physics teacher
- Mentor
Cheryl has been a Science teacher and form tutor for 9 years in a variety of educational settings in Manchester and Devon, UK. She has spent the last 3 years working in a private international school in Spain and spends her free time tutoring science students to help them achieve their best on exam days. Cheryl has also worked in professional science laboratories so understands the skills students will need to work in a science profession.
Cheryl