For the last decade I’ve been moving in similar Cambridge circles to Rob Percival. I finally met the maths teacher turned coding guru (over 200,000 students have taken his online learn to code courses) at a school prize giving evening where he was the guest speaker.

What he said to the spongy young minds in the room went very much against much of traditional British education (striving to be the very best you can in one area) and he described how his life was transformed by the realisation that although he might not be the best mathematician, best teacher, or best hacker in the world, but the package he offers as a combination of all three is much rarer than these roles made available individually, and this is where he has positioned himself with these courses.

It was good for the teenage students to hear that they have more than one chance in life to find their vocation. Equally exciting for me personally was to be prompted to reflect on how the sabbatical I took from research (for family health reasons), which unexpectedly led me into education and curriculum development, might come full circle and combine with my research and coding interests.

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