I grew up in a high-achieving family. Six children. Private school. Parents who had built something from nothing and expected the same from us. I was the eldest. The one who was supposed to lead the way.
But in lessons, my brain would just go blank.
A teacher would ask me a question. I knew I should know the answer. Nothing came. The harder they pushed, the smaller I felt. The smaller I felt, the less I could think.
More tuition followed. More correction. More disappointment.
Years later I found out I had ADHD. Back then there was no language for it. Only labels.
- Lazy.
- Careless.
- Not trying hard enough.
Eventually the pressure stopped. And strangely — that's when I began to perform. I went on to study engineering. People called it a miracle. It wasn't. I was just no longer in survival mode.
I know what it feels like to be capable — but completely unable to show it under pressure. That has shaped everything I do.
Engineering wasn't where I belonged.
I became a teacher. Most of my teachers had been kind, so I had good role models. I wanted to be the adult I had needed growing up. Someone who understood. Someone who could explain things differently. Someone who didn't just repeat the same words louder when a child didn't understand.
I started in secondary. Design and Technology. Schools were preparing children for the future — electronics, computing, new technology. It suited me. It felt exciting.
In my first year, I met Danial.
He was sixteen. Two months before his GCSEs he walked into my revision lesson by accident. He was disruptive so I asked him to sit beside me. I pointed to a paragraph in his book and asked him to read.
He couldn't.
He sounded out the words slowly. Phonetically. He was sixteen years old and he had been in school for eleven years.
When I raised it with my head of department, I was told — "Not all children are going to pass your exam, Sabina. Focus on the ones who will."
I went higher. "We're a secondary school, Sabina. The primary school failed him."
I was devastated. For me, education was meant for all children — not a lottery. I handed in my resignation.
Later I trained as a primary school teacher. Asked the same question there. Primary blamed nursery. So I trained in early years and asked the same question there. Nursery blamed the parents.
Everyone had an explanation. No one took responsibility.
That's when I realised — the blame always travels downward. And it always ends at the parent's door. But nobody ever trained the parents. Not one session. Not one manual. Nothing.
My older children had done well in school and never needed private tuition — because I was able to support them at home. They went on to university and careers they love.
But my youngest daughter struggled.
Bright. Sensitive. Overwhelmed by the noise and the pressure and the constant demands of the classroom. At the time I was working constantly — teaching, tutoring, holding our family together as my husband lived with a brain tumour.
I understood children. I understood education. But I nearly missed what was happening in my own home.
After an accident and surgery, my daughter begged me not to send her back to school. She was seven.
I had no idea how I was going to home educate. I was barely at home. But as mothers — we find a way.
She never took her SATs.
Today she is fourteen, thriving, and writing her debut novel.
The system couldn't support her. It didn't have the right conditions for her. But I did — because I knew what to look for.