What is In Focus Learning?
Meet Kieren Beard, Founder of In Focus Learning, and how he has turned a side hustle into a business.
3-Key takeaways:
This business is a product of a failure.
It’s about growth – I don’t care what that looks like, so long as you’re growing in the right direction.
It’s all about having the right attitude and grit that’ll determine your success.
First and foremost, this here is a product of a failure. Believe me…
As much as this is a story of the growth of a business, it’s also a product of circumstance and opportunity. I am not hiding the fact that I didn’t succeed in everything I did, I simply believe that hard work pays off in the end.
Luckily for me, I always knew what I wanted to be – a teacher. I am currently a proud English teacher working in Southwest Sydney. Like every teacher in this world, I have seen my purpose to give every child I teach skills, opportunities, and a future. However, had it not been for some early hard and confronting lessons, this wouldn’t have existed today.
The Beginning:
In Focus Learning has been steadily growing since its inception. I began this business as a simple side-hustle; just some extra cash on the side. I initially began tutoring whilst in University, helping the neighbour’s nephew and niece with their homework and assessments. This continued as I began my first teaching job in 2018 and grew to another two students. By 2019, I had doubled my student base, and my student base doubling again in 2020. This organic word-of-mouth growth has encouraged me to explore the potential of this as a business.
This business has now become a little more than a side project. The opportunity to work with my students one-on-one has seen exponential growth in not only in overall grades, but in their ability to be responsible and competent learners in their respective classes. I have seen shy students become confident contributors, linear readers become conceptual thinkers, and the creation of hunger to kick goals overall. These tangible and intangible success stories motivate me to do everything I can for my students. This philosophy is conditioned within my teaching at school and is something that characterises the approach of In Focus Learning.
What In Focus Learning represents further is that it is a tutoring business built on the back of a practising teacher; a teacher who has shaped the In Focus Learning philosophy around what I do in the classroom and what I believe learning should be. Put it simply, it’s about creating a space for growth for those who want to grow further than they could ever imagine.
The Present:
When people ask me what I do for a living, I tell them I’m an English teacher. What I really want to tell them is I’m the guy who stands in-front of thirty kids at a time, 3–5 times-a-day, building interest in a subject that will provide them invaluable skills for life. More often than not, I view a “winning day” as a day a student remembering the difference between a simile and a metaphor. Despite the realities that comes with teaching, I am a passionate teacher who, in the end, just wants every student to grow.
Typically, a blog like this would profoundly detail a biography of how I created this company out of a side-hustle. Instead, this article will merely provide you just a glimpse into the bigger picture of who I am, who we are, and how you can be a part of this community.
My belief is simple – your attitude, not your aptitude, determines your altitude. It’s a belief I’ve carried ever since I left High School; it’s that despite whatever innate talent you might have (or think you have), it’ll amount to nothing unless you’re willing to put in the work.
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Tell us about your experience!
What I want to know is YOUR story, examples of how your attitude, rather than your aptitude, has got you where you are today (altitude). Share your story with me via email on info@infocuslearning.com.au or message In_Focus_Learning on Instagram.