Andy is a primary school teacher, NGO leader, builder, fundraiser, and expedition leader who has spent the better part of two decades working in some of the world’s most challenging and rewarding environments. He’s taught in Kenya, Malawi, and Yorkshire. He’s managed a 100-acre charity site and he’s raised over £100,000 and built a school from a single hut.
Everything leads back to one conviction: every child deserves access to learning that is right for them.
STEM by the Sea is where all of that comes home.
The school that started with a hut
Birunda Primary School for Hearing Impaired Children, Kenya — 2008 to present
This is the project that sits closest to Andy’s heart. Andy has been Founding Director and Project Lead of Birunda Primary School for Hearing Impaired Children in Kenya since May 2008.
When he started, there was nothing. No building, no staff, no resources — just a recognition that hearing-impaired children in the region had nowhere to go, and a determination to change that. So he started with a hut.
Over the years that followed, Andy initiated and led the development of the school from that single hut into a fully equipped institution now serving over 100 pupils. He designed and managed the construction of multiple classrooms and facilities himself — from initial drawings through to the finished build. He raised over £100,000 through global fundraising campaigns, planned and led multiple volunteer groups from the UK to Kenya, and watched what started as an act of faith grow into something that changes lives every single day.
Those children — who had every reason to be written off by a system that couldn’t see them — showed up every day ready to learn. That doesn’t leave him.
Leading at scale
Mount Elgon Trust, Kenya — 2016 to 2018
From September 2016 to August 2018, Andy served as Manager of the Mount Elgon Trust, a complex NGO based in Kenya. This wasn’t a desk job.
He led a core team of 8 and over 100 staff across schools, a hospital, an orphanage, and multiple building projects — all on a single 100-acre site that was home to almost 2,000 students across 4 educational facilities. He managed organisation-wide budgets and financial compliance, oversaw procurement and supply chains, conducted risk assessments and implemented process improvements, and managed HR for a large multi-disciplinary team.
He also designed, budgeted, sourced materials for, and oversaw the construction of over 3,500m² of new buildings — using 3D computer-aided design from the outset. And he cultivated strong donor relationships with international funders, local communities, and the Kenyan Ministry of Education, securing significant recurring funding and ensuring every project was delivered on time and within budget.
What those numbers don’t capture is the complexity of making it all work — in a country that is not his own, with lives depending on it. That experience taught him more about leadership, improvisation, and human resilience than any course ever could.
Teaching in Malawi
Phoenix International School — 2020 to 2022
From September 2020 to July 2022, Andy taught Year 6 at Phoenix International School in Malawi. Alongside his classroom role he served as Maths Coordinator, successfully implementing a new school-wide scheme of learning — a proper change management project that required diplomacy, patience, and persistence in equal measure.
He also wrote and directed school assemblies and pantomimes — events that required the kind of complex coordination of people, schedules, and resources that he’s always found energising. He was the Teacher Representative on the school’s PTA and served as Teacher in Charge of Likoma House, working closely with pupil house captains.
Another country, another community, another group of children who taught him as much as he taught them.
Back to the classroom
UK teaching
Andy completed his BA with Honours First Class in Primary Teaching with QTS at Hull University in 2014, and he’s been working in education one way or another ever since — with a few extraordinary detours along the way.
Alongside classroom work, Andy is a certified Middle Leader in Education and has extensive ongoing training around child protection and safeguarding.
All of this informs how STEM by the Sea runs — not as a product, but as an educator who genuinely understands what children need.
Why STEM by the Sea
Everything he’s experienced — the deaf children in Kenya who had nowhere to learn, the communities in Malawi, the children in Yorkshire who light up when learning finally clicks for them — has led here.
STEM by the Sea exists because every child deserves access to learning that is right for them. Whether that’s a hearing-impaired child in rural Kenya, or a curious 8-year-old on the Yorkshire coast who’s never touched a soldering iron. This is that mission, closer to home.
If any of this resonates with you — whether you’re a parent, a school, a home-ed family, or just someone who believes in what he’s doing — he’d love to hear from you. Come and see what’s on, or simply get in touch.
andy@stembythesea.co.uk
STEM by the Sea 