Andrew Jeffrey

Hi, my name is Andrew Jeffrey. I am married to Alison and we have
two young sons. I worked as a teacher for 20 years and have always
enjoyed working with and supporting young people. I very modestly
thought that teaching was the most important job in the world until I
became a parent, then I realised that teaching was only the second most
important thing!

(I also discovered that having a sense of humour is essential for both of the above!)

Our kids attend the local nursery and primary school. I recently
decided to change jobs so that I could spend more time with them as I
found that school was taking up more and more of my time. I had in
recent years been doing a fair bit of consultancy in a whole range of
schools, and decided to try to combine this with my other career as a
professional magician. Earlier this year I formed a company called
‘Magic Message', which uses magic to get key messages across, be they
sales, training, self-esteem or mathematical ones, and aims to do so in
a memorable way. Because I am my own boss I am free to run my own
diary, and this has allowed me to spend more time with my family.

I very quickly came to realise what a tough job it was to be a
parent, and I admire anyone who does it successfully. I joined the Core
strategic group of the Parents' Forum, partly with my ‘education' hat
on, but also just as a parent, in order to help support parents who
sometimes struggle as I do to ‘get it right'.