Meet Nathan Creighton: the former Mossbourne student teaching maths at Oxford University

Maths man: Nathan Creighton. Photograph: courtesy Nathan Creighton

“It’s a bit ironic,” says Nathan. “Getting into Cambridge and then getting here to Oxford to do a PhD was far more straightforward than getting into a local state school.”

Nathan Creighton, who has mild cerebral palsy, was told by a Hackney academy that his inclusion in the school would be disruptive to other students’ learning, despite the fact that, at the age of 11, he had already obtained an A* in GCSE maths.

He recalls applying “like any other student” to Mossbourne Community Academy, and being led to believe that, because of his statement of special educational needs, he’d be able to choose a place that was suitable.

Instead, he says, the school argued his attendance would be “incompatible” with other pupils. His case made it all the way to the Supreme Court, where the case was decided in Nathan’s favour, and he was admitted to the school.

However, the win brought little sense of triumph: “They made it clear that they only accepted me because they lost a court case, and made it rather unpleasant, really.”

Day to day, though, most classrooms were ordinary.

“Most of [the teachers] treated me normally. I was a good student in most of the classes. The teachers weren’t particularly concerned with the court case,” he says. He only speaks positively of the teaching. Still, he felt the institution was rigid.

“I got a good education from there. I think they were very inflexible, particularly to people with different needs. And they had a very much one-size-fits-all, no-excuses approach.”

What followed was the opposite of one-size-fits-all.

Nathan was awarded an academic scholarship to study mathematics at Cambridge University, holding the FG Woods scholarship throughout his undergraduate years.

“In my finals at Cambridge, I got 100 per cent and that was why I got the Educational Excellence Prize.”

He later moved to Oxford for doctoral work in mathematics. From today, Monday 6 October, he will be in post as a stipendiary lecturer at St Anne’s College, Oxford, teaching pure maths.

Nathan then has a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Montreal beginning in May next year.

Having once felt the door closing on him, Nathan now spends time trying to open doors for others.

He has volunteered on access programmes for state-educated pupils, such as the Marie Curious Project, a programme for girls aged 11-14, designed to break down the idea that maths “isn’t a subject for them”, and the Fibonacci Programme, where “state school kids in sixth form get a sample of lectures at Oxford, and talk with current students at Oxford to get a feel for what it’s like.”

When asked why he feels so strongly about the existence of schemes like these, Nathan stresses the value of inclusion and fostering a sense of belonging – quite apart from how he was made to feel by his former school: “I think it’s important that everyone feels that places like Oxford are for them,” he says.

“Oxford still does have a problem with the balance of state-school kids… it’s important that they feel that people at Oxford are humans too, and that it’s not just for a certain type of people, who went to a certain school.”

Remarking on the girls he taught on the Marie Curious programme, Nathan says: “What struck me was their talent and their willingness to learn.”

The socio-economic barriers that deter some from even applying, he argues, also hurt the institution “Maths would benefit, and Oxford would benefit from having the brightest students, whatever their background.”

Teaching has sharpened his view of what inclusion really looks like.

“I taught a range of students, a range of them, and I think I do generally want these children to excel and to enjoy their time and to learn something from it,” he says.

“Some students are very easy to teach, some students have various extra considerations… I don’t think that you want only a certain type of easy student.

“Part of teaching is, when someone doesn’t get it or has an extra challenge, to figure out how to overcome the challenges and how to make sure everyone can reach their potential.”

There is still an edge when he talks about school policy.

He describes it as “very ironic” that, in his case, the person responsible for inclusion authored what he calls “the most exclusionary policy on admissions I’ve ever come across”.

His conclusion is clear: the system should adapt to talent and difference, not the other way round.

Nathan intends to stay in academia.

“I’d like to stay in research and teaching because a big part of research is bringing on the next generation… I have a university where I can hopefully help bring along the next generation as teachers and lecturers have done for me.”

From being told his presence would harm his peers’ education to teaching some of the brightest young minds, Nathan’s is a remarkable story of overcoming barriers.

His mission now is to make such journeys routine, by removing the obstacles that still keep state-educated and disadvantaged pupils from highly competitive universities such as Oxford and Cambridge.

More about Nathan Creighton here.