Chad began his career as a teacher in New Zealand, supporting children in their learning journeys. When COVID hit, Chad found himself unexpectedly grounded in Queensland—and never left.

Chad is a registered Queensland teacher with over fifteen years of experience working across the Child Safety and Education sectors. He has extensive experience supporting children with complex behaviours and learning needs and is trained in Therapeutic Crisis Intervention (TCI) —a framework that equips educators to respond to challenging behaviour in a calm, supportive, and trauma-informed way.

Through this work, Chad recognised a gap in traditional education systems especially for children who struggle to thrive in standard classroom settings. This insight led to the creation of Step Up Learning.

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Step Up Learning is more than just a tutoring service. While foundational skills in reading, writing, and maths are a core part of each lesson, physical activity, movement, and hands-on learning are also woven in to keep students engaged and motivated. Every session is tailored to the individual child’s goals, interests, and learning style.

One of Chad’s most memorable sessions involved a student building a birdhouse over six lessons. The project incorporated maths, writing, problem-solving, and practical life skills. In the final three sessions, the student created a PowerPoint outlining the steps of the project. Chad emailed the students' classroom teacher and arranged for him to present both the birdhouse and the presentation to his class—a powerful moment of pride and accomplishment.

This is the kind of meaningful, individualised success that Step Up Learning aims to create for every child: an approach that supports not just academic growth, but confidence, resilience, and a love of learning.