Stephen grew up in an ordinary working class home in Kent. His father worked on the railways and his mother was a cook. From an early age Stephen was an avid reader and excelled in arts subjects, like English, Music and Drama.

He studied at a technical High School in Kent (part of the old grammar school system) where he gained four A’ levels and 10 O’ levels. He went on to study Theology at Spurgeon’s Theological College where he secured a first class honours degree. Later he also gained a second bachelor degree in Music at Surrey University and an MA in Theatre Studies at Leeds University. Stephen’s interest in the arts led him to train as an actor for two years but he has chosen to use the skills he acquired for writing and communication purposes.

Stephen chose to train as a teacher and completed his PGCE (Postgraduate Certificate in Education) with distinction in 1985 at St. Mary’s College in Twickenham. He knew that he had the required qualities to be a good teacher – interest, motivation and good communication skills. He wanted to help children achieve educationally, having been inspired by contact with superb educators himself. Stephen’s teaching career began in 1985. He taught in four different state schools and become head of department in three of them. He headed up the English department in his last school.

Like many teachers before him, he originally started tutoring children privately to supplement his income. His first student in 1990 wanted to study for the eleven plus. The boy was successful and gained a place at his grammar school of choice in Buckinghamshire. Stephen continued to tutor pupils for the eleven plus and word soon spread of his success. Before long he was teaching groups of children in their houses.

Stephen found the work extremely rewarding and was delighted to discover that his tutoring was not only helping pupils reach their goal of passing the eleven plus, but the children were also doing so much better in school. By 1999 demand was so high and there were so many groups of students he decided to hire a hall to teach in and employed four assistants to support him. Before long there were two more teachers and thirty assistants. Soon after this Stephen decided to focus full time on tutoring and left his school teaching post and AE Tuition was formed.

To support his work  Stephen started to write and publish his own tuition books through the newly formed AE Publications. Maths books were published first but these were soon followed by Verbal Reasoning, Non-verbal Reasoning and English books.

By 2005 AE Tuition had grown so large it needed its own premises. In May 2006 AE Tuition purchased 2 Kingfisher Court in Slough, where it still resides today.

Stephen still teaches at the school but his main focus now is to train other teachers in his approach and to write more papers and books. As an expert educator Stephen is often asked to comment on and contribute to discussion on national education policy. He is also currently working for a doctoral degree in Media Studies (screenwriting) at Brunel University.

Stephen’s interests include writing stories, plays for theatre and screenplays. One of his plays won the United Distiller’s Community Theatre Award in 1993 and was performed at the Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith. He also won the Euroscript Screenwriting Award in 1999 and his screenplay was marketed with agents across Europe. Most recently, Stephen won first prize in the 2010 USA ‘Script Vamp’ Feature Screenwriting Contest in the Epic/Historical Category with his latest screenplay. The same screenplay also achieved runner-up prize in the Action/Adventure category. This screenplay will be marketed through an agent to the US and UK film industry. Stephen is still writing and has more screenplays in the pipeline.