Meet the teacher - Brook Edgar
Physics teacher Brook Edgar specialises in helping students understand the measurable forces that govern the universe.
But, the overriding theme to emerge from a conversation with Brook was something that’s much harder to measure; resilience.
From being told to watch TV with subtitles due to her struggles with spelling and grammar, to moving countries to study Physics at Michigan State, and doing all that while rowing to European Championship success for Ireland - resilience has been a cornerstone of Brook’s life.
“Growing up, school was always a priority for me. I had to finish my homework before I could play,” she begins. “When I got older my mum threw all my books in the bin as she was tired of trying to get me to complete my homework, so she gave me a choice, either not to study or go out to the bins and dig out my homework before they were emptied and she never had to force me to do homework again.”
“My mum didn’t finish school because she was needed to help out at home in Northern Ireland. My dad finished school, but then went straight out to earn money and work rather than pursue further education. They’re both really intelligent, hard-working people but they knew from their own experiences that limited schooling meant limited choices, so they really pushed the value of education.”
“I went to an all-girls grammar school. My mum tracked my results closely - if I wasn’t top of the class, she wanted to know who beat me and by how much. And, when I did well, they rewarded me. I became very competitive. I was strong in Science and Maths and enjoyed being better at it than others. It motivated me to keep improving.”
Alongside the successes, there were difficulties for Brook to overcome, too.
“I was a bright, energetic kid, but lots of my teachers would go too slow for me and criticise my spelling. I would get bored, talking to my friends and distracting them. Often, I'd be made to sit at the back facing the wall.”
But not all teachers are the same and one stood out, Mr Arnold, Brook’s Physics teacher.
“He was brilliant. He challenged me with harder problems and didn’t give me the chance to get distracted – he was the only one who really made an effort with me. He built a great bond with our class, took us on trips, and really encouraged me to be a better person. I remember him telling my parents at parents' evening that I did not always have to get the answer right first and I could give my peers a chance but also help them. He made me more humble. My love of space really came from my dad, though. He’s obsessed with shows like Doctor Who, Star Wars and Star Trek - watching them together when my mum was working shifts was our thing.”
Brook’s energy - and talent - was evident outside school too, where a love of sport led her to trying her hand at everything from football to swimming. However, hailing from a small-town with a proud history of producing Olympic athletes, it was rowing which caught her attention.
“I had loads of energy, but I just couldn’t grasp the different skills other sports needed nor did I have the patience and focus to learn. Then, I started rowing at 15. It’s a cheap sport where I’m from, I think it was like £80 for the year or something. You don’t need much skill beyond the willingness to sit and work hard and the coaches were strict. I got kicked out of circuit classes a few times for talking too much and wasn't allowed to progress up the levels until I proved my dedication by committing to the 20 hour training week schedule, they helped shape me into the person I am today, improving my time-management skills and focus.”
Back in school, by the time Brook finished her A-levels, she had earned four A*s in Maths, Chemistry, Biology and - of course - Physics. 
“My school pushed me to apply for Oxford and Cambridge. I didn’t ask for help with my application - after I had applied, I was reprimanded by a teacher for not asking for help with my grammar and was now for sure not getting in, which put me off.
Alongside her schoolwork, Brook’s rowing was proving equally impressive and after being selected for the Irish rowing squad, travelled to Spain as part of the European Championships team. Relatively new to rowing, Brook didn’t harbour any medal expectations and was told that her boat was unlikely to medal - but alongside her partner they upset the odds and took home the Gold.
Brook’s performances in Spain caught the eye of talent scouts from Michigan State University’s rowing team, who offered her a full scholarship studying astrophysics.
Faced with moving countries, a timetable that meant having to study graduate-level courses, as an undergraduate, and professors who made assumptions about her academic prowess based on her athletic scholarship, Brook was again forced to be resilient.
“Athletic scholarships are tough. Sport comes first and education second. First, there are strict performance metrics you have to meet, and if your times aren’t constantly improving your scholarship can be taken away and that’s that. In my third year, I returned from a couple of months back home over summer and my coach called me into the office, telling me my times had slipped and if I didn’t get them up again in a month, I’d lose it. I was terrified of having to go home because I could not afford the students' fees there, so I worked and worked and at the end of the month finally getting a personal best, they called me back in and told me it had all just been a scare tactic. I didn’t know how to feel.”
Alongside the psychological pressure of performing, Brook’s athletic commitments also made studying harder.
“Training comes first, so I was scheduling classes around sessions. Some clashes were unresolvable, so the only way to do it was to take graduate-level courses which were well above where I should have been. You’re given a tutor, but they’re students too and none were at the level I was studying at, so it wasn’t helpful.”
Despite all the challenges, Brook graduated with 1st Class Honours but not without struggles. “As an athlete, I was judged - professors assumed I wasn’t smart. Two professors actually apologised for misjudging me.”
After graduation, Brook returned to the UK, where she rowed at Leander with some other US athletes but found she no longer enjoyed it. So, returning home, Brook assessed her next steps.
“Initially I wanted to be a pilot in the RAF, but when joining up I was told that I had lived outside of the UK for too long, so would have to remain in the UK for the next 12 months and reapply,” she remembers.
Hunting for an alternative, Brook applied for a host of jobs. Academia remained an option too and when she was accepted onto a Master’s in Planetary Science at UCL. “I thought ‘great, that can be my year in the country, and then I’ll go back to the RAF’,” she recalls.
While studying for her Masters, Brook earned some extra cash tutoring GCSE and A-level students. “Teaching was never my plan, but I quite enjoyed it, so I looked into it a bit. The starting salary of £30k was attractive, so I applied for a PGCE.”
Again though, it wasn’t all plain-sailing and those resilience stores would again be called on.
“I cried on day one of my teacher training after my first class left. I thought we’d be taught how to teach, maybe shadow someone - but you’re thrown straight in. I told off a pupil and they cried and left the room. After that lesson I cried too. It was intense. Luckily, I made friends with colleagues my age, and we got through it together. It was tough, but rewarding – full of highs and lows. By my second year, things felt better. The kids were good fun and I realised I was genuinely helping them.”
As well as helping students get their heads around Physics and go on to further education, Brook was particularly keen to help encourage girls to stick with science.
“Most of the schools I taught in were state schools, and many of the pupils were first-generation university hopefuls. They didn’t know what careers were possible or how to get there.”
“I ended up teaching A-level Physics - sometimes with just one or two girls in the room. That shocked me. In mixed schools, girls would say the boys were better at science, always raising their hands or being top of the class. I had seen something similar at Michigan State, where in Physics classes I was often one of the very few girls, roughly 4-8 others in a class of 400. Even though I was at the top of my class, some professors would tell me my answers were wrong while telling the boys next to me theirs were right. That made me determined to boost girls’ confidence, get them to the top of the class, and encourage them to stick with science. Many of them did. So I worked on making the Physics curriculum more accessible, especially for girls. Pupils started to thank me for helping them improve.”
That determination to help students motivated Brook’s move to MyEdSpace, where - by stepping out of the confines of a classroom - she can reach more children and, in-turn, have a bigger impact.
“Teaching at MyEdSpace allows you to support a large number of students in a focused way. Unlike a classroom that’s full of distractions, at MyEdSpace you get 60 minutes of pure Physics - problem after problem, non-stop thinking. It’s intense, and I’m often answering follow-up questions long after the lesson ends, but it’s incredibly rewarding.”
“There’s also a huge relief in not managing behaviour all day. I haven’t had to shout once this year - no detentions, no constant disruptions. Just teaching.”
That approach has led to hundreds of success stories across MyEdSpace Physics cohorts.
Just last year for example, three times more MyEdSpace students achieved GCSE grade 9 than the national average. And, well over half of our students achieved GCSE grade 7 or above (56%), compared to under 25% nationally (22%).
At A-level the story was the same with double the numbers of MyEdSpace A-level Physics students achieving an A or A* (67%), compared to the national figure of only 32%.
In a career built on resilience and overcoming the odds, it feels apt to end on two stories of Brook’s students following that same example.
“Bella stands out for me,” she begins. “In her first lesson, I thought she would struggle. But by January, she was giving A* / GCSE Grade 9-level answers. The transformation was incredible. The other students picked up on her progress and vibed off it too.”
“Then there’s Pramit in Year 13. At first, I thought, 'Poor thing - who put him in A-level Physics?' He clearly hadn’t been advised well. But by December, he was flying - helping others in the chat, answering questions, cracking jokes. The peer support on MyEdSpace is brilliant.”