Education Hero
A likely partnership forged in the fires of truth
The Carlton Club
The last few years revealed something most of us suspected but few wanted to admit: our institutions don’t serve us the way we thought they did. For many, COVID was the moment the veil finally fell. We saw the tyranny hiding behind “expert consensus” and the ignorance masquerading as certainty.
But from that darkness came unexpected light. People who would never have crossed paths found each other, bound by a commitment to truth that transcended their different backgrounds. For me, that commitment has always been about education - not just challenging false narratives during COVID, but ensuring people understand what’s really happening and why it matters.
I spent decades in capital markets and fintech before discovering my true calling. The last decade in tech taught me how to build systems that empower individuals rather than institutions. But it was those years since 2020, analyzing data, speaking truth, and getting deplatformed for it that crystallized my purpose: education is the foundation of everything.
That’s why, when I met Mike Fairclough in person at the Carlton Club in February 2023, at a meeting organized by John Mappin to host prominent COVID dissidents like Robert Malone, Aseem Malhotra and even Nigel Farage, I knew immediately we were meant to work together.
An Inevitable Alliance
Mike spent nineteen years transforming a failing state primary school into a nationally celebrated institution. His students learned to light fires before long division, raised water buffalo across 120 acres of Sussex marshland, and discovered what real courage looks like. Channel 4 showcased his school to seventeen million viewers. The Guardian couldn’t resist the headline: “The school with guns and knives on the timetable, and OFSTED loves it.”
Then 2020 happened. Mike became the only serving headteacher among 43,500 in the UK brave enough to publicly question the vaccine rollout for children. The same institutions that had championed his innovative work for years turned against him.
He eventually resigned rather than surrender his freedom of speech.
We’d been chatting online for months in a small group of scientists, journalists, and lawyers. But meeting face-to-face crystallized something: Mike knew what education should be. I knew how to build the infrastructure to make it happen, outside institutional control.
Education Hero
This partnership represents my vocation coming to fruition. Everything I’ve done over the past few years - analyzing mortality data, challenging public health narratives, getting deplatformed for speaking truth - has been about education at its core. Not the sanitized, compliance-focused version institutions peddle, but real education: teaching people to think critically, question authority, and trust their own judgment.
Mike brings over 25 years of educational wisdom and an unshakable belief in “rewilding” childhood. I bring decades of building complex systems in finance and a deep expertise in Web3 and AI. Together, we’re creating Education Hero, a platform that returns power to educating parents, using technology that can’t be censored, shut down, or co-opted.
In the articles below, Mike shares his extraordinary journey from celebrated headteacher to home educator. I explain how a City trader discovered his true calling in the fight for our children’s futures.
Hello Joel, I home educated my children 35 years ago. I think I am justified in saying that your enlightenment is overdue but welcome - I realised decades ago the manipulation of children. Home education was not even spoken about then. My children are all now successful in their chosen fields (and unvaxed I might add). Feel free to contact me if you want real experience in home education. Am I congratulating myself? Well yes.
Very excited today to see a Joel Smalley substack. And I loved the photo of four of my lifetime heroes. Missing you and your insight of everything covid and the disturbed humans involved. My greatest fear…..it will all be forgotten in coming years.