An academically successful but completely off-putting science education showed me what to avoid and motivated me to save others from the same fate. As a teacher I never had enough time to create the curriculum I wanted. Science upd8 and its successors come close to the kind of science teaching I’d like to have experienced. I’m obsessed with ‘backwards design’ in other words starting from the capabilities we want students to emerge from school with, and working backwards towards the curriculum that will deliver this – for all students.