Zoe Moore

As a primary school teacher, Zoe Moore witnessed first-hand how much the school system lacked support for children struggling with literacy and other needs. Throughout her 16-year career, and especially after becoming head of the SENCO team, Zoe realised that the dyslexia service provided in schools throughout Cornwall drastically needed more staff and resources in order to accommodate the many children in Cornwall with learning needs. 

This planted a seed for a slight career change in Zoe’s mind, and she came up with her business idea ‘My Amazing Mind’.

“In 2019 I decided to leave teaching and move to the US with my family, but due to Covid we were forced to change our plans and I was left with an opportunity to reflect on my passion for teaching,“ says Zoe.

“I decided to take a Nuero Linguistic Programming course, looking at how our brains process information and manage emotions, so that I could use this knowledge to help children. I had this idea that I wanted to make a difference, so I ended up starting my business from Facebook, without knowing much about Facebook beforehand!”

During her course, one of the other attendees advised Zoe to contact Outset Cornwall for help with starting her new business. After speaking with one of the team, she discovered she was also eligible to join the Focus From The Outset programme. Willing to get as much support as she could that would help get her business off the ground, Zoe attended several of Focus’s workshops on decision making, coping with change and action planning, building solid foundations to then attend Outset’s Start Your Business sessions. 

Zoe continues to express her appreciation for the support she received from both Focus and Outset, at a time where she felt she knew her own role very well, but recognised that learning how to start and grow a business was essential, in particular how to use social media and build a website. 

“It was lovely to be in a group of like-minded people, all of us essentially at the beginning of our business journeys. I wanted to encourage others as much as they were encouraging me and hearing their wobbles made me feel as though I wasn’t alone. The Focus workshops were based around topics I was already familiar with, such as managing mind and emotions, but it was a great refresh!”

Moving forward, Zoe is still at the beginning of her journey and taking on more of a coaching approach to children’s learning, by teaching children and parents simultaneously to help with their literacy learning. Teaching skills a parent will continue to teach outside of sessions. 

“It isn’t just about the children, but also about the parents; helping them and teaching them skills they’ll continue to teach their children outside of sessions help them both in the long run, and the feedback has been amazing; parents keep telling me they are finally singing off the same hymn sheet!”

In the near future, Zoe plans to become a Dyslexia specialist and offer this as part of ‘My Amazing Mind’. Knowing more parents are becoming significantly concerned about special learning in schools locally, Zoe has found a tremendous gap in the market to help families with children learn and grow.

“People buy from people, they are not buying ‘My Amazing Mind’, they are buying me. With the help from Outset and Focus, I can continue to grow myself and my business, while looking forward to new workshops and invitations to future networking events. I’d recommend them both to anyone starting out!”

You can visit My Amazing Mind here – https://www.myamazingmind.co.uk