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Michelle Oceane built Inquire Education through community connections, a love of teaching and a need for a different working life. Five years on, she is using that experience to help other teachers explore what education beyond the classroom could look like.
One of the questions we hear often in our Exit Stage Teach community is how to build a teaching business that goes beyond tutoring. Another is how to connect with homeschooling families, particularly when your professional experience has been within schools. It can feel like a whole other world, even when you know you have valuable skills to offer.
Michelle Oceane’s story gives us a closer look at what that journey can involve. Her first opportunity began with a family whose children she had taught, an urban farm and an invitation to bring learning into a different setting. From there came workshops, community connections and regular sessions for home-educating families. There were also business mistakes, unexpected loneliness and the gradual work of rebuilding her wellbeing.
We have shared Michelle’s work with homeschooling families before at Exit Stage Teach. As Inquire Education celebrates five years in October 2026, we wanted to revisit her story and explore how the business grew, what she learnt and why she is now creating support for other teachers taking a similar step. Read our first article with Michelle here: https://exitstageteach.com.au/how-to-move-from-teacher-to-working-with-home-school-families/
Nearly 20 years of teaching, leadership and supporting others
Michelle began her career as a chemistry teacher and moved into a Head of Year position in her second year. Supporting student welfare and families gave her the opportunity to explore an interest that would continue to shape her work: the relationship between education, identity and young people’s mental wellbeing.
During maternity leave, she delivered science incursions to early childhood centres. When she returned to classroom teaching, she chose to teach Prep, wanting to understand more about children’s early experiences of education and how teaching practices connect with their development. After one term, she was selected for a pedagogy mentoring role supporting primary school science. She combined that work with shared teaching responsibilities in Year 2 and Year 4 classes.
Working alongside other teachers became one of the most rewarding experiences of her career. Being welcomed into classrooms and seeing the care, creativity and expertise of her colleagues reinforced how much she valued the profession. Across nearly 20 years in education, she developed experience with different age groups, families and learning environments. That breadth of experience would later become part of the foundation for Inquire Education.
Still loving education while needing something to change
Michelle’s growing desire to work differently came from a deeply held view of what education could offer. Relationships, flexibility and responding to the needs of individual learners were central to her approach. She wanted room for curiosity, meaningful connections and outcomes that could develop in ways a teacher might not predict at the beginning of a lesson.
In her experience, changes towards external programs and assessment made that approach harder to sustain. She recalls valuing the teaching units her colleagues had written specifically for the students in their school, and feeling that something important was being lost as the direction changed. Over time, the distance between her educational philosophy and the conditions she was working within became increasingly difficult to reconcile.
That distinction will resonate with some teachers in our community. You can care deeply about students, respect your colleagues and still recognise that your working environment no longer fits your values or circumstances. For Michelle, exploring a different path meant considering where she could continue contributing to education in a way that felt meaningful and sustainable.
Her “Humpty Dumpty Moment”
Alongside those professional questions, Michelle was struggling personally. She describes no longer caring for herself as she once had, with little time for exercise or preparing nourishing meals. Everyday life at home felt increasingly difficult, and her three young children were also experiencing challenges at school.
She calls this her “Humpty Dumpty Moment”: a point when she felt she had fallen apart and needed to begin rebuilding. The process was gradual. It involved reconsidering what she needed, what her family needed and how work could fit into that picture. Her teaching experience remained valuable, but she wanted a different relationship with the work itself.
There was no fully formed business waiting for her at the other end. Michelle began creating opportunities, trying ideas and discovering what a different professional life could become.
An urban farm club became her first practical step
The family who invited Michelle to their urban property were already running gardening workshops for adults. Food production, sustainable gardening and waste-free living were part of their everyday lives, and they wanted to introduce children to those experiences too. Michelle knew the family through teaching their children, and together they began trialling after-school and homeschool sessions.
That first urban farm club brought together people with complementary skills. The family had the setting and practical knowledge; Michelle had experience creating learning opportunities and working with young people. It gave her a way to begin exploring independent education through something specific and achievable.
Word of mouth opened further doors. A parent of a former student invited her to run workshops at the native nursery where she worked. Then another teacher, who had left schools to develop environmental education resources, asked Michelle to bring young people to a community garden and use the materials she was creating.
Those early connections helped Michelle see how she could build a business bringing environmental education to families outside school settings. Each opportunity grew from a relationship, an introduction or a shared interest. Her starting point was close to home, among people who already understood something about her work and the value she could bring.
Building a teaching business beyond tutoring
Over the following years, Inquire Education offered after-school farm visits, school holiday workshops and weekend events. Michelle also spent several years building a home-educating community around three main offerings timetabled throughout the week. Her teaching skills were being used across a range of experiences, with the setting and structure changing to suit the work.
For teachers wondering what might be possible beyond tutoring, those examples are worth paying attention to. Michelle was creating opportunities for children to explore science, sustainability and the natural world, while bringing her experience of relationships and group learning into each session. The business developed around interests she could share and experiences families valued.
Her story also gives us a more practical understanding of how connections with homeschooling families can develop. Trial sessions, word of mouth, invitations from local people and regular offerings all formed part of the journey. Michelle built relationships over time, and the work grew as people discovered it and shared it with others.
She had initially imagined attracting a small niche. Instead, she says she was surprised by the number of families whose children were struggling at school, and by their relief at finding her classes. That response helped her understand what her work meant to the families she met and encouraged her to keep developing it.
Learning to teach independently meant learning business too
Teaching was familiar territory. Building the business around it brought a whole new set of questions. Michelle had to learn about business research, branding and pricing, often discovering that an apparently straightforward task had several unfamiliar steps underneath it.
“One step would lead to another 10 surprise steps to take before that one could be achieved.”
She describes times when progress felt frustratingly circular. An idea could lead to another decision, another piece of research and another thing she did not yet know how to do. Her teaching expertise gave her something valuable to offer, but she still had to learn how to organise, communicate and sustain that offer as a business.
Her transition included secondary teaching contracts and, later, supply work while Inquire Education grew. School work remained part of her life for several years, alongside her independent offerings. This is a useful detail for teachers imagining that a career change has to happen in one decisive move. Michelle’s working life developed through a period of overlap, experimentation and adjustment.
The hardest part was leaving her people
One of Michelle’s biggest surprises was how much she missed the everyday relationships of school life. She valued her colleagues and students, and had not fully considered how it would feel to leave an entire professional community while beginning something on her own.
“I needed to leave schools, but I had not considered the impact that leaving an entire support network would have on me.”
The loneliness hit her hard at first. Returning to casual teaching helped fill that gap in her week, giving her opportunities to reconnect with students, support colleagues and remain part of a school community. She could need a change and still value those connections.
That experience has stayed with her. It is one of the reasons professional community is becoming so important in the next stage of Inquire Education. Michelle understands what it feels like to have questions without someone nearby who understands the work, and she wants other teachers to have people to learn alongside as they build something of their own.
A working life with room for an ocean swim
As the business developed, Michelle deliberately considered how her offerings could support her own wellbeing. One class took place in a pop-up tent by the seashore. Each week, after the session and packing up, she went for a swim in the middle of the day.
“I designed my offerings specifically to support myself in the healing journey,” she says.
That swim captures something practical about the change she was making. She was thinking about where she wanted to work, how she wanted her week to feel and what she needed to care for herself. The learning experiences mattered, and so did the life around them.
Michelle describes becoming more present for herself and her family, with greater control over her schedule and more room for her roles as a mother and wife. Building a business involved hard work and uncertainty, but she was gaining the ability to make decisions about how the work fitted into her circumstances. Over time, she began to feel differently about herself too.
“I value myself.”
It is a short statement with a great deal behind it. For someone who had spent years supporting other people, recognising her own needs had become an important part of rebuilding.
From teaching families to supporting freelance teachers
In 2026, Michelle connected the students and families from her in-person classes with freelance teachers in her local network. She is now focusing on developing support for other educators who want to explore independent teaching businesses, drawing on the experience she has gained through Inquire Education.
The direction makes sense when we look back across her career. She loved mentoring teachers, understands the work of building community learning experiences and knows how unfamiliar the business side can feel. She also knows how isolating it can be to do it alone.
“I believe in the power of collaboration over competition.”
Michelle wants teachers to share knowledge and experience, with less time lost to repeatedly researching the same questions or making avoidable branding and pricing mistakes. She sees value in helping educators develop their own ideas, reflecting their strengths and the communities they want to serve. Their businesses may look very different from the one she built, but many of the early questions will be familiar.
Could your next chapter be freelance teaching?
Through Inquire Education, Michelle is bringing five years of business experience into a developing community for teachers exploring education beyond school employment. She is welcoming founding members during 2026, with plans to develop a course-like support system alongside the group in 2027. Connection, collaboration and practical learning from her own journey are central to what she wants to create.
For teachers beginning to explore this direction, her free download, Walking Alongside, offers an introduction, with a masterclass also planned. Visit Inquire Education to explore her work and find out about opportunities to get involved.
Michelle encourages teachers to think about the place they want education to have in their future. Some will want to explore another profession entirely. Others will still love working with young people and families, but need a different setting or structure in which to do it. Understanding that distinction can help make the next step clearer.
Finding your own starting point
At Exit Stage Teach, we hear from teachers who know something needs to change but are unsure what their experience could become outside a school. Michelle’s story offers concrete possibilities: a community workshop, a small-group learning experience, a partnership with a local venue or a teaching business developed alongside relief work.
It also shows the work between the idea and the outcome. There were invitations to accept, relationships to build, unfamiliar business decisions and periods of loneliness. Her circumstances and priorities continued to shape the business as it grew. Five years later, she is still adapting it.
For anyone considering a similar direction, there are useful questions to take from her experience. What do you most enjoy helping people learn? Who in your community could benefit? What could you trial on a manageable scale? And who could you learn alongside as you work out the unfamiliar parts?
Michelle began with an urban farm club and a desire to teach differently. Along the way, she created more room for her family, her wellbeing and her own sense of value. Now, she is using what she learnt to help other teachers explore where their experience might take them next.
About Michelle Oceane and Inquire Education
Michelle Oceane is an Australian educator and founder of Inquire Education, with nearly 20 years of experience across secondary and primary teaching, student welfare and pedagogy mentoring. Inquire Education celebrates five years in October 2026, having offered community learning experiences, workshops and regular programs for home-educating families. Michelle is now developing support for teachers exploring freelance teaching and education businesses of their own.
Discover Michelle’s work, explore Walking Alongside and find out about her developing community at Inquire Education.
Explore More Teacher Career Change Stories
At Exit Stage Teach, we believe that understanding the real experiences of teachers who have changed careers can make the process feel a little less overwhelming. Through our teacher stories, career resources and community, we share different pathways, practical insights and honest accounts of what life beyond the classroom can look like.
Whether you’re ready to make a change or simply beginning to explore your options, you can find more stories and resources at www.exitstageteach.com.au.
