The final Leaving Cert exams are over – but another competition has been raging among grind schools where top teachers have been snapped for eye-watering salaries. The race is for a slice of a grinds industry estimated to be worth up to €60-80 million.
Grinds360 is the newest competitor on the market, which raised more than €3 million from investors who include former and present rugby players such as Brian O’Driscoll, Caelan Doris and Jordan Larmour.
It describes itself as a “hybrid” service, combining an app which streams weekly grinds across 20 subjects, a Netflix-style catalogue of video lessons as well as in-person workshops at certain times of year. The cost, which has varied since its launch almost a year ago, is currently €1,399 a year.
The company started out by poaching several teachers from rivals such as the Institute of Education and the smaller Dublin Academy of Education on huge salaries for the sector.
Alleged Kinahan associate sent daughters to exclusive Swiss school despite no legitimate income, High Court hears
Man (41) charged with causing serious harm after man dies following Balbriggan crash
Early assessments indicate Iran’s uranium stockpile largely intact, European governments told
Irishman Morgan McSweeney: the softly-spoken chief of staff to Keir Starmer now facing questions
The circumstances of one those cases – maths teacher Rob Browne, who left the Dublin Academy of Education to work for Grinds360 – was at the centre of a High Court row last September, which was subsequently struck out.
Brendan Kavanagh, chairman and co-founder of Grinds360, says the firm started out hiring teachers from its competitors for key subjects like maths, English, Irish, sciences and business.
The going rate to attract some of the top talen from its rivals initially was, he says, “anywhere from 100 to 250 grand”.
“Are they worth 200 grand or 250 grand? For the hours they had to work – they were working six, seven days a week in day school and night school – I’d want that kind of money – especially for teaching!” Kavanagh laughs.
At the online platform, he says, they are able to work fewer hours but play key roles in developing the future of the company.
“It’s not really apples for apples. The more experienced grinds teachers are able to add a lot of value as we train other teachers throughout the country [who are now working for the company].”
Some, he says, were also attracted by the idea of becoming involved in ownership of the firm.
“If you earn that kind of money, you pay a lot of tax. So I think the opportunity for them to become stakeholders in the business ... created a new sort of environment there.”
Subsequent teachers have been hired part-time, on different contracts, from various schools in Limerick, Cork, Galway, Waterford and Roscommon.
The result, he maintains, is that the company is making grinds “accessible and affordable” for students, while disrupting the “superstar teacher” narrative which he says has been pushed by some grind schools.
“I’m off a few Christmas Card lists and I’ve been referred to as the Michael O’Leary of grinds. I’ll take it if making overpriced, over-glorified education finally compete on fairness, access, and transparency earns me that comparison,” he says.
Nearly one year on from launch, Kavanagh says Grinds360 has seen “explosive growth” with more than 3,000 paying members and 18,000 app users.
Backed by a €3.2 million seed round, he says the company is set to “double revenue” in 2025-2026 and claims the company has established itself as the “go-to alternative to traditional grind schools”.
“The numbers speak for themselves – there’s a real hunger for a new model of academic support,” he says.
Yet, business is also booming at the Institute of Education on Dublin’s Leeson Street, which itself was a disruptive force in the education sector 57 years ago when it started the trend for exam-focused tuition.
The institute was sold to a UK-based schools group, Dukes Education, in 2023 for just under €135 million.
This year, the institute is forecasting a record enrolment of 1,700 full-time students in September across fourth, fifth and sixth year, with students paying annual fees of up to €11,000 a year.
It also runs grinds, crash courses and online learning for up to 10,000 students attending other schools.
Yvonne O’Toole says demand is growing not just for exam results but because students have “moved on” from single-sex, religious schools and uniforms by the time they are in senior cycle.
While it lost some teachers to Grinds360, she says “crazy salaries” are not the norm, but that teachers are paid well on the basis that they are “expected to go above and beyond”.
“They do a lot more hours ... there are extra classes – morning, evening – and they’re expected to be available. They put their heart and soul into it.”
The institute’s main competitor, the Dublin Academy of Education in Stillorgan, south Dublin, is also running at capacity.
It had about 350 full-time fifth- and sixth-year students last year and says it is on course to grow to 400 when it moves to a larger premises in Blackrock in September. It expects numbers to grow to 500 in 2027 when it launches a fourth year offering.
Founder Chris Lauder says while it also lost some teachers to Grinds360, it has “a deep squad” and was able to “march on”. The academy, he says, is always looking for top teaching talent.
“What we used to do was ask our students if they knew of great teachers and surveyed them. Teachers also know other great teachers. And, these days, you also find them on social media,” he says.
He questions whether some of the top salaries being mentioned are sustainable for the sector and insists the best teachers ultimately want to teach students in-person rather than online.
“We pay more than what the public sector has to offer, and in some cases a lot more – maybe 50 per cent more,” he says.
“Our teachers want to work for not just for remuneration; they like teaching students who are serious about academics. This is senior cycle only. They’re young adults, not children. They are driven – and they are a joy to teach.”
