The QUEST TOKYO Team
Kirsten O'Connor - Founder and Director
Kirsten O'Connor's educational background includes a BA.Ed in Primary Education and English from Canterbury Christ Church University, UK. She earned an M.Ed in Educational Leadership from The University of Southern Queensland, Australia and holds the National Professional Qualification for Headship (NPQH) from the Institute of Education, UK.
Kirsten was a class teacher and borough Leading Maths Teacher in Newham, London before moving to Tokyo in 2001. During her 17 years at The British School in Tokyo she was Head of Years 1 & 2, Deputy Head Teacher and for the last six years served as Head Teacher of the Primary School. She was also a member of IAPS (Independent Association of Prep Schools).
As a member of the BCCJ (British Chamber of Commerce in Japan) Kirsten was Head of Primary when the school won Company of the Year in 2014. Kirsten is now an active Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Japan Fellows Network and President of FEW Japan.
General Manager - Dr Victoria Barker
Victoria Barker is a devoted teacher, who has worked in a range of educational settings. She has a BA (First Class Hons) from the University of Adelaide, a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Sydney and a PGCE from King's College, London. She taught for 15 years at the University of Sydney, before moving to London, where she switched to the secondary sector. Her most recent post was at The Latymer Grammar School in North London.
Besides teaching, Victoria is an author of children's educational books, including the very successful Complete Graded Spelling Lists. She is a specialist in independent school entrance and examination preparation and has published two books on the topic in the UK.
Upon moving to Tokyo, Victoria joined the QUEST team in 2018, where she has been helping families with the task of preparing for admission to selective UK secondary schools, both independent and grammar. As of the time of writing, Victoria's students have had success in achieving admission to their first choice of secondary school.
Our Tutors
As you can see from our recruitment page, we invest much time seeking and appointing excellent tutors to our team.
We look for people who have specialisms, knowledge and experience but also those who share our passion for providing high quality learning experiences and a continuous drive for progress.
Our team is diverse and we like it that way. Our tutors are undergraduates, graduates, teachers, professors and all have experience successfully working to support others.
The team works hard, alongside our experienced General Manager to plan tailored, responsive learning progress for each of our students and groups. They continually seek well matched resources and share successes and advice readily.