Our Team

Founder and Director

Dr Peng has been writing about education since 2006 and building it since 2023.

She spent eight years in Chinese journalism, chiefly in opinion writing and editorial work. Those years formed a habit that has remained central to her work: claims must withstand scrutiny, and serious public discussion begins with clear reasoning. She later left journalism to pursue a PhD in Philosophy at Sun Yat-sen University, and from 2021 to 2024 taught philosophy, sociology and media theory at Xianda College of Economics and Humanities, Shanghai International Studies University. Writing about education, studying it, teaching within it and building it have been four approaches to a single question: what is an education for?

Her answer has remained consistent. Schools may produce capable examinees without necessarily producing capable people. What examination drilling leaves out — attention, judgement and the capacity to hold a question open — is not a soft supplement to education but part of its substance. In 2023 she began building an educational practice around three disciplines that cultivate these capacities directly: nature trains perception, music trains expression, and philosophy trains reflection. Her writing and practical work have explored how these disciplines can be brought together in the education of children. The wider industry often sells urgency; her own maxim runs in the opposite direction: no shortcuts, progress by the inch. It gave the practice its name.

Moving her family to London tested another of her convictions: that in a globalised age, security lies less in what one holds than in the capacity to move, adapt and continue developing. Her son’s musical education introduced her to the particular character of British music training — specialist schools with conservatoire links, a deep instrumental teaching tradition, and unusual weight given to ensemble playing and to a young musician’s own judgement. She founded Inchwise in London in 2025 to open that route to more musically gifted young people and internationally mobile families. Its students hold places at the Yehudi Menuhin School, The Purcell School and other leading British music schools. Because auditions at this level reward perception, independence and musical thought as well as technique, she treats preparation as education rather than coaching.

The practice is rooted where she lives. From Hammersmith in west London, Dr Peng leads a team of conservatoire-trained musicians, UK-qualified teachers and education specialists. Inchwise’s work includes long-term musical development planning, specialist music-school and conservatoire applications, a young strings ensemble, half-term workshops, a summer music festival and interdisciplinary programmes in music and philosophy. Its students also take part in community concerts and the musical life of London. They do not prepare for British musical life at a distance; they enter it.

Each year she becomes more convinced of what is at stake. Children growing up alongside artificial intelligence have unlimited access to information and diminishing access to what no screen can transmit: the weight of an instrument, the acoustics of a real room, the presence of listeners sitting close enough to make a player nervous. Abundance does not develop perception and expression. Contact does. That is her answer to the question with which she began.

Director, Music Director

Nathan Giorgetti is a musician and educator specialising in early music on the cello and viola da gamba. His work bridges historical performance, creative collaboration, and arts innovation. Nathan studied with Jonathan Manson at the Royal Academy of Music, where he was a Christopher Hogwood Scholar, and co-founded Intesa, a prize-winning duo celebrating the expressive dialogue between viols and voice. Intesa were Chamber Music Fellows at the Academy in 2023–24, and have since been named Tunnell Trust Awardees (2024–26) and City Music Foundation Artists 2025.

Nathan has appeared with leading period performance ensembles including the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, The Hanover Band, and the Early Opera Company, and has worked with Philippe Herreweghe, Rachel Podger, and Bjarte Eike. In summer 2025, he joined the Salomon String Quartet for a series of Haydn performances at Esterházy Castle in Hungary.

A core member of Bellot Ensemble – BBC Radio 3’s New Generation Baroque Ensemble 2025–27 and Britten Pears Young Artists 2025–26 – Nathan appears on the group’s forthcoming debut album Cupid’s Ground Bass, to be released in November 2025.

Alongside his performance career, Nathan teaches cello at the London Youth Conservatoire, drawing on eight years of experience in both private and school settings. He also holds an Executive MBA in Arts Innovation from the Global Leaders Institute, and is the founder and Artistic Director of the Vilalte Festival, a chamber music festival in southern France now in its eighth year, which has presented over thirty-five concerts since its inception.

Academic & Curriculum Adviser

Dr Yan holds a PhD in Philosophy from Sun Yat-sen University and has spent over a decade in primary and secondary education in China. He is known for pioneering practical approaches to Philosophy for Children (P4C) in Chinese classrooms and has developed cross-disciplinary curricula that integrate philosophical enquiry, local culture, and outdoor learning. He previously taught at Nao Experimental School in Guangzhou and Shanghai Pinghe Bilingual School, where his work sparked national media attention, including features in Sanlian Life Weekly, The Educator by Guangming Daily, and Bund Education. He is also the author of Doing Philosophy with Children (Sanlian Publishing).

Since 2019, Dr Yan has been deeply involved in training teachers in P4C pedagogy and was appointed as a practice mentor at East China Normal University. After relocating to the UK, he completed a PGCE programme and obtained Qualified Teacher Status (QTS), further deepening his understanding of British schooling. Now based in London, he continues to explore how philosophy and nature-based learning can support children’s thinking, language, and social development in cross-cultural contexts.

At Inchwise Education, Dr Yan leads curriculum research and practice design, developing the interdisciplinary framework that connects philosophical enquiry, nature-based learning and music across the firm's programmes. He sees himself as a translator between vision and reality—someone who helps turn abstract ideas into living, breathing learning experiences. His work is grounded in the belief that children grow best not through pressure, but through wonder, dialogue and relationship.

Academic Mentor — Mathematics & Critical Thinking

Joseph Holderness brings to education an unusual combination of classroom training, linguistic precision and senior professional judgement. A qualified teacher with a PGCE and QTS from Kingston University, he has tutored 11+ and adult learners in mathematics and worked as a proofreader for writers using English as an additional language.

Before retraining in education, Joseph spent 24 years at J.P. Morgan, latterly as Chief Risk Officer for EMEA. That experience informs his approach to interview preparation: clear thinking, disciplined argument and calm, precise communication under pressure.

A graduate of the University of Warwick in Economics and Politics, Joseph also holds an Executive MSc in Risk and Investment Management from EDHEC and a distinction in Astronomy from UCL. He previously served as a trustee of the United Nations International School in New York.