A millionaire spent £150k building a school in his own Buckinghamshire garden for his kids - after becoming sick of the "rigid" and "oppressive" UK schooling system.

Property developer Samuel Leeds, 34, decided to pull his three older children - eight, seven and five - out of school after becoming frustrated with the lack of finance and business skills they were being taught.

The dad-of-four spent six months making the 600 square foot school in Beaconsfield, and now employs two full-time teachers as well as teaching finance himself.

He teaches 12 pupils - his own four children, and Samuel's brother and sister's kids.

Samuel, who runs a hugely successful property development business, says the build has saved the parents £66,000 on the £216,000 cost of sending all the kids to private school.

Samuel said: "I became frustrated with the school system, because it’s rigid and oppressive, and they don’t teach you anything about business or finance.

“I think the whole system is flawed, because you’re either told that if you’re smart, you go to university, or if you’re not, you do manual labour.

“But there’s also a third option, starting your own business and becoming an entrepreneur.

“I dropped out of school at 16, thinking I was stupid, and I had no aspiration, but then I realised I had what it takes to be successful in business.

“Rather than complain about the schooling system, I decided to do something about it and built my own school in the garden.

“My brother and sister’s kids go to the school as well, so there are 12 kids in total, and I’m planning on creating a curriculum for parents who homeschool.

“The kids love it, and ironically, it actually costs us less to employ the teachers than it would to send them all to private school.”

Samuel and his wife, Amanda, 33, first decided to build their backyard school in late 2023 and set about getting planning permission for a classroom in their garden.

After it was accepted, they spent the next six months constructing the mini school, which consists of just one classroom.

The building was completed in April 2024, and Samuel’s oldest three children began attending the school in January 2025.

The children’s eight cousins, aged between five and 11, also attend the school, and Samuel’s youngest child, aged one, will also attend when they are old enough.

He plans to continue educating them in the school right through until they are 18, and said they will still take exams such as GCSEs.

Samuel said that he believes the current schooling system is “flawed”, as “people are finishing university, and they're struggling to get even a job.”

He added: "Making mistakes is how you succeed, and if we want to take them out of school, we don't have to ask.

“We’ve got a home in Dubai and one in Zimbabwe, so we can take the kids there and continue teaching them.

“They learn so much more coming to Dubai for a three-day business trip than they would in a classroom at school.”

Samuel said he gets messages from parents every day, who say that they would happily move to Beaconsfield, so that their kids can attend his innovative school.

He said: “At the moment, my kids use a curriculum I’ve created which consists of workbooks, videos and exercises that the teachers monitor them on.

“It's pretty awesome, and we've spent all this time creating it, so we may as well roll it out and give other parents access to it.”