Welcome
I am an educational entrepreneur, edtech specialist and investor. The views expressed here are my own and are often blunt and irreverent.
What Doesn’t Work in Education
The varied ability of teachers in schools is a well-known challenge in improving educational outcomes. The evidence is broad and pervasive and the best advocate of how to address the issue is the internationally renowned educationalist John Hattie (Professor and Director of the Melbourne Education Research Institute at the University of Melbourne, Australia, and Deputy […]
BBC blindness
Now that we are in England’s third Covid lockdown, you’d hope that we have a handle on things in K12 education in relation to content, exams and assessment, school attendance, and so on. Sadly, for most issues, the political and policy response has been chaotic, inconsistent or where big ticket (spending) programs have been devised, […]
The Endowment Effect: relying too much on the initial piece of information offered when making decisions
In my 20 years in the business of UK education, tutoring was almost always seen by governments as ‘the love that dare not speak its name’. That political and ideological taboo has been shattered as a result of Covid-19, and in England we now have a state-funded, 3rd party-managed and 4th party-delivered National Tutoring Programme […]
Edu news or partisan spin?
Education remains a topic of interest and debate at every level of society. This should be positive but much of what I hear from well-known commentators is thinly-disguised politics or an attempt to make news rather than report it with any semblance of fact, depth or balance. Does this matter? Yes, I think so. Take […]
Apropos of nothing?
Should you pay to go to university or undertake an apprenticeship or other work-related training? This question stays in the public domain without much nuanced debate. Where governments take bold steps, such as Australia’s hiking arts degrees fees while simultaneously cutting them for STEM job-ready degrees, the outcome seems too remote to be relevant. Even […]
AirBNB – a revolutionary business model or one that facilitates law breaking?
Most of what I blog about is education and technology, so this is a bit different. I have a bone to pick with AirBNB as follows. Their platform knowingly allows their ‘hosts’ to break the law in many countries. A quick example: in the London block where I own a flat, all the Local Authority leases […]
The importance of assessing Technical Debt & high-performance in early stage investments
I have read over a thousand pitch decks from start-up edtech companies. Less than 1% met my personal tests for investability. Not one covered two specific issues that should be important to investors from every sector, namely: What is the estimated Technical Debt in the business? Do you have a high-performing tech team? Technical […]
Month 4 of Covid 19’s impact on the UK education sector.
Right at the start of the crisis the UK Office of Budget Responsibility predicted that in the 2nd quarter of 2020 output in education would be down by 90%.Published c.24 May, the scale of the estimated downturn was dramatic news for those in the business of education. It should also have been a clarion call […]
How to rescue startups? Fund a load of “AI-enabled dog dating apps”
Last week the government announced a £500m Future Fund rescue package for startups. Why? Maybe it was Brent Hoberman’s wailing in the Financial Times or maybe someone at BEIS finally realised it was time to start justifying the vast amounts of money the Treasury gives them out of our pockets each year? Whatever the motivation […]
An oddball army of weirdos and misfits
I have been thinking about Dominic Cummings’ plans to shake up the Civil Service by hiring a cadre of weirdos and misfits (most people I know seem to think I fit this criteria but I doubt my CV would make the cut with no tertiary qualifications, being too opinionated/old, Australian etc). However, I do have […]
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