Welcome

I am an educational entrepreneur, edtech specialist and investor. The views expressed here are my own and are often blunt and irreverent.

 

NTP 2.1 to Pupil Premium 2.0 via BDU?

I expect Randstad will soon make big changes to NTP 2.0, specifically dumping their new school and tutor matching and management platform that has added an unnecessary layer of complexity (and costs) for providers and schools together with a tweaked contract (the existing one has been described as unenforceable) that will allow several of the […]

4 months ago Education More
 

NTP (National Tuition Programme) 2.0

Since my in-depth article analysing the NTP last November, a lot has changed. Randstad have taken over from the EEF (Education Endowment Foundation) and NTP 2.0 should have fully been in place for the start of the new school year in England (this week), however that’s not the case. Randstad’s new regime has had a […]

4 months ago Education More
 

Crapresophobia (an aversion to poor research)

Like too many things today, debate about educational research is polarised and contentious. I saw this when working as an ‘edtech expert’ on the EU’s H2020 programme; at a meeting, after the head of the programme admitted to wasting €300m, we had a long debate about the need for fast, independent research (not just internal […]

4 months ago Education More
 

MARCOMS & ethics in edu

I started my career in the business of education almost by accident 25 years ago, when asked to set up the Australian office of a UK company who specialised in MARCOMs to K12 schools. So marketing to schools is not new and existed in edtech well before my time, as Audrey Watter’s recent book Teaching […]

4 months ago Education More
 

Edtech, Pensions and Covid

Can pensions help edtech? The sad answer is no in the UK but yes in the rest of the world.  And yes, Covid will have an impact. The Teachers’ Pension Scheme (England and Wales) (TPS) is a scheme (not a fund, as it has no assets) with a £432 billion liability to its 1.3 million members. […]

6 months ago Education More
 

Taylor’s 10 2021

The first version of my simple test for anyone serious about edtech was published in 2014. This is the updated version, but for this is just a first filter and anyone who gets past it (no cheating on Google) then face the far trickier Taylor’s Secret edtech test! How many edtech unicorns have $1bn+ revenue? […]

7 months ago Education More
 

Tall Poppy Syndrome and Oak National Academy

I grew up in Australia where the ‘Tall Poppy Syndrome’ is part of the national DNA. You criticise a person or organisation’s success in order to cut them down, deflating arrogance and pomposity. Unfortunately, it’s also about levelling down anyone who has the temerity to succeed. In the UK I have seen it in the […]

7 months ago Education More
 

NTP FUBAR?

The story that the £160m Phase 2 of the National Tutoring Programme (NTP 2.0) will go to Randstad and not the Education Endowment Foundation’s subsidiary the National Tutoring Foundation Ltd, was broken by Will Hazel in The i on 9 May. Kudos to Mr Hazel and it seems that the NTP will make a formal […]

8 months ago 2 Education More
 

What a difference 12,000 miles makes

A few weeks ago I was able to attend (virtually) the Sydney Morning Herald Schools Summit. Now in its third year, the summit has become one of the most influential education events in Australia, one that more UK educationalists and edtech companies should pay attention to. As is the norm, the opening keynote was given […]

10 months ago Education More
 

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 […]

11 months ago Education More