Welcome

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

 

BETT(er)?

BETT 2022 was great. Despite interminable Covid and controversy over the Russian business of owner Hyve, I think exhibitors and attendees were overjoyed to feel life was returning to normal. It was the feeling I saw in Feb 2021 when a virtual attendee at the Sydney Morning Herald Schools Summit, watching people in a normal […]

1 month ago Education More
 

Make edtech love not war

The British Educational Suppliers Association (BESA), founded almost 50 years ago, is the UK’s main education business membership association. Today BESA plays a significant role in education and increasingly edu politics, but is it overreaching its remit? Aside from promoting members’ direct commercial interests, BESA’s Articles of Association (updated 2018) note that it will, “promulgate […]

2 months ago Education More
 

Ethics and edtech

Edtech and education are as full of hypocrisy, cant and mendacious action as any part of the economy. The sooner we accept this, the better we can, as individuals and as organisations,examine and calibrate our attitudes and ideas. The recent possible boycott BETT, is but one example. I had a minor role in raising the […]

2 months ago Education More
 

Can AI predict autism with 96% accuracy?

Can the AI edtech software from UK company Century Tech, predict autism with 96% accuracy? My thoughts.

3 months ago Education More
 

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 […]

8 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 […]

8 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 […]

8 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 […]

8 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. […]

10 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? […]

11 months ago Education More