DfE need to stop publishing bullshit reports

Over the last 10 years I have read most of the edtech ‘reports’ commissioned by the DfE. The latest, Assessment of the education technology market in England, was published in June. Commissioned from PUBLIC, a govtech consultancy founded in 2017 by Daniel Korski (David Cameron’s former Deputy Head of Policy) and Alexander de Carvalho (Heineken […]

2 months ago Uncategorized More
 

The SATs FUBAR – the gift that keeps on giving

Five years ago I wrote about what a disaster the National Tutoring Programme was, especially in its first iteration under the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF). I found myself musing on it again this week, watching the angst over Pearson’s admission that it will deliver this year’s KS2 SATs results nine days late (16 instead of […]

2 months ago Education More
 

$1m or your money back

Compare and contrast the UK’s recent 20% tax on private education with the approach of US billionaire Joe Liemandt. His new Founders School in New York, with fees of $150k/£113.25k p.a., promises parents their money back if their offspring haven’t hit $1m/£760k in profit by graduation after four years minimum and $600k in fees. Founders […]

2 months ago Education More
 

I was wrong about the DfE & ICO

Ever since Labour came to power there have been endless headlines about “two-tier justice”. But the reality is that we’ve had not just two-tier justice but an entirely two-track system of tech regulation, for far longer. Back in 2023 I drafted a piece about a huge data and cyber failure at the DfE that should […]

2 months ago Education More
 

The meow of a toothless tiger

Edtech is under attack from every direction but sadly some of the criticism does not go far enough. Similarly, some of the bodies I normally have little regard for are doing some good work. Such is the case with the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) and England’s Department for Education (DfE). I have previously written […]

2 months ago Education More
 

Built to be evaded: why Australia’s and the UK’s social media bans were broken before they began

There are policies that are designed to be seen rather than to work, and the under-16 social media bans now rolled out in Australia and soon in the UK, are starting to look like the purest examples of the genre. Both governments have reached for the same instrument and sold the same promise; that the […]

2 months ago 1 Education More
 

Over the Boundary (and Out?)

Growing up in country Australia, backyard cricket wasn’t just a thing, it was everything. This version of cricket had its own anthem (Greg Champion’s I Made a Hundred in the Backyard at Mum’s) and a strict universal code. The most important rule was ‘six and out’: hit the ball over the fence, into the neighbour’s […]

3 months ago Education More
 

Barbarians inside the gates

Edtech is in the spotlight again. For the second time in roughly eighteen months there has been a major platform hack, a ransom demanded and paid. In late 2024 it was PowerSchool; last week it was Canvas, owned by Instructure. Both are owned by private equity: Bain Capital acquired PowerSchool for $5.6 billion; Kohlberg Kravis […]

4 months ago Education More
 

Agentic AI

The Disruption Edtech Didn’t See Coming A recent piece by Dr Nick Jackson stopped me mid-scroll with a single sentence: “an education institution is not just a classroom.” It’s an obvious observation, but in the context of agentic AI it cuts to something the current edtech discourse keeps missing. Almost all of the debate about […]

4 months ago Education More
 

Edtech on trial

A Warning About My Own Track Record I should be upfront. I have been building and investing in edtech businesses for over 25 years, so I have a reasonably shrewd idea of what works and what doesn’t. In that time I have probably read over 2,000 pitch decks and invested in fewer than 20 – […]

4 months ago 1 Education More