Our next fireside chat this year is with education thought leader, Sue Macgregor of Alps Education.

Sue brings a wealth of sector experience to our chat, having had a long and varied career in teaching and leadership, before moving to Alps Education to lead the Education and Product Development teams.

At Alps Education, their focus is on providing the right analytical tools to schools so they have the power to help every student achieve their full potential. Their platforms provide KS4 and KS5 performance insights that help teachers and leaders to celebrate strengths, action any gaps and drive-up student achievement.  

It’s a great fireside chat, and Sue provides loads of insight into:

• Her background in education, the trials and tribulations of Ofsted (and the pride in obtaining ‘Outstanding’ rating), her move into the world of edtech, and why she works at Alps Education
• Her role at Alps Education leading teams including many other former education leaders, and the context and experience that brings
• How tech has to work for the people who use it – not everyone loves data so it must fit in with what they need. Data can’t solve your problems but it can flag potential issues.
• The value and importance of asking the question “So what?”
• The ways assessment policy has changed, and how schools can work without baseline data (as a result of covid lockdowns)
• Given what we’ve all learned through the pandemic and homeschooling, how assessment policy might look in the future; it’s a wasted opportunity to simply return to what we’ve been doing for the last 50 years.
• How Alps methodology is different, and their mantra of “what’s next?” and allowing students to move forward
• What edtech companies should be thinking of when developing new solutions for educators and leaders, both now and in the future.
• The importance of being transparent, and empowering school leaders, teachers and staff
• Future plans for Alps Education, and developments and innovations the education community can expect to see in the coming months and years.

We’ve split the interview into three shorter parts for you to watch and listen to – enjoy!

Our first fireside chat of the new academic year is with education thought leader, Duncan Baldwin. Duncan brings a wealth of sector experience to our chat, from teaching positions and his time at Capita SIMS (now ESS SIMS), to influencing government as Deputy Policy Director at ASCL and his current Headship at The Castle Rock School, part of the Apollo Partnership Trust.

In part 1 of this fireside chat, we discuss:

• Duncan’s background (including his encounter with Margaret Thatcher!) and how he has come to hold such a variety of posts across education
• His focus on outcomes, data for improvement, and how he’s helped people understand the asset they have in MIS software.

In part 2 we cover:

• How he’s utilised his breadth of experience within his Headship role
• Government initiatives and how data is used to show they were working
• ASCL policies and initiatives
• His project with SISRA and encouraging school-to-school collaboration

Part 3 focuses on:

• What are the better performance measures out there?
• Duncan’s work with SMID and askEddi on identifying trends
• Why Christmas jumper day is not always the fun thing you think it might be for many pupils!

In part 4 we discuss:

• Unearthing insights by collaborating with other schools on data
• The challenges of MFL – especially when pupils move to secondary school – and the challenges of transitioning from Year 6 to Year 7 in a global pandemic
• The impact of the SixIntoSeven project, developed in partnership with school leaders in response to Covid-19 school closures and cancelled SATs in 2021

And finally, in part 5 I ask:

• What’s next for Duncan, his school and his Trust?
• As an outward-facing education thinker, would he be willing to collaborate with schools and industry further?

We’re almost the end of term in what has been another weird year. We spent the first 3 months in lockdown so lost all face-to-face contact again (the fact we didn’t start the year by attending the Bett show was a novelty in itself!) so we’ve been continuing to catch up with people by video and share the recordings with you all – I really appreciate your positive responses!

As humans we all want to deal with other humans; it’s so important to have a real face and a real person behind your solutions. It’s been great to have so many people involved in our ‘fireside chats’ to talk education, management and innovation.

So thank you Martin Hall and Stephen Bilboe for giving us an insight into the MIS market which has continued to see big changes in 2021.

Thanks to Will Jordan and Luke Pargeter for talking to us about the things you do alongside the MIS solutions and the ways in which you help schools.

The insight Rowena Hackwood and Jeff Marshall provided into how MATs and academies work has been invaluable, both for edtech suppliers and education professionals alike, so thank you for this.

And finally thank you Phil Neal, Mark House, Andre Skepple and Priya Lakhani for your views and ideas on what might happen next and the big trends in edtech.

Sarah and I have thoroughly enjoyed making the series, and already have some great sessions ready to go in the new term with industry thought leaders Duncan Baldwin, Keren Wild and Tony Lockwood – watch this space!

In case you missed it, here’s a round-up of all our thought leader Q&A sessions from 2020.

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The next in our series of EdTech Thought Leader Q&A sessions is with Mark House, Product Manager at RM Education.

Mark was a teacher for over 20 years and has been working at RM as a Product Manager in the Education market now for 5 years. Our discussion includes:

• Whether education technology in the UK and globally needs to be more innovative; what’s stopping it?
• RM’s work on innovation in assessment that will save teachers time, but also take away the issue with unconscious bias.
• Any advice Mark would give on looking at new technology, and seeing how this fits with delivering an innovative solution.
• Where Mark sees the next big thing in Edtech?

Next in our series of edtech thought leaders is this chat with barrister and entrepreneur, Priya Lakhani.

Priya founded CENTURY Tech in 2013 after being struck by underachievement rates in schools. The company has combined the latest research in learning science, artificial intelligence and neuroscience to ensure CENTURY is underpinned by evidence-based scientific and pedagogical techniques.  In this Q&A session we discuss:

• Approaches to personalisation
• The importance of data and AI in education
• The driving force behind CENTURY Tech, and how it benefits schools and learners
• Why being curious drives innovation
• How edtech companies and educationalists can work together to practically achieve learning goals

We’ve split the interview into three parts to make it easier to digest. Enjoy!

Over the summer, we took the opportunity to have a virtual get together with thought leader and entrepreneur Josh Perry to talk all things education.

Josh has a diverse and creative background, having worked in a large, progressive MAT himself and then going on to start numerous edtech businesses.

Really interesting views on everything from the role of MATs in an emerging tech market, his new projects (including Carousel, Smartgrade and advisory work), trends in the MIS sector, his Bring More Data blog, thoughts on forthcoming MIS mergers/acquisitions, and a great deal more!

Lots of insightful stuff was discussed so we’ve split the interview out into separate parts below – enjoy!