Last month, Nick caught up with former Capita MD and creator of the SIMS MIS, Phil Neal, to discuss the various changes in the education sector. As the MIS market continues to evolve and Phil gives his view on:
The ongoing tender in Northern Ireland and what might happen there in terms of MIS supplier, as well as Scotland and Wales
The challenges of developing an MIS to meet specific, regional-based, statutory requirements: is this a distraction for MIS suppliers?
Next in the #FinnemoreFireside series is this brilliant chat I had last month with Mike Donoghue, CEO of John Taylor Multi-Academy Trust (JTMAT). It was a great conversation providing lots of insight into how MATs work and what is important to directors, leaders, governors, staff and learners.
To provide some background on Mike, he was appointed Headteacher at John Taylor High School in January 2010 and oversaw the first change to ‘converter’ academy status of an ‘outstanding’ school in Staffordshire in November 2010. That school plus 14 others now lie at the heart of John Taylor Multi-Academy Trust where Mike is CEO.
In September 2014 he became an elected member of the Regional School Commissioner’s (West Midlands) Headteachers Board, was re-elected in 2017 and elected to the newly-constituted Advisory Board in 2022. Mike has also been appointed to the DfE’s Secondary Headteacher Reference Group, an advisory panel assisting with policy and strategy decision-making.
It’s an insightful conversation which includes, amongst other things:
What it means to be a teaching school, and how fulfilling and valuable it can be
The challenges and opportunities that come with working outside your organisation
Growing into a successful MAT, and how do you define the perfect size
Equality of entitlement when it comes to professional development
The sliding scale between autonomy and regulation/structure, and how to create that balance as a MAT: compliance-driven vs excellence-driven
Co-construction and why this is so important across the Trust
How the Trust is very similar to a cycling peloton!
Using evidence in staff appraisals and the concept of quid pro quo and ownership
What Mike would like to see more of from software suppliers, and how major investment in one area can actually stymie innovation in others
Where Mike takes his influence from on which solutions to introduce to the Trust and why
Our next #FinnemoreFireside chat is essential listening for everyone who owns or leads an edtech business as it’s with marketing and PR guru, Catherine Lane.
Cath is Co-founder and Head of PR & Content at The Influence Crowd who work with some of the most well-known brands in education, including Juniper Education, Lexplore Analytics, Teach Active, SIMS BlueSky Education, GL Assessment, and Historic Royal Palaces.
The Influence Crowd implements highly targeted, integrated PR campaigns that prove their value through incoming leads and changed opinions. Using knowledge and relationships built up over 15 years in this sector, they engage and delight audiences through great coverage, shareable social content and by getting the key influencers behind edtech businesses.
This is an audio-only fireside chat (unfortunately the video tech got the better of us on the day 😕) and in it Nick and Cath discuss:
Why selling to teachers is so hard, and why speaking the right language is so important
Understanding your target audience
How Covid has affected schools and the way they use edtech
People buy from people- it’s not all about the product – and how the pandemic exposed the need for PR and marketing
How edtech companies have become more experimental in the face of Covid challenges, which improves learning, marketing and messaging
Cath’s advice for raising your profile as an edtech business in the sector
How to approach getting national coverage with a whole package
The importance of timing in creating a story and making the most of newsjacking
Interpreting data to make it more digestible, gain investment, and help with messaging from day one
How creating loyalty help with bumps in the road when it comes to reputation management
Three things people should have in mind if they want to embark on a successful marketing and PR campaign
In this next #FinnemoreFireside chat we’re catching up once again with Stephen Bilboe, CEO at WCBS. Our initial conversation was over a year ago back in March 2021 (you can watch the full interview here) and, since then, lots has changed – including the first schools going live with HUBmis.
Amongst other things, Stephen and I chatted about:
Why rebuilding works best when it comes to UI and UX
Taking schools on your journey with you when it comes to change
The value of offering pilots to schools
Recent changes in the MIS market, private equity investors, and what might happen next amongst the competitors
How the pandemic has affected what’s important to the independent and international education sectors
Lessons learnt from the release of HUBmis, and what’s next
WCBS academy, accreditation, and the benefits it brings to schools
Just before Bett this year, Nick caught up with Lawrence Royston, Founder of teamSOS, to talk all things edtech.
Lawrence is one of the true entrepreneurs of the Edtech market. Along with his partner Joanne, he started with GroupCall messenger, the first SMS messaging system for schools in the UK, then built Xporter, supporting Third parties to have a generic way to integrate with MIS data, before looking at how they could provide deeper insights in the data they were already transferring through GroupCall XVault. He’s also supported GDPRis and has recently started a new business in teamSOS, an incident management and compliance tool for staff in Education and NHS establishments.
We’ve split the interview into two parts to make it easier to digest. In part one Nick and Lawrence discuss:
What it means to have an entrepreneurial mindset
Working with partners (and family!), their symbiotic skills, and how this is a great asset in business
The thinking behind teamSOS, where the idea came from, and the problem it solves
The importance of listening and learning from users
‘Successive approximation’ and continually iterating solutions to help better meet the needs of your customers
In part two they talk about:
What advice would Lawrence give budding edtech entrepreneurs based on his own experience?
Getting work/life balance right
The effect of recent market changes: how consolidation makes space for speedboats!
The innovation bubbling away in the background within smaller businesses that lead on vision and integration
Modernising technology (case in point: walkie talkies)
Their approach to pricing and delivering value
How making school staff feel cared for attracts and retains the best candidates
Towards the end of 2021, Nick caught up with Andy Kent, CEO and Founder of Angel Solutions who create innovative, web-based applications to help all levels of the education sector. Their tools are used nationwide, as well as internationally, from pupils, teachers and school leaders right through to local authorities and large academy chains.
Some of the questions Nick asked Andy include:
Your business is unlike many others as you really focus on innovation and culture; what does innovation mean to you?
What do you think is important for businesses and establishments to consider and take stock of right now, especially after Covid?
With so many new technologies entering the market, what will your approach be to these new technologies and when to introduce them?
What advice would you give to edtech businesses and startups?
We’ve split the interview into three parts to make it easier to digest. In part 1, Nick and Andy discuss innovation and culture at the circus (for those of you who have never visited, Angel Solutions offices are themed as a circus), and the impact of Covid on businesses.
Part 2 focuses on their ‘freemium’ model and advocacy, usage data and customer success, and showing value through usage and data. They also chat about changes in edtech and the challenge this creates.
Finally, in part 3 Nick and Andy cover ‘best of breed’ solutions, what’s new in edtech, and the future direction of Angel Solutions.
Recorded towards the end of last year, we’ve been keen to speak with Jonathan as his company helps schools, academies and Trusts deal with something that is becoming more and more pressing each year: how do they become more energy-efficient, hit carbon targets, and save money at the same time?
EO Consulting has created a standard for collecting condition, energy and compliance data so that user-friendly business intelligence dashboards can be created that enable reporting and benchmarking to be done within and across MATs and allow data to be analysed by asset, element and priority to aid strategic estate investment planning. They count several of the larger Multi-Academy Trusts among their clients.
It’s a great fireside chat, and Jonathan provides insight into:
His journey through the world of education services from working with PFI contracts to being involved in one of the earliest academies (Grace Academy), project managing IT and ultimately becoming the Operations Director.
The creation of EO Consultancy and their goal of helping organisations become more efficient and more effective through the clever use of dashboards and analysis
Why spending lots of time understanding the needs of MATs was crucial to them developing the service they offer today: what they do makes a difference.
How dashboards and data are not the answer to everything but should provide the insight to help schools, academies and MATs save money.
Hitting carbon targets early, and how this is completely possible if you’re armed with the right information.
The project management and additional help Barker Associates provide once a plan has been identified.
What drives EO Consulting as a business?
Where energy is wasted: 40% of energy is spent when there is no one in the school building!
The importance of the learning environment, and how being aware of how and when energy and resources are being used plays a part in that.
Getting the whole education estate into a condition that’s conducive to learning, reduces the carbon footprint, and makes it more efficient and effective as a result.
What Jonathan would like to see from the government in the coming years to support schools, academies and MATs, and the effect of the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme (PSDS)
The top five quick wins schools can put in place right now to become more energy-efficient and save money.
We’ve split the interview into three shorter parts for you to watch and listen to – enjoy!
P.S. We’re aware that some of the audio is a bit rough in places so we’re working on getting a transcript created to accompany this Q&A – we’ll add once completed
We’ve been privileged to speak with even more edtech and industry thought leaders this term, and the insight they provide us and our community is invaluable.
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 Andy Kent and Jonathan Coyles – watch this space!
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A few weeks ago Nick caught up with Ian Koxvold, currently Head of Education, Strategy and Corporate Development at Supporting Education Group, but many people might know him better for his years of strategic consultancy work across the education sector.
They talked about the changes across the education sector and what the future might hold in terms of new solutions and new strategies including:
Ian’s background delivering projects across businesses and educational establishments to make them more effective or efficient
The insight he gets working for Supporting Education Group as the largest provider of services to schools in the UK
His perspective on consolidation, and how this has increased from maybe 2-3 players to around 10 in recent years
What’s a good strategy for acquiring, and has consolidation peaked in his opinion
The importance of use case analysis in any business, and using it to identify upsell and product integration opportunities
How different products serve different use cases
Advice for startups in the edtech space
The concept of ‘one product for everything’ v ‘best of breed’ solutions
School support services, the role they play in the evolving landscape, and future consolidation
The perils of complacency when it comes to servicing your customer, and the potential pitfalls of having a dominant supplier in any given area
How to measure the impact of solutions on schools and why this is important to success; should we be more ambitious about how we use data?
The future of the MIS sector given recent changes, and what we might expect to see next
Three things companies should be doing now to future-proof their business
We’ve split the interview into three parts to make it easier to digest – enjoy!
P.S. We’re aware that some of the audio is a bit rough in places so we’re working on getting a transcript created to accompany this Q&A – we’ll add once completed 🙂
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!
