Parent communication that eats evenings
The same updates, reminders and “just checking in” messages are rewritten every week. A calmer way to keep families informed would give hours back.
For teachers
Every teacher has built a spreadsheet they never wanted to build.
If you have built yet another tracker, letter home or cover sheet because nothing quite fits, you may already have the beginnings of a product.
Teachers invent systems constantly: coloured folders, shared drives, message templates, behaviour logs that live in three places at once. That inventiveness is usually a sign the official tools are getting in the way.
You do not need to leave teaching or raise investment to explore an idea. You need to describe the problem clearly enough that we can tell whether software would actually help — or just add another login.
I work with people who have spotted a real gap through their own experience, and want an honest view on whether it is worth building.
Problems teachers often mention
Cover work that does not survive contact with a real classroom
Setting cover is a scramble. What would help a colleague actually teach the lesson, rather than hand out a worksheet and hope?
Behaviour and safeguarding notes scattered across systems
The information exists. Finding it quickly, in context, before a conversation with a child or a parent, is the hard part.
Assessment trackers that measure everything except what you need
Schools are not short of data. They are short of simple views that help a teacher decide what to teach tomorrow.
How we would look at it
A short, honest process. The aim is to decide whether the idea is worth pursuing — not to sell you a big project.
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1
Share the problem
Tell me what you have noticed, who it affects, and how people handle it today.
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2
Explore the idea
A short conversation. I will tell you honestly whether I think software is the right next step.
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3
Discovery Workshop
If it is worth going further, we turn the idea into a practical plan before anyone writes a lot of code.
Questions teachers often ask
Not to have an initial conversation about the idea. If we ever built something that used school data or needed to run inside a school, we would talk carefully about access, safeguarding and who the product is actually for.
Often the opportunity is not replacing the whole MIS. It is the awkward gap around it — the tracker, the letters, the cover, the bit of process that still lives in someone’s head.
That is a normal starting point. We would look at whether other teachers recognise it, and whether the first version could be useful to a handful of people rather than every school in the country.
Tell me about the classroom problem.
If it looks like a good fit, I will invite you to a short conversation. The aim is clarity, not a sales pitch.