Ep 168: We Started A Maths EdTech Business... Here's The Story! [MathsZoo]

0:00 Hello everyone, welcome back to another episode of Teach the Repeat. My name is. Dylan, my name's Hayden. And we're here today in a very different location. You're probably thinking the blue lights have come with us, but nothing else because we've brought our special friends with us. Hayden, do you want to introduce our special? Friends, firstly you might recognise this one here we've got Sophie and Sophie has been on the podcast before and is is the Co founder of Story Zoo. Very happy to be back. We'll be diving into that a bit more lazy, probably wondering why is she back And we've also got Mr Ben Sampson who if you are an avid listener, you will recognise we've we've talked about Ben a few times. Ben, have you listened to us talk about you on the? Podcast. Yeah. Loads. Yeah, we can't get off of it. So what we're going to do here today is it's very exciting for us because as you might have noticed as well, we've got a brand new podcast cover, same pictures, didn't bother going for new pictures, but brand new design. And at the bottom it says sponsored by Matsu. And we're here to launch and talk about anyone who's been listening for a while would have heard of Matsu repeatedly, but these are the people.

0:55 Well, some of the people will be working on on this platform. So we want to talk about what it is, what it does, how it's going to help your school. But I think firstly we should just get to know these guys a bit because we're pretending to be serious at the minute. I think it's going to be nice and chilled out. It's going to be a good. Episode for you guys and you can get to know the team a bit better behind Mathsu, right? Sophie, let's go to you first. Like we said, you've been on the podcast before. It's been a little while. People might not know or remember exactly what it is that you do. So I'd like to hear a bit of your journey, how you came out of the classroom and what you do now. Yeah, so it has been a journey, hasn't it, since I last spoke to you. It's so lovely to be back. Thank you for having me. So I'm a primary school teacher. I was a dancer before I was a primary school teacher. And I think that's quite important, my journey because I was a career changer. And I think that has an effect on the kind of teacher that you are.

1:42 So I wasn't fresh into an into a, into a classroom. I had taught children in a different situation before teaching them to dance. Obviously a lot less pressured. But yeah, so I was a dancer and then I became a teacher and then I feel pregnant with my daughter as I was going into the classroom. So I think that really switched up my priorities. And I couldn't believe when I was in the classroom how much pressure teachers were under. And I think I mentioned this on the pod before, but the the lack of resources and some of the set up, some of the expectations, I just couldn't believe. And I wanted to change that. And so the health of Ben and our wonderful team, we developed Story Zoo and I really wanted to position Storyzoo as a way of getting children reading for pleasure.

2:31 And that's what it's developed into, but to really take the strain off of teachers and make everybody's lives just a little bit better. So now I'm out of the classroom and I know that that was our discussion last time before you took that leap. And it's a very different way of living and and a lot to get used to. I think we were having a conversation the other day about how there's loads of benefits and there's loads of benefits for my own children, but also those lines between work and home get a bit more blurry because I wasn't one for doing lots of planning and things at home. I tried to keep it all in school. So yeah, the lines are slightly different now. So bit like positives and negatives I think from the change, but all positives work wise.

3:14 I mean, I love working for Story Zoo, I love the team that we've got and now Maths Zoo, she's super exciting. And you've got to say expense there now, but I love it. I'll sort you out. That's funny. I think it's actually a really good time to talk to Ben then because we've like Ben's been lurking around, mentioned him before. We're working with Ben. And I think when we first met you guys, so when we were on the podcast, we had a meeting after we met Ben, we met all the team. And for me it was really inspiring because I think we have the same aims in terms of we want to help us make children as possible. Why else would you become a teacher? Like it's not it's not for the money, is it? We know that. So I think when we first met you guys and speaking to Ben for the first time, what I got from you, Ben, was real passion about education. And I think it's easy.

3:58 A lot of the time when you talk to people who are in this world of kind of private companies, but trying to get into education, their first mindset is just, I'll, I just want to make money. I just see it's an easy way in. Schools need to spend to do stuff. Whereas when we spoke to you, it felt like it was really like a passion of yours and almost like a 'cause you wanted. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I struggled at school quite a lot. So for me it is personal. I'm I'm quite lucky on my business journey. I've done many different things in many different industries and I've been an entrepreneur since I was a young age, even at school. But obviously now things are a lot better and, you know, brilliant teachers like you guys are a lot more aware of of kids that, you know, have essentially have special educational needs that I was one of those kids. People watching the pod will notice I'll be I'll be fidgeting and moving around for the whole the whole episode.

4:43 But yeah, I've got quite severe ADHD, really struggled at school. You know, I was a square peg in a round hole. And for me this is personal. I've been lucky to be relatively successful in other, in other walks of life. And now it's about making a, an impact and making a difference. And you know, for anyone as well that thinks edtech's super profitable and super easy, they can think again, 'cause I can tell you the one thing it's not especially not yet, but for me that the, the primary driver is for us to get these products rolled out and actually make a significant impact. And I think a lot of Ed techs and a lot of people in education virtually signal and talk about, Oh yeah, we're going to do this, we're going to do that. But like for me, I think with us, we, we provide, you know, proven data. We're really keen to to give controlled trials and actually speak to people and, and prove our worth first versus just talking like the mumbo jumbo and not delivering. So yeah, it's it's personal for me. This versus just being, you know, primarily about money. And you guys are the same like when we met you guys after you met Soph, like talking about the maths, what you wanted to release, how you wanted to do it and how passionate you both were.

5:38 You know, my attitude is probably partly because of my ADHD. Like instead of thinking about, I just do. So I was like, all right, well, let's just do it together. It moves quickly, yeah, like I'm not being funny, so it's good. From a conversation here in your plan, obviously you've had these plans for a long, long time. And and then that day, yeah, hearing all your ideas, we were like, right. We yeah, just do it. I. Literally, I remember most obviously, like, so it's nice to think the catalyst of all this was literally you come on the podcast talking about that. It's funny how things can just emerge, isn't it? Yeah, like just a conversation. And then I just remember whenever it was afterwards where we had that sort of more formalised, deep conversation of like, OK, well, this is actually what we want to do and this is what you guys are trying to achieve. I just remember being like thinking Dylan's like, right, we have to really sort of pitch this correctly and sell it and bend with about 12 seconds of hearing the idea. And the passion was like, yeah, cool, let's do it. OK, Do you want to hear more?

6:23 Is it? Yeah, now you win. Let's do it. Let's go. It's about the people you work with. I think you can tell very quickly with people who you meet, especially in the sense of like you're a professional, you want to get something out there. I could tell very quickly with you guys, you were the right type of people. You're the type of people I wanted to be around and work with. And it's nice to feel like you had that same trust in us because I think we've spoken about this a lot. And there'll be a lot of teachers this thing now who feel like trust is just like been eroded over time. What they can like as a professional decide to do for their children. It's been stripped away because it's been told from the top down. Now do this, do this, do that. And as a teacher who we've been in the classroom for 10 years, getting into this different environment and seeing you guys, it's scary for us because we weren't sure what to do.

7:05 But again, within half an hour we were like, okay, well, we're doing this. We make it work. We had so much experience with Ed tech platforms. I mean, obviously over our career, like so many Ed tech things, just generally in our careers where they were a bit of a nuisance, like even just trying to get support on certain. Things. Or Yeah, I know. But I always remember like I wouldn't name the brand, but even like early in my career, I remember suggesting, I remember like a help desk saying to a company like I'll be really, really useful for like everyone if this thing could happen. They're like, yeah, yeah, we'll, we'll put it into development. It took them like 4 years to genuinely action this thing, at which point I'd moved on. And when we spoke to you guys, I remember thinking, Oh, yes, this is this is how it's supposed to be in terms of like you've got a teacher at the at the top, really like you, you were driving story zoo. Your you know, your business sense came in and I was like, this is the perfect pairing because you actually get stuff done and you do the things that matter and you listen to every single user.

7:57 You listen to all the children that are using it. Like everything you were doing was built towards it just being a great problem solver for education. So then we're like, Oh my God, we. Have to so centric to Story Zoo and then in turn it's going to be centric to Masu because they're the people use. I was the person using it. You were the people using it. And like you said so many times you're like, oh, this would be great if it did this or it would be great if I didn't have to spend half an hour learning how to use it. And that was really important in our development of Storyzoo, wasn't it? When we it was amazing. I sat behind the children using it and we looked for like where they were clicking and where they intrinsically went to do things. And I was like, this is what it should be set up as like this. It should be built around the children and the users and specifically teachers, because why should you spend an hour of your PPA learning how to use somebody's software who's never stepped foot in a classroom?

8:48 And I think that's what teachers are getting most annoyed about when I speak to them is that we are being dictated to by people that have never stepped foot in a classroom. And that's what I never felt like with Ben and the team because they have been on the other side of education. I don't don't think you mind me saying not had the easiest school journal. Ben for any teachers listening, is the one child who love teaching in that hate having in your classroom for an observation. Yeah. Like, I was kicked out. They sent me on school. Genuinely, I had more school trips than any child ever. So they would send me on fully funded school trips, primary and secondary, when there was assessments. Whether they should have done that or not, I don't know. But I was never in the class. Yeah, I was never in. Probably not the most inclusive ass, yeah. I just kicked out.

9:28 Yeah, you know the long way. Actually doesn't happen now, but yeah, definitely the one that used to send to another classroom of an. Yeah, yeah, you. Should go into that a bit more though. That's genuinely interesting because. I think that's probably shaped my approach to business. Like I think what it's an adjustment for all of you and you guys won't mind me saying it's like I'm not. I think people when they run businesses and they grow, there's a difference between kind of dictators and leaders. And for me, I feel an obligation to you guys as stakeholders in these businesses. It's my job to enable you guys to do your job the best as possible. And you guys are the experts. And that's, you know, I walk the walk. I'm not just saying that for the sake of the pod. You guys see it day in, day out. So for me, probably being dictated to as a kid and told you must fit in this book and you must do that probably makes me a bit off the wall and not not really see any limits or boundaries in life because that's what I'm like.

10:10 I met you guys like, yeah, passion, boom, let's do it end of. So I think, yeah, for me, the approach needs to be where where every other Ed tech I think differs is you'll either have really strong teachers, academics that go and build really brilliant, you know, Ed tech, or just educational resources, of which we've seen, seen a few. Or you'll have kind of what I would say a profiteer as these capitalist companies that come in, they see an industry which I don't mind saying is is pretty far behind. I find it quite shocking that my maths, for example, is still used. I was using that 13 years ago. These things aren't moving on. They don't move quick. So you see these big tech conglomerates thing, or we can just go in there and smash that. And they completely ignore the foundations of education.

10:51 Whereas it for me, it's like you guys lead, you guys lead on maths, SOF leads on, on English. And my job is to provide you with the best tech and the best resource to deliver. And I think where we do differ is we have the speed of a tech company, but we actually have the the foundation of of an education platform, which is obviously massively different to anyone else we've spoken to or seen so far. So it's exciting it. Must have been quite shocking for you to be fair, because because we've always been in this world. Do you know what I mean? So we often talk about how like one of our biggest gripes of education is literally just how slow it is in all aspects, not even just Ed tech. It's like you just look at how classroom practise is developed and everything. And then you've come in from a from an area where realistically, things move like hyper. Speed. Yeah, we're fast moving tech like I was full service marketing agency worked some of the biggest brands in the world built, you know, John, our CTO together we built some some huge, huge sort of blockchain protocols, you know, the forefront of technology.

11:39 So we went to a conference then we saw from Birmingham and I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it it. Was an Academy show, yeah. Yeah, and I was just like, this is so, so far behind. But actually I think I've learnt with time, you need to find that balance, right? Like education, educators are under so much pressure and they're so resource constrained, they won't have the capacity to move at lightning speed by no fault of their own. So like we've kind of found that middle ground. It's like it's our job to assess and to study like Soph said, how how kids using our product, how they're engaging with it and we all in the background do all that fast work and really with the aim of just keep making your lives or you know, your colleagues lives easier. Really my favourite thing about your approach which you often say because you have a lot of meetings and things is like you are very, very problem solution.

12:19 Like everything you do is always what is the problem. Just give us the problem, whether we have to find it out ourselves or we get told the problem in education and then we will think of a solution. Whereas I feel like, like you were saying a lot of the other companies or just in general in, in, in business, I don't know. I just thinking what is the most profit we can make? Yeah. And how do you do that rather than what problem can we actually? Or they find the winning problem solution, then just sit on it. So they'll get a few thousand schools and they go right, happy days, sit back cash cow now, and they're just complacent. Yeah, the person for me is I want to actually transform and shape education in a positive way. Like, you know, I know it's cringe, but everyone's like, oh, you've got see change, you've got AB change. It's real. Like if you actually want to see a difference, we've got the opportunity now to actually do it.

13:01 I think, like I said earlier in the pod, like everyone goes on about everyone talks about these big changes. We've got a few campaigns that we're looking at now where we've signed up for them, you know, they're funded or government backed. And it's just a bunch of virtue signal. And we're, we're trying to say to them like, OK, how do we engage? What can we do to drive this forward? We can't even get a reply to an e-mail. So it's like for us, it's we actually want to be that change and demonstrate it. And I think another thing I would say that shocked me about Ed tech is the lack of data and the lack of like proof of like, here's a product that works and This is why you should use it. That I think there should become a point where Ed techs publicly disclose all of them, their data and how it's being engaged with in school. So everyone knows it's a level playing field and everyone knows where they stand. And so teachers know. Like I would say, I know teachers get dictated to by CE OS and maths, but like they should hold these Ed techs accountable and hold us accountable.

13:46 Like we're obviously talking about maths and story zoo. Ask us about our data, ask us about our usage, ask us about why we built these features because the amount of products we see where I'm seeing a mad disconnect between oh, kids are struggling to read. Oh, and this is the number one product. Well, 2 + 2 = 4. There's a reason why kids are struggling to read, and that's the biggest product. Maybe we should change the product? Right, so. That's that's a big thing for me is like that needs to be thought about and in the public consciousness, I think. It's wild, isn't it? Decline in reading, but this is our number one. Product, so reading goes like this and then the product's popularity goes like that and no one sees the correlation. I'm like, come on, guys. But do you find again, so if you've worked in schools, we've worked in schools and Ben, coming from the outside, I'll be really honest and this is we've got to be self look at ourselves here a bit. As a profession, I feel like sometimes we're very reluctant and against change if we know stuff's worked for a long time. We've said it before when people have come into schools and said we're doing it this way now and we've been the first people to say we know what we're doing, leave us alone, we're cracking on.

14:40 But there's got to be a point where, like you said there of the data, I think as a profession we need to make that leap and be able to change our practise when it's backed up. And I think maybe that's probably a stumbling block. Yeah. Do you not think it comes from because I think about my time in the classroom where people that would come to do observations weren't necessarily backed by the the experience or the the specific knowledge to back up what they were telling me to do. I think of one example when I had a send specialist come in and the advice was to give everybody blue tack and you could, you can imagine how that ended. So we had blue tack in eyes and blue tack in mouths and God knows where else.

15:24 But the, the, you're taking away the autonomy of that professional. And that doesn't happen in many other. You wouldn't see somebody in a hospital saying to a doctor, well, actually, I'm going to come and watch what you're doing and, and take that that autonomy away from you. And then I'm going to tell you what you need to do to improve. It's a really bizarre situation that we've created in education where we don't fully trust professionals. We're also going to tell them to change on the on the switch of a of a queen like. It makes sense, doesn't it? Why would you? Why would you change when you feel like the person tenure has no authority? Of exactly that. And when you've been burnt so many times, like these schools, we say all the time, don't we have been burnt so many times by not just Ed tech companies, but professionals, government, everybody that has, has, has a play in the education system that why would they trust us? Yeah, we have to earn that trust. And that's what we do every day.

16:16 And we, we will put our product on that test and show you that it works. And we have things like no minimum licence fee because there's a whole group of schools that can't access Ed tech because you have to have a certain number of children. Or if you've only got 35 children in your specialist provision. Like there's a lot of things that we can do to prove our worth before somebody has to invest. And I think that's really important. I think, I think as well there's I've noticed from someone that wasn't an educational in a classroom, there's a real and and it's I don't know who's at fault. It's maybe mutual fault, but there's a real kind of and I remember broaching it with you guys quite early on. There's quite a mutual kind of animosity and friction between trust and school, which I think really needs to be solved.

16:58 And I and I would love to as part of our journey if we can. I said it to you guys like once again, problem solution. Why don't we go and get aceo of a trust and a teacher on the couch and actually let them have that conversation and air their frustrations in a public format, because I think there's a lot of miscommunication and misunderstanding. I've been fortunate enough to meet some CE OS of trust, meet some people at that level that are that are brilliant. And obviously I've got you brilliant teachers who work with me on this journey. So like, I think there's a lot of misconceptions and I think unfortunately, the worst actors in every area of education essentially make it worse for everyone else. The same as you get these chance or Ed techs that come in, provide an awful product, charge an absolute fortune, effectively RIP schools off if we're being honest about it. And then as a result, then any other Ed tech that tries to get into that mat or speak to that school indefinitely is completely tied with the same brush. And I think it's the same with CE OS. It's the same with trust.

17:43 You get 1 bad CEO, you get 1 bad head. And naturally as a human being, your back's up there and, and any other new things that come in, you're completely against it because, and you know by lived experience, you can't really diminish that and say a teacher's in the wrong feeling like that because they've been made to feel like it, right? So, but vice versa, when you've probably got a real boundary pusher of ACEO, which similar to similar to your CEO really, she's brilliant, she's amazing. She's really pushing the boundaries. I, I would love to speak to her, for example, and she probably has come up against so much friction as a result of the CEO prior to her other maths and bad experiences. So I think there's work to be done there. I don't know how I can't really give the solution to that. It's quite a big one, a new one. But a new member of the zoo group by the man. Yeah, yeah. But there's just a lot of of animosity and you're not going to, no one's going to grow and learn from a position of animosity.

18:29 When people are coming into your school and your backs up immediately, you're not going to learn. But vice versa, there are some CEOs and some trusts that have a blatant disregard for teachers and almost treat them like the haves and the haves, not to their second class citizens. It's just not right. So yeah, it's a tough one, but it's a challenge we're we're excited about. I agree because like, you know, it's being those last example of people we call out that sort of stuff a lot. And we have historically on our podcast called out that sort of thing because we feel like we need, there needed to be a voice to stand up for. Those people, well, there was a power imbalance. Exactly. That's the that's the right way to say it, yeah. But you're absolutely right though in terms of long term, and we've actually discussed it like as a team that we'd love to get some people on the podcast who absolutely just embody the opposite of that job. I mean because we know they exist well. We've, we've, there are so many out there loads. Of them and they're.

19:13 Special people. But I wouldn't have seen that unless I had changed lines. I've gone into developing stories. I wouldn't have met. I wouldn't have had the opportunity to meet CEOs because I wasn't in that playing field. So that for your average teacher, not going to experience those and you don't know what's out there. And I think that's really important. This is my recruitment advice, if you want to do a little snippet of this, is that you're interviewing that school as much as they're interviewing you 100%. And there are so many amazing, like you said, trailblazing schools and trusts and CEO's out there. And you've just got to find where your ethos fits within that. And I think that's one thing that I wasn't very experienced in. I would have taken any job because that was how I was brought up.

19:58 Like you, someone offers you a job that's amazing, you take it. But actually you've got to find those real people that fit with your E fast. And that's different for everyone, isn't it? And I love that you guys call it out, though, because I think what people struggle with and I think people transitioning from education into kind of entrepreneurship is not imposter syndrome, but that kind of that respectful authority. Yeah. And I remember when I went to soph school, when it was first on the story of your journey, I instantly reverted back to scared little Ben that was always in trouble. I was like, yes, miss, No, Miss. Hi, miss. That was like. You've come with your backpack. Yes. Soph was like, I mean, you guys know me. I'm not nervous about anything. I walk into anyone of anyone. So I was like, are you all right? I was like, yeah, I'm fine, but it was all a bit much with your kryptonite.

20:39 Yeah, literally. So I think I think it's similar coming from education. I think teachers are so used to being dictated to and it's such a professional environment. It's so high pressure and you're essentially told you do X and you must do Y. It's such a it's so hard for, like you said, so for teachers to understand that, you know, they've got a voice as well. And it's as much about them as it is about the trust. And I would encourage teachers, although it's scary and daunting when from the top down and including ours, right there will come a time with most of you listeners, I'm sure the top down will say you stories are used Masu hold them to account and ask them, OK, why? Like what's the reasoning behind this? What can you demonstrate to us if you're ahead, if you're a deputy, what can you demonstrate for us, for our school, how this is going to make a difference, how it's going to work? Hold these people to account and it has to start there.

21:20 And that will get pushed up the chain because you're only, I always say, if anyone you meet in life, we're all just humans, right? We all bleed the same. We all leave with nothing. Like end of the day. I know they might be your deputy head or your head or your boss. But the fact is if you ask them to prove something and they can't, it says it all, right? And you can do it in a professional way. So I think it, there is a real struggle for teachers to feel like they have a voice, they have a right to speak and they can say stuff because they're so used to being told, Oh, what do you know? Just this is how we do it and blah, blah. You shouldn't do that. You should hold hold these people to account. Problem if you do that. Right. No. Why? Yeah, I know. How dare you question. Yeah. Exactly. Mean we can't do this. I'm you do this right now, it's like, mate, I've done this for 10 years. Villa Villa obviously worked to eat and then. What is the charge?

22:04 He took a meal. I didn't know he worked to the king there, I didn't know. That. That's a good point though. I get posh when I'm angry, yeah. I think typically then you fall into, oh, you can be union Rep because you make I think I had, I did see some an ex colleague who's also a friend and said they said, oh, our staff meetings are so quiet since you left. And I was like, but why are they, they shouldn't be because I, I'm not the only person and I know I'm not the only person that felt like that. So just because my voice has left doesn't mean that those issues don't need to be raised. You're not a problem if you raise those issues. I was always professional. You can always do it in a professional way. It doesn't have to be personal. I mean, I am an emotional wreck, so I probably did have a few tears along the. Way we all are.

22:49 I mean like there's there's loads of. Times because you care, isn't it? Yeah, exactly. Like we've, we've joked about anyway, where where actually we look back and reflect. There's probably sometimes where I could have quite and you and you to be fair, a few times where we maybe could have dealt with the situation a bit differently and not, not that emotional in that moment and then made it into a bigger thing and actually just walked away and thought, you know what, I want to give them this feedback. I'm going to think of a professional way. Not even professional, literally just polite. Yeah, I'm going to think of a polite human interaction that I can have with this other person who, like you said, it's just another human being at the end of the day doing a different, different job role to you. Yeah. I may just have a different perspective on it and that's what I've learnt since leaving is that although I always had the best intentions, maybe I didn't have all of the vision and the view of what was going on because obviously I never ran a school at head level like I didn't. So I had what was going on in my classroom and I didn't have that overarching view of the rest of the school, so. But I think it's a school's job to educate other stakeholders. Even with our business, everyone got different roles. Everyone got different percentages, different involvements, different pay packets. And I'm not like a traditional employer or entrepreneur. Like I'm very transparent.

23:50 Everyone should know and everyone should be educated on whose role is what, why it is what it is and why they're being compensated for that and how it compares to market, right? I think maybe that is part of the of the solution with trust is CEO's grounding themselves, being more human and actually meeting with it for every time they think to themselves, I'm going to dictate. Like I try and do it. Like if I'm going to get on a court and say right, so if I need to do this or guys, should we do this? I try and at least ask as much as I'm telling, right? And I think it'd be good for for people, you know, in those positions to come in and when they're being dictorial, to explain the reason and to explain why, but also ask what's your live experience? How are you dealing with XYZ? Where can we help you? Because really at the trust level, they should be looking at how they can enable all of their teachers and their operatives, shall we say, in school to do the best possible job. So they need to be asking as much as they're telling them. And they're not asking.

24:37 They haven't got the right data or information to write it, make an informed decision. That's just a fact because we wouldn't be able to build the products we build without asking. We ask many more questions than we do tell, right? So like I think that is part of the solution. Like you at a school should have been in a position where you was educated on what that role is, what it consists of and how and you wasn't. And that's not your responsibility to go and self learn that. It's the responsibility of senior stakeholders to explain and make it clear to those that are less senior, shall we say, in the hierarchy of what their role is, why is important, why it's so compensated so significantly because that's the elephant in the room as well. You've got teachers that are getting paid, paid half or 1/3 of what these guys are getting paid. And and they don't, they're thinking how are you getting paid all this money? Yeah, you're coming in here telling me what to do. But it's their job.

25:18 In my opinion, it's their responsibility to explain that to teachers and say we're compensated for X because we take responsibility for Y and we actually have outcomes that are Z. Like I'm all for academisation if it's, if it's positive and it's having an impact and you're going into schools and you're making a huge difference, you're turning outcomes around. But the problem is you have also got academies that are just straight profiteers. They'll go in, take a bunch of money off the government, get swaths of grants. They'll put CEOs on big fat pay packets and change nothing. And that's where that kind of. And that's who you see, isn't it? Exactly. That's who teachers see in the news. Because teaching is quite isolating sometimes. I just know my school, my little school. Yeah, when I trust the three or four schools. But I've read online this trust CE OS on 500 grand. Exactly. Disgusting. And then you're making generic points. And we do that a lot, like we'll say SLT when they do this or trust CE OS when they do that.

26:05 It's probably as problematic. And we should probably definitely, you know, we should draw it back a bit because if someone was saying teachers when they can't teach properly, I'd be like, yeah, what do you mean? We're not all the same? What do you mean all teachers? Well, no, in the same way I don't mean all trust members, all trust CEO's. And as controversial as it is to sat on the pod, the quality of teaching as someone that's outside is getting impacted by. No fault of teachers though, because funding is getting cut. Like with all due respect to the teaching profession, it's, it's the government's job to make it an appealing career that people want to go into. I don't know the stats on it, but I would be shocked if it's a growing career. It must be a declining one because it's getting harder and harder. It's clear for every stakeholder in teaching that it's getting harder and harder and stuff like, oh, we're going to give out free school meals, but actually it comes out of your budget.

26:46 Well, you're not giving out free school meals, you're just chopping their legs off even further. So like, you know, you get this, like you say, the generalised people could generalise, all teachers are bad, this bad teaching, there probably are bad teachers. I was unfortunately the victim of some very bad teaching. I was told I've never made you're not going to do this, you're not going to do that. Oh, you're a nuisance. I was made to feel awful growing up and you know, it affected my confidence. Everyone can tell. By the way, it. Really affected me. I'm just so shy, but I think that yeah, I think that they're yeah, yeah, I'm labouring the point. But yeah, I just. It could have though. Yeah, if it had been me and my personality type, it could have definitely affected me. Lucky for me, I just flew under the radar. I didn't make too much noise, didn't make a fuss of myself, didn't draw retention, but if I had been told that, that could. Have I had a teacher I won't name when I was in year 8 or 9? So I was, I was diagnosed early by today's standards, but late by those standards.

27:38 I know now there's a huge waiting list and it's so difficult to get diagnosed. But I was diagnosed probably year nine, year 10. And I remember sort of year eight-year 9 when my mum was really advocating for me. They didn't really understand it at schools then. I mean, I'm talking like it's the 70s. It wasn't long ago. I'm only 28 now but. You're 17 now it. Was last year but like 10-15 years ago my mum was up the school constantly advocate for me. Like just engage him, give him more. If you engage him, he'll, he'll, he'll be sort of bought in. And my head of year told me when I was at school that he didn't believe in in ADHD. I don't believe it's, it's just a lot of rubbish. Use it as an excuse and where I was, I'm obviously hugely fortunate in life, but I was unfortunate in a school setting as I was bright with ADHD. So what happened is my brightness enabled me to to mask a lot of what I struggle was so because I would excel academically, they would they would give me almost too much credit.

28:26 They would think I was so clever that I was just manufacturing all these symptoms so I could get away of being in class. So it's like, Oh yeah, we are clever. So you can't have ADHD, which is insane. So in year 8 or 9, my head of year told me that ADHD is not really using it as an excuse. A completely diminished call, my sense of self and how I felt. By year 10 or 11 that same head teachers son was diagnosed with ADHD. He was Year 5 or year 6. It was real. Now, yeah, this individual had the audacity to come to me and say I just wondered how it's been sort of being of ADHD and I could get your opinion. Some. Tips. Yeah. And I'm like yeah, yeah. So I had some bad teaching, but I think teach bad teachers get the wider teacher community tied with the same brush. Yeah, the same way, The same way that bad CE OS and bad trust get the wider trust and CEO community tied with the same brush.

29:10 I've seen it with you guys. You're some of the best people I've ever met. And if I had taken my attitude towards teachers from what my lived experience was, I would never be sat here now. We wouldn't be making the change we were and I wouldn't be working with you because I think our teachers are inherently bad. So I think everyone can change their attitude towards each other and hopefully it can make a big difference. It's just sad, isn't it? Like hearing that story genuinely makes me feel, like, quite sad that if it has got worse since then as well, which it has, realistically. And we've talked about lots of reasons why I like declining pay, you know, increased expectations. It's obviously going to put talented, amazing people off of the job and they're going to go work somewhere else. But just to think that, like it, it only affects the kids at the end of the day. That's what we say on a podcast all the time. Like, it sounds like sometimes when moan is like, Oh yeah, teachers need more pay. So yeah, they do.

29:51 But there's always this underlying thing of everything we ever have a gripe with or complain about or critique or whatever, which is that if we don't fix it, the kids miss out. Like, but I think what's mad about society, you talk to the NHS is like you teachers and doctors and nurses are held like on the on this pedestal, right. But on the same way that might be a British culture thing. They're not advocated for as if they're on the pedestal. So like everyone will treat a teacher like, oh, wow, you're a teacher. What a good job, da, da, da. But then also it's taboo for teachers to ask for more money. These are the same people that will have quarterly reviews in their nine to fives and ask for a pay rise periodically because they're entitled to. Like, why is there this weird? Because it's stigma, kids. Yeah. Like why is there this weird stigma of like any business, any, any, anything you're involved in, any, any institution, the best payer and the best working environment gets the best talent.

30:38 So if it's about the kids, then make sure you have the best pay, the best work environment to get the best talent and then you'll have the best outcome for the kids. It shouldn't be like it shouldn't be that taboo. It really shouldn't. And I think they forget that the children of today are the adults of tomorrow. We want. To set them up, that's a line. We want to set them up with the best opportunities so that we are like thinking in, in terms of countries, we want to be at the forefront of tech, We want to be at the forefront of that industry, in this industry. But how do we achieve that without And that's why you see the disconnecting like social mobility, which we mentioned my CEO earlier, that's her, her driving force is to make sure that there is social mobility, but that that doesn't just happen.

31:22 That has to be factored in to give children the best opportunity to achieve. And that's just not happening is. It and I can say wholeheartedly from our lived experience, the average CEO that we've met and the average teacher we've met both care and equal measure and actually some brilliant people like and most people do fundamentally care about the kids and the outcomes for the kids. And I just think that so much of the conversation gets, you know, blown outside of that. And you hit the nail on the head. Ultimately, it's about the kids. And that's why it's important for us. Like we're building. That's why we listen to the kids like if they like a feature, a product like. So if you loved it when you was still in school making the transition coming up to a oh, miss, I've just connected some stories. I've just got why coins like it's amazing.

32:03 It's brilliant. And we're all beaming and just thinking about it and talking about that's what it's all about. And that's why I've chosen this industry because it's not just a pay packet, It's not just cash at the end of the quarter. I mean, it's it's the opposite at the moment which. Is fun. You guys. It's, it's this is the most rewarding, even though, like I say, we haven't made a pound yet and we will don't be wrong. It's, you know, we're not charity, but for me, it's the most rewarding business already I've ever been involved in because we, we know from our user data that we're actually making a difference. We had like a good few dozen kids read on Christmas Day, like they out of their way on Christmas Day, wanted to engage with stories and read for pleasure. When we know there's a reading problem in this country, a huge one. Reading is declining an unprecedented rate and kids just aren't reading.

32:45 So for us also a bit of product where kids are choosing to go and read in their spare time and like the usage that every half term are getting stronger and stronger, better and better. And to be fair, your school is the the landmark in it. So if you're allowed labour, but but it's just so rewarding. It just it's one of the best achievements I've had, you know, amongst all the things I've done. It's it's so cool. This is the thing I've I've really, really interested in because we've moved obviously from school into this private business and you're talking about how you can have an impact and we're like, that's what we want. We want to have an impact on children and we get sometimes people say things to us almost like along the lines of what you're saying here. It's just a pay packet like Hayden and I. We've grown on social media a bit and now it's our payday, which gonna take. It's like you don't fundamentally understand the only reason we're doing any of this, like you said, but it starts with the kids.

33:29 You're gonna end up with a product that's good. If you think about Master in general, obviously we're launching math soon now and we're really passionate about it. You gave us that freedom to basically as teachers, we got our heads together and we were like, well, actually we want this. This is the the niche we think needs needs focusing on. Children's foundations are shaky than ever. You have the same thing with reading, reading for pleasure. And it feels sometimes like I'm trying to make these effects and these changes with you, with you as a team because we're trying to help the kids. And then like you mentioned before, well, we'll just call the government will just call next year, the year of reading. And it's like we've got to do both. We've got to be working on the same sheet. And who's going to affect more change? Hopefully as being teachers ourselves and experience in the classroom, we should be the ones leading that discussion. And then people like you, Ben, who are so passionate and come from that education sector, from yourself when you're younger, who didn't have the best experience and want to make it better for the kids.

34:19 The one thing connecting all of us here is we want quality outcomes for the children and to build really good products. So it's going to be a good product. I don't know if I told you guys, but we had a really nice experience yesterday. I can't remember if I fed back to you, but obviously we're launching MASU right now and we had our first demo called. Which you can book you can book a demo you can book you wanna beat your schools arithmetic masu wow I. Like that, that was good. That was good. That was a little. Thumbs up but the demo but you. Guys should think about podcasting for a living. So we had our first demo, right? And, and the guy, it was really interesting. So he's never listening. He might be listening to this this episode right now. And he said, I really wanted to see if the product that you show me actually delivers on what you say. Because obviously of course we talk that everyone talks about their own stuff.

35:01 But like you said, in in the private industry, you get a lot of virtual signalling, a lot of people saying, yeah, we're solving this problem or yeah, our product does this and it just doesn't really do the thing it says it does. And I was really pleased to say that at the end of the call, he like properly spent some time bigging up that that what I showed him is exactly what he'd hoped based on what we said on the podcast. And like the, you know, the little teases and things we said in the past about we are going to solve arithmetic in this country. We are going to get kids will be better at the foundations and fundamentals of maths, Big claim showed in the products. He was like, yeah, fair enough. And he literally said on the call he was like, this is going to be so good for schools. Like schools are going to want this and need this. But our ethos as a business that we're happy to share publicly is good feedback is useless, although it's great and bad feedback is brilliant. So like we want you to critique our product. We want you to like critique our methodology, like keep critiquing us so we can consistently and constantly improve.

35:51 And like for me, like that's good for us. Like that's what I thrive on. Like you said, I'm a problem solution driven person. Like give us more and more problems and just keep solving them. And I want everyone listening to hold us to account, hold us to the best standard ever because we will match up. And what I'm really grateful for and excited for, we're having conversations with very senior stakeholders in education. We're looking like we're gonna go down the route of people having to provide studies and data to support their outcomes. We as a team are buzzing about that because for me it just weeds out all the rubbish. It does a job for the teachers and the CEO. So at the moment have to get bombarded by dozens of editor companies. Please, please, please, if anyone from the part of education is listening, bring some regulation in and make it so that these companies have to prove their worth.

36:31 Have to prove that that like it's in America, the Advertising Standards, if you, if you make a claim, you have to substantiate. It should be the same, especially in education in the UK. If you claim something, you should have to substantiate, and we know we can. Yeah. So we're not wasting their time. You shouldn't. I don't think it should be on teachers to investigate products that obviously you've got amazing listeners and they're going to know your products and they're going to trust you and that's incredible. But it shouldn't be down to them to prove that it works. It's our job. And that's like all the claims that you're making aren't claims. They're they're factual. We're going to prove to you that this is where a child starts and this is where a child finishes. And my conversation with you after the pod last, last time I was on, I was so infused by your passion and your knowledge and and the way that you broke down arithmetic, even to me as a teacher, I was like, wow, OK, I should have been thinking about it like this. This makes so much sense.

37:24 So that is is completely amazing. And I don't think, I don't think that that gets enough credit, does it? They are incredible. That's why we brought you. On guys, kids aren't going to pick you've. Got your work power on the left side though. Do you remember? I was doing a demo once, remember? And this, yeah, it's going to really, really show me in a good light. And I was like core. These maths questions are hard, man. What year is this? Aims like like year 4. And that's why you need masking. Which I knew. Yeah, Oh yeah, it's so easy. Yeah, it's exciting though, isn't it, that we're at the stage now where with the development team, John, it's just what wonders and seeing something that's come from our heads, it's like this would be useful to it. Seeing actually on the screen now and the impact it's going to have is unbelievable.

38:14 And talking to other professionals, like I know I joked about booking a demo before, but please just book a demo because it's the kind of thing I think as soon as teachers see it, they'll think I can use this in my classroom every single day. And children will get better at maths. And a lot of people kind of look sometimes at arithmetic and think, well, this new curriculum, you know, problem solving is a really important thing. That's what you want to do for maths, isn't it? And I'm, and I want to say to them, yeah, yeah, yeah, it is. And This is why I want to build this. This is why we've got maths too. Because if you can't do the foundational maths itself first, if your children can't really confidently find a fraction of an amount or add 2 numbers together or do long multiplication or long division. If they can't do that, they're going to spend so much of their time thinking about the process and not enough of their brain time thinking about actually how do I solve this problem. So we're going to create problem solvers, not necessarily because they're solving problems on a platform, but because they've got so good at fluency and they've become really good at doing maths that they've aced it now and then what the teacher can do.

39:11 We're not taken away from the teacher, we're not taken away from the lessons because what they're going to be able to do then after they've done 10-15 minutes, just fluency every single day. That's your maths lesson. Now let's do your maths lesson, let's explore it, let's explain it, Let's solve these problems that are really tricky but have been made easier because you've been on Mathsu consistently. You've got better teaching. Exactly, that's it. Because if you free that up, even Mathsu itself, where we talk about instant generation of questions constantly of exactly the type of question you want to practise, filling gaps, getting your live analysis that allows the teacher again to teach. That's what I wanted as a teacher. I wanted that instant feedback. What can my kids do and what can't they do? Because I know for a fact they have to all do this. They have to be able to do every single one of these arithmetic processes.

39:53 Now, can you quickly give me that information? Can you quickly give me questions that are tailored exactly to that gap? Cool. That's the bit that sunk my time and was honestly felt like God I just need to get this done because I want to do the actual bit. Nasty is going to do that for you immediately and then you can go and work with your kids. You can start and. Change what really stood out to me, Whiteboard mode, which I would have eaten up every single day. OK, they've all got this question wrong. I just need that exact question on repeat until we get it right. White boards up, white boards down all the time is that. Button at the bottom, Isn't it that magic button? Amazing. And also the ability to be able to have those children that are working so far below or Even so far above, but we still got to work within the parameters of you for my Ofsted inspectors out there. But to be able to cater to that massive, because that's what I felt in the classroom.

40:44 And you probably felt the same, that the gap was becoming enormous between my highest achieving and my ones that needed the most help. They're all getting exactly what they need. They're not having to sit there and do a year one test in year 4 and then sit there for the rest of the time reading a book or whatever other filler activity you give them. They're actually getting targeted questions that you have created, which is just. Amazing. I think that's the commonality though between the stories of Master and why we gel so well. So people are already wondering why we started where we started. But for our perspective, English and maths is your foundation to access any any level of higher education. There isn't a level of higher our education that you can tell us you could access apart from maybe being an athlete physically. Yeah, yeah.

41:27 Apart from that, there's no level of kind of high achievement that you can access without either maths, English or both. And I think what resonated of us when you started talking about your big idea for Mathesu was that it's similar to stories and the fact that we want to at primary school level now the foundations and equip these children with the ability to go into secondary on to higher education with those foundations nailed, because then they can just become sponges and absorb learning so much better. And for us, that's where it's we feel like the, the, the, the industry and education is so far behind. That's where actually we need to start. It's, it's a necessity really. We have to nail foundations. I mean, we're now getting inbound demand from secondary schools for kids that that need to. We built stories, admittedly, for primary school, that that product is designed from the top down for primary schools.

42:11 We've been in dozens of primary schools, spoke to dozens of teachers, spent hundreds, thousands of hours on that product for primary school. But kids have been let down. And it's the kids that have been let down so badly that we're now getting inbound from secondary schools that don't even need us to adapt any of the features. And no, no, it works as it is. We need to give this to kids in year 7, year eight-year 9. So for us as our business, we want to nail the foundations, get maths to write, get stories you write and give people you know that access to higher education. Then really what we want to do as a group is just continues continuously solve problems. And I always say to the team, don't like our current products today aren't our biggest USP. It's our attitude and our ethos as a team to constantly solve more and more problems. That's our biggest USP really well. We've spoke to thought like huge thought leaders in education space, haven't we?

42:54 I won't name anyone right now, but I remember speaking to someone really big in the space who's developed an incredible product over the last decade within primary education, who literally looked at our team and looked at John, our, our developer, our CTO and was and was almost like, Oh my God, this is, I wish, I wish I could have had this, you know what I mean? Like they would have to go through hoops or they, they had, you know, different structures in their business that would just make things difficult. They didn't have the development team that didn't really understand the nuances of what they were building in education, whereas we've got John who is, who just understands what we're building. And then like Dylan said, we get giddy because what was in our heads, it's great. But we can't, we can't make that Like they've got to. We've got to a point where we're like, we can't actually make this real and work and give. It to people you can't. Fight by the way, shout out to him because he's a vibe coder as well.

43:39 He was listening. We'll keep that in there in case he comes on the. Podcast and you'll look back and think, but but it's just amazing. Like I feel so privileged to have met you guys and be be a part of this team because I feel like this is the best chance we are ever going to get. All of us really actually made making a significant impact. Yeah, I agree. You know, you guys are already doing that with Storyzoo and Masu is launching now, and I know we're gonna. I have no doubt in my mind that all we need to do is get the word out there. Get people on demo and it's advocacy. It's advocacy as well, right? Like I was talking about earlier in the pod, it's probably pointed to mention it. It's really important if you do book a demo, if you do see not just our product, by the way, any headset product that you see can demonstrate proven outcomes for kids, advocate it from the bottom up because we see such a disconnect, don't we between trust CE OS dictating downward to use it. That really hurts engagement.

44:29 But equally, we have really good trials that we roll out at school level that just doesn't get out of the chain for whatever reason. It's not a blame game. If you see a product, whether it's ours or someone else's, I would honestly implore everyone to to advocate for it. Show the data because we'll present on our platform and others should show the data. This is the outcomes that it's given and really push to get it done because ultimately teachers in that instance, if you do that, you can, all teachers care about kids. Fundamentally, as a teacher, if you see a product that works and you advocate for it, you can not only affect the outcome to kids in your class, but you can do it trust wide or even multi trust wide. Because this is a journey that we are not going to be able to do what we're setting out to do, which is a huge mission on our own. We need everyone that's listening, everyone that's involved to get to get on side and do it with us. Yeah, 100%.

45:11 It's just so exciting because I look at it and I think, like you said, getting it in front of the eyes of the right people is the thing we're always talking about, isn't it? Like, who can we get it in front of? And you're right, it's everyone. We need to get it in front of everyone. There's not one group of people in school who need to see this. Teachers need to see it. The teaching assistants need to see it. The middle management need to see it, the math leaders, the English leaders, the CEO's and the kids. Exactly. I want to see kids doing it because that that to me, I can't describe to you how happy that make me feel when I see a child SAT doing some maths work on the platform that we've built and it's making the and better at mass and it's given them what they need. Like what? What bigger buzz? And we're doing our bit like we're working. We won't name names yet 'cause it's pre announcement, but we are working really, really hard to get some huge names.

45:55 Like for us, it's not just teachers, Eva and Trust and CEOs, it's the public consciousness, right? Like as you guys know, you've seen my journey back into education and I've been absolutely gobsmacked by how far behind the technology is, how poor some teachers got. Like I say, it's not a blame game, but just how poor the industry has become by no thought of any one individual stakeholders just become some of a broken system. We're trying our absolute best and we're hoping we can get it done to get some big, big names, professional athletes involved, big news coverage and try to, to, to get them involved, get them to understand and care and really advocate for our platform. And really what we want to try and do is get on BBC, get on ITV, get on all these big publications and these big news outlets and, and make this part of the public consciousness. So problem solution.

46:38 Let's see if we can do it. There you go. The listeners will see. Manifest it. Yeah, someone's listening, right? Yeah, someone can make it out. Yeah, I just wish people could like like a demo or yeah actually people could get that mass lead involved and they could only in the. Description of this podcast episode if there's. Like a link down the bottom and then you click on it and it goes click. On it, if you're a mass lead, even better. Like it's getting. Then they could get a trial for that story. Or an English lead Stories. I think it's a shared calendar. We can talk to you about everything. Yeah. Education. We'll, we'll think about this one. Yeah, we have to do this. Did you know this? This episode's actually broken a new record as well. What's that? This is the least you've ever spoken? Because I'm. Yeah. So by percentage normally, you know, you dominate at least 60%, like on a on a good day, 6080% if I'm sort of asking questions, you know, whereas when Ben's around, this is the same for our calls.

47:23 And through what I'm saying, you've actually got a challenger. This is brilliant. I love seeing calls because you're trying to speak over me and then Ben's speaking over you. This is why we're we're on the opposite end here. Actually the problem that got done is just. To what you don't know, there's actually 3 hours of filming that we've done here. I can. Barely get away. Sorry, Ben, I'll just say something. You could just want it. No, no one. Second, I'm sorry, one second. We're just talking about you on your mouth. I'm. Sorry. Anyway, I was gonna say I. Was gonna say This is why sometimes on demos you'll see me and Hayden me and Dylan just there to break it up when there's. Dylan and Ben so and Ben will never. Be it's an internal running joke with Dylan and I are always the same person. And the reason?

48:06 And you can tell that because we both RIP each other more than anyone else in the team, because Dylan's exactly like me. Massive heads. Both of us talk far too much interrupt people, so I'll. Anyway, Ben, that's nice to hear. Yeah, so and you'll RIP me because we're basically the identical person. The best time ever, the best story ever was we had a that huge thought leader we'd be speaking to on a call and Priya, it was like, yeah, Hayman do the demo. Hayman runs the off already, give him a chance. And then Hayden that she went speaks. She went oh, so and Dylan went, sorry, Hayden, just give me two seconds. Can I just say something? Yeah. Dylan went on the most colossal rant we've ever seen. It was like Luther King. It. Was a podcast episode speech inspired the nation. I must say it was a great speech. And then he had the audacity to say, yeah. So that's all from me.

48:52 And Hayden, if you want to add anything, yeah, feel free to have nothing. Left to add. At this point there is nothing left. All I can do is look like an idiot. All I wanted you to do was say Dylan, that's fantastic. I said Ditto, and I think that was missed by a lot of people. Yeah, it was because you then started talking just like laughing or something happened. So no one even heard me say Ditto, but one word I contributed was not was not there. So good. That's all good fun. We have a lot of fun with the team, which I'm enjoying as well. You look, you looks like you had a lot of fun in their face then we had a lot of fun. Yeah, we do. I have to say this, we have we have a lot of fun with our team, but. Very quickly there are people listening to a teacher right now, I thinking I want to get out of teaching eventually. It's just great. And like we fell on our feet I think meeting you guys and I just want to put a shout out to the whole team. I know it's just you 2 hear of us today, but there's a load of people working on maths stories all in the background who we work with a lot and they are such, such good people.

49:40 And that's what I'd say to people right now. If you're working in a school and you think it's a great school, I bet it's because of the people you work with 100%. And that is always the case I think and that's why we were so willing to make this leap. And if you're thinking about leaving teaching or you think about moving schools, whatever it is, I just implore you to think who is it you're going to spend your time with as a professional because they will shape who you are hundreds and the outcomes you can have. I agree 100% with that. We've got a good family. It's about a dozen of us now and it's a good all of us. We're like a big family, like it is. And I know that's so cliche and cringe and usually that's used by like, capsulist companies, but yeah, we're a work family. So like, you know, you could do 70 hours this week part of your family. But like, genuinely, we are a family. Ben like literally let's me go to the toilet whenever I work. Yeah, as.

50:21 A teacher. Yeah, Oh my goodness to wait till. As long as she puts her hand up. Yeah. No, that's already trained that out of her. Yeah, first you got she'd bring me Ben. Can I just go for the toilet? I'll be like. No, it is a completely different way. Like when you step out of that, it is a completely different way of working. What club does he make you do? Yeah, yeah. He's very. Clever Lego Club. Yeah, with Ben's kids. So childcare lead for my two kids shout. Oscar and Leo shout. Yeah, amazing children. And we've all got children. I was gonna mention that earlier. Like the reason why we want this change is is because I don't want my children. Apart from John, John. John's got an amazing dog called Steve.

51:03 He's got a very human named dog, so we'll let. Him and that's why to do there's the animal part, John. Yeah, no, like if it's not, I'm going to get really serious now. But if it's not for the change of the masses of the children, I want to see change for my kids. I don't want them to have to go. Papa's year 4 and she has already had a rough primary school journey with staff leaving no fault of their own or different issues or changing stuff. And her confidence has been like knocked massively. And that's the change that I want to be. I want her to have those foundations that mean that she doesn't have those issues and I think. That's I don't think if we, I don't think if we wasn't if, if all of us wasn't parents, I don't think this business would be around. I think that is my why as well.

51:45 I think it's spot on. Like my oldest Oscar, I mean, my youngest is 1, but my oldest Oscar, he's, he's 3, but he's, I can already tell he's me 101. Like he's. Jack-in-the-box and the second his eyes ping open, he's a nightmare. But I love him to pieces because he's he's just me and. And now actually my poor mum, I'm I'm looking at my son and I'm thinking, Oh my God, my mum had twins. She had two of us and me. So, yeah, God bless my mum, my dad, but for me, I said that to you, didn't I say originally I said like, if, if I want to change, if I want to stay in the UK because there's a lot of talks with entrepreneurs and high net worth leaving the country. I love England and I just want to see it change. And, and for me, instead of just, you know, taking the next flight off to Dubai, wherever anyone goes, if I want to see the change, I've got to make that difference. And I said that, I said by the time my kids go to school, I want to have enough poor and enough kind of clout in the industry to make sure that their journey is a seamless 1. And all of our kids journeys are a seamless one, but not just for, for Oscar and Leo, but for all kids. So that is definitely a huge wire driver for me because I know that and my kids are for anyone that probably doesn't know, almost everyone won't know, but you guys do. My kids have got albinism, so they're obviously severely site impaired.

52:45 They're going to struggle immensely. So my oldest Oscar has got ADHD like me so he'll have that struggle but equally he'll have the struggle of being site impaired and he obviously will need the EHCP plan or or ECHP. EHCP for helping well for. You EHCP plan they'll need all that stuff, but for me, if I can create products that that are kind of equal access for all and are accessible and can be used and help my son, I know if it helps Oscar, it'll help It'll help you know many other kids. So and I know with all of us it is the same wire and that's another thing about working together right. Like we all get parent life like school runs kids are real. The amount of times all I think all of our kids at some point have been on our team calls and like we all know each other's kids and each other's lives, which is. Even last week, there's probably, there's probably nothing to do in the moment because it was just normal. But I really appreciated it.

53:31 Like I was having, I was having a struggle, wasn't it in terms of childcare? Like, yeah, some things were going on and I was like, and we had meetings booked that morning. I was like, I literally, I have, I have to be of river and you're like, it's all good, bro. Just family first. We'll just change them. But it was so it was so easy and I was getting myself worked up thinking because any other industry you'd be. Like you're used to it in some way, yeah. Annoyed. Oh, we have a council. You're going to get those like sarky comments or the passive aggressive. Time in two weeks if it's your child yeah, like my child is ill and I've got a feeling about my pay getting docked it's. Just and I'm working a school. Yeah, this is what I know. From the. Small one. Yeah, well, we all love the outcomes for the children. We care about the kids so. Primarily, if you look at school like a fundamental level, outside of the teach element, primarily you guys are very skilled childcare professionals. You shape and care for these children. So imagine the irony that you're not allowed to and you can't get paid to care for your own kids.

54:19 Yeah, that is actually mad. You put. Someone else can do that. You're putting on the show for the kids nativity and you're like, you've got to be there. Can I go to my child's nativity at their school? No, what do you mean? But. I can't believe little Johnny's parents didn't come. Yeah. That's a safe. Yeah. Honestly, I've had that and I've I've heard some of your listeners say it where they work in the same school as their child and they cannot go to the nativity that is in. We have to What do you mean? You can't leave my classroom where I'm on my own 99% of the time I will be fine. Yeah, let's go and watch. Your and none of us will get these years back with our kids, right? Like we need to make sure we're all around for those moments. And obviously I want to make sure we can all do that. And we do, to be fair.

55:00 Yeah, but the good thing is that also comes down to good people because you 3 sat here and all the rest of the team, if Soph has an Arthur and off to go and see a nativity, Soph will have three hours off until work 9. And that's not the reason we do it. But that's also what makes it so easy for me because I know with everyone involved in the team and no one's going to take the Mick, no one's going to try and abuse that that generosity. No one's going to try and abuse that flexibility. And all of us are rolling in the same direction for the same common goal. So you know, I'm flexible as long as you get to work. Same. In schools as well, like I think that's why it was so. It hurts so much to those people because they were there early, they were there late, they were there on the sports day that you. Can work late for them, you just can't work early for yourself.

55:41 It's a one way, it's a one way system. And then people have to start thinking about, well, maybe I'm ill that day or maybe I've got and that's not nice. Like nobody wants to go down that like shady. I need this afternoon off to watch my daughter. It's just horrible. So I think yeah, we. Best approach is what we did, which is just be horribly stubborn and and if someone said, oh, you've got to do this, I was top down. We'd be like, Nah. Just crash out. Just crash out. I just do. I won't know because I know I'm doing so. But that's the issue of when you know, if you can or can't, it can still be people worried about putting their head above the parapet and being the person to say it. So that's why we basically started this podcast was to be like, guys, you can just not do these things like, and it's OK. Funny that we've all ended up working difficult because I was. That yeah hang.

56:24 On how many hours did you say we do? How many hours was that parents evening that I did? I find it mad when you told me that you have work contracts where it says that you can work with uncapped to a reasonable expectation. Like that to me is bonkers. I don't know what happens in corporate because I've seen it but like I don't know I just maybe although I had a bad experience of teaching, I still some for some reason put teacher on a pedestal. Even though I personally had a really bad lived experience, I still did put teachers and teach on this pedestal. When you went back in. And yeah, yeah. Hi, Miss. Yeah. So yeah, I just find that mad. Did you have any good teacher? Did you have any teachers where you look? I had a business teacher that really advocated for me getting diagnosed. And I actually think that you can't understate, I've never really said this, but you can't understate how much a teacher can actually change your life and your outcome.

57:11 And I was in the time of my I was about year or nine year 10 just before getting diagnosed and my granddad had just died, which obviously was my first big loss in my life. So I was struggling with that. I was struggling with anxiety and I was struggling with the fact that I would go into school and think, I'm going to go into there and be really good. I'm going to now my report green to my report. And I would find myself in the head teachers office at lunchtime and I would generally sit there myself and think, how am I here? Like, what have I done? I promised and I'd feel like I'd let myself down. I think I promised myself I'm not going to end up here. But I didn't know that it was completely not my fault. I mean, don't be wrong. There was times where it was. Definitely my fault there was choices. Made and there were bad choices, but there were also times where I went in with all the best intentions. Like I got to a point in my school life in secondary school where I would go in and in the staff room, any new teacher would be told, I'll make a beeline for Ben.

57:54 You need to assert your dominance in the classroom. So I would walk into a class on those days. Imagine you're a child, Bram. And I think some of these teachers forgot I'm a child. I would go in were like, right, I'm going to be a good day. I'd built myself up. I had sort of good self esteem, was ready for a good day. And they'd go, right, Sansom out and you'd be like, I've done nothing wrong. Like, what the hell? So I had one teacher. Yeah, Mr Aponghi's name was. And he, he basically advocated for me to get diagnosed. Fortunately, he became my deputy head of year and he was actually a business teacher. And one thing I struggled with being a problem solution mindset. As arrogant as it may sound, when I was a kid, I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I wanted to be a successful businessman and I had this kind of a bit of arrogant chip on my shoulder of like, well, if you haven't been there and walked with a walk, how can you teach me achieve what I want to achieve, right. So he'd been there and done it. He'd worked in the city and he'd end up caring for his mum and, and Mr Pong's story was effectively, he said, I'm going to go into teaching and teach kids, but he'd been there, he'd done it. So for me, he was the biggest impact on my, on my journey in school because he saw in me what now many other people have seen in my career.

58:48 And he said that he would advocate for me as long as I've done business effectively. So he had to be doing business GCSE, he had to do business A level, Yeah, but no. He's genius, though, because he. Focused and he focused me and engaged. Me successfully. Yeah, like he even when we used to do Enterprise week, so you'd ever want to be able to go buy, you know, sweets and sell them, they'd be the one wiki you could do it without being in trouble with everyone every other week of the year. But he really empowered me. Then instead of giving me like, you know, 1 little shop, he would let me judge and give input on everyone's profit and loss and what everyone was doing. Like he really, really engaged me. And yeah, it's not all such a bad story. Like without him, who knows what could happen. I could have just got into a worse and a worse spiral on by year 11, year 12, I could have completely disengaged. Whereas thanks to him, I did actually get. I've done all right.

59:30 I've got 5-6 GCCS I've done. I got what I needed to get and obviously it gave me the, you know, the foundations to go and kick on. So yeah. I'd say you've not done too bad. Well, he's been. On the pod now, yeah. Exactly I've made. It I've when's his ranking? I think it's all downhill from. Here, I think to be honest with you, we should try and wrap it up there. Unbelievable. I just want to say to everyone listening right now that you can book a demo. I knew you. Excuse me, I just say something. I'm sorry. But yeah, I mean, what I wanted to say to people is amazing. People are working on this story, Zoo Maths, to book a demo, just talk to us. And even if the worst happens where you see us for half an hour and you go, this is wrong, this is wrong, that doesn't work, That doesn't work book, because we want to hear it from people who are on the coalface delivering every single day to the kids.

1:00:18 And if you think it doesn't work because of that reason, let us know. And if you think, oh, this will be amazing, which I think you might do, why don't you literally just you can get a trial. I want to see people trying this out and ultimately helping the kids. We will listen is what you say exactly that we didn't forget. There is one tiny thing. Let's see if you can remember that's got a couple of days left as of when this podcast is coming out. So if you're listening to it on the day, not leave a review you. Can't leave a review. That's got a couple of days. Definitely Dylan. Still think about the giveaway. New way? Glue sticks. Yeah, glue sticks. Actual Pritch. Sticks, This is how we know you're the next teacher because you're like, what A? 100 and prick sticks. When that was suggested on the whole of giveaway I was like OK fair, but I didn't realise they're gone. That'd be like 20. 4. The messages, the messages we've had saying are the Pritch sticks actual Pritch sticks, Do you?

1:01:00 Mean that my sheets aren't gonna fall out after two days This. Is amazing. If you have no idea what we're talking about, go and check out the massive Instagram or or I'll teach you repeat Instagram as well because the giveaway details are on there. How much is it worth, Hayden? 1000 lbs all together, 500 lbs for your school and £500 for yourself if you win. £500 of. Stuff including the Pristiqs, which is the only thing realistically. Yeah. So that's £490.00 gone. Yeah, we got you 10 Pristiqs and I. Think. I think they'd be. Happy. I've won a lifetime. It's amazing. There is actually loads of stuff in there like Netflix money and there's the cost of thing you sell it for electric sharpener, HelloFresh, this so much stuff with all the stuff, press sticks.

1:01:46 Yeah, that's all we need to say really. There's a few days left, so if you listen to this late souls, it might be over now. Better luck next time. You can still like and share if you wanted. That's a scrap. Oh, wait. Should we make Ben and Sophie sign? Off, I think so, Yeah, over to you guys. Go on, Yousuf, ladies first. Oh, I just want to say thank you for listening and it was lovely to be here again. And I want to say that the effort and the the passion that you 2 have put into Masu is really amazing. And so please. No, thank you. Thank you for joining us. Like honestly, yousu, sincerely thank you for joining us on this journey. Thank you obviously for bringing your product to the to the group. And yeah, thanks for giving us this platform to talk about what we're doing.

1:02:27 That's what we're all. Love it. No. Thank you for coming. On look at demo.