Systemic Approaches to Inclusion - A Conversation with Kirstin Coughtrie and Kate Longworth

Welcome to the Future Learning Design Podcast.

What we have a commitment to is to understanding that child and staying true to that. And so they will thrive. There will be a stronger economy. There will be better life outcomes and aspirations for the children. And frankly speaking, happier parents who aren't sat on the floor at night crying about whether their child is going to get an education, wherever it may be.

Hi everyone, thanks for joining me for another episode of the Future Learning Design Podcast. The podcast is brought to you in partnership with Notosh. This week, my conversation is with Kerstin Koptry and Kate Carney, who are co-founders of Gaia Learning. Kate and Kerstin have been actively building an online school ecosystem as well as partnerships and communities that work to support neurodiverse learners in their educational journey. Far too often, these are the students who fall through the gaps created by the standardized system and worse, are traumatized by the experience. As you will hear, both Kate and Kirsten have seen firsthand how important personalized and flexible learning opportunities are to the well-being and success of these young people, and how vital this is in supporting families and schools. Hey, Kerstin, how are you doing?

Very well, thank you.

Hi, Kate.

Hi, Tim. Nice.

Brilliant. All right. Well, let's dive in. Thank you. It's really, really good to be able to talk to you, Kerstin and Kate. I'm really excited about talking with you about the very interesting space of online learning and inclusivity and loads of great stuff. So thanks for joining.

You are welcome.

So when we first met was when I was thinking about online education and for some work I was doing around the interesting space that has developed since the pandemic, it's become a bit of a wild west, and I know that you you have, you predate the pandemic as an online school. So I was very interested to learn from you, but particularly also about the way that some of that provision can support students in all sorts of ways who may not be being served by the current system as it currently stands. So firstly, if we can just start with a bit of the story behind Gaia Learning and what was your initial impetus behind it, partly for Kerstin, this one's for you in terms of your, perhaps your personal journey around learning and family situation and where the needs arose, where you could see that this was what you wanted to do.

Oh yeah, so I started Gaia in summer of 2019 when I was told by doctors and an ADHD professional that the only way for my son to thrive in mainstream education was if he was medicated. And I had a very emotional response to that. And believed that there had to be another way. I'd seen him thrive in situations where he had small class sizes and in an independent school where there was plenty of sport and time in the curriculum for him to do everything from rugby to ballet to climbing trees. And that environment meant that he was celebrated. He was a superstar. He was creative and Yet when, because of personal circumstances, he had to go back into a mainstream school, he couldn't cope. He would physically escape the building and run home. He would make himself sick. It just proved to me that, you know, change the environment, not the child. So setting up an online— and it always had the ambition to be an alternative education provision before the pandemic hit was really interesting because I had lots of family and well-meaning friends say that that was absolute madness. Who would— who could learn online? But having lived in different countries— South Africa, California, Sydney— I knew that I wanted a flexible lifestyle. I could see the benefits of a global learning ecosystem, so that was kind of what GAIA was born out of, a very real need to provide an education for my own son. I didn't want to pursue an ADHD diagnosis for him at that stage. I didn't want him to have a label. I felt very kind of stigmatized by that. So wanted that alternative to exist in the world for him. And I guess fast forward all of the, the pandemic and the, the need that came out of that. It has changed the world in the way that we think about possibilities for alternatives. But I think that the pandemic also created a lot of trouble for us as parents and educators learning online because it did a lot of damage, I think, where it was done wrong or where certainly our competitors tried to replicate school online. That is certainly not the mission at all. It really needs to be reimagined in a more flexible hybrid child-centered way, and we've evolved into that, grown as a business, grown in our own acceptance of ourselves. The whole journey has led me towards having a personal diagnosis of ADHD, which was quite illuminating because it showed me, or helped me to realize, that my own experience of schooling and how I, I did get the good grades, but I, my well-being suffered because of that as a child. And then when I'd retrained to be a teacher, going back into the education system, having worked in industry in different countries, it was mind-blowing to me that the education system had not evolved at all in the time that I'd left school. And being able to meet Kate in an online platform, literally we met on LinkedIn, and joining forces has helped us to really hone our offering for neurodivergent families as a holistic solution. And Kate and I also realized we had a lot of things in common as parents and people in that journey too.

Amazing. I mean, it's a, it's a fascinating story in a very short space of time, really just how much you have grown firstly, but also learned. And you, I think you're quite public about your story and the way that you're learning and the things that you're learning, which I really appreciate. But I just wanted to ask you, have you then found lots of other people who have then kind of gravitated towards you and in your community and who have had, have experienced the same kind of thing for their own children or themselves?

Well, absolutely. And before I let Kate jump in, I think that was massively transformative for me on a personal level and in my friendship and business partnership with Kate, having the confidence to talk about my story from that perspective of white female privilege to a large extent, but being able to do that has given it a voice and allowed other women in my position to say, actually, gosh, I'm really struggling with this too. And that has helped me to feel less alone, but I think has raised the profile of the struggles that a lot of families are facing when school doesn't meet their children's needs. It's to realize for them it's not their fault or something that they're doing wrong, but it, it really is highlighting that our children are canaries in the mine in that education system. The neurodivergent ones are the ones who are struggling the most, but I believe our solution is for all children as well and has highlighted the need for the system to change and be more flexible.

Yeah, well, I think, I guess I came at this not from an educator perspective, but when Kirsten and I met 2 and a half years ago, having a background in education, marketing, and startups, but actually primarily being a parent of a child with pathological demand avoidance and not knowing what she had as such, but knowing the struggles that she was experiencing, that I was experiencing, and the school were experiencing as a triangle of support. And we were all looking at each other going, something isn't quote unquote mainstream or normal in this sense. And so when Kirsten and I met, I felt very aligned to seeing her own challenges with her kids and then what the vision could be for Gaia Learning. And actually what we find is not only do parents come and talk to us about their own experiences and their own children's experiences, but actually schools and school leaders and experts in the education community and business advisors and coaches. And we can go to pretty much any room. You know, 1 in 5 people are neurodivergent, and certainly everybody knows somebody who has a child who struggles in mainstream school. And we can almost spot within a heartbeat the people who look at us with a slight head tilt and are keen to say, "I wish I had this when I was in school," or, "I wish you could work with my school or my local authority." And so it became a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy that the way in which we now support families and the school system, who many professionals in there want change to happen because they feel the pain for and with those neurodivergent children, their families. There's an ultimate solution which addresses the needs for the neurodivergent children, their families, and the education system as a whole.

Yeah, it's fascinating. What, what would you say are the kind of key things that are particularly beneficial and supportive that those families are gravitating towards? I'm assuming, for example, the flexibility of the learning in terms of scheduling and the way, the modes and the places where that can be done. What, what are the other things that you've found are particularly beneficial?

So when I had to home educate my son for a couple of years, even after, during, and then after the pandemic, it's really hard to go against a system and against the norm and to know both that you're doing the best as a parent and you know your child's needs and, and what is, what's healthy and good for them, but having the evidence and that joined up approach is what's missing. So for me, having to justify this to my family, to, you know, other stakeholders in my children's education, I needed the evidence behind it and the data to prove that my son was thriving mentally, physically, and that was that he was still getting what he needed to excel in the future. So a huge part of what we offer is it's not disjointed tuition. I mean, that, that does exist, and it's something a lot of parents do try to compensate with. But we have a joined-up approach where all of the subject experts or mentors or coaches that are working with the children all work as a team to see that child in different situations, in different subjects, and what skills they are building up in different areas, both in and outside of the education part of the schooling. So making that visible is something that we see is missing in the industry as a whole. Nobody's telling that whole story of the child.

Yeah, it sounds also like there's a— you're kind of building community as well, in, in the sense— I'd love to ask you about your— the way you work with parents a bit later, but has that been a part of it, is that you're actually inviting people into a kind of a community, not necessarily a support network, but a, a community where people are sharing experiences and, and working together for this end goal.

Yes, absolutely. The, the not feeling alone part of it is huge. When parents feel supported and like they're not alone, that confidence that permeates to the child in whatever education setting they're in makes the most difference, I think. And when I retrained and went into teaching and all that, that industry experience, and I think world experience that we've brought into it was what I really connected with Kate on because as a startup entrepreneur herself in other industries, that's been most vital. I don't think we can change education from education. We need to see what other industries are doing. And Kate's ability to build community was something that I saw was so needed in how we were gonna grow the business. And, and we'll talk about that because it's not feeling alone.

Yeah, no, interesting. Kate, did you want to add anything on that?

Just going to echo it, to be honest with you. The community is absolutely at the heart of both the value set and, and actually, if you think about the school as a, you know, mainstream school as a concept, actually what they're trying to do is create a community of young people, you know.

Absolutely.

Yeah, they, they have a community, and so they see the need for a niche part of their community to feel safe and supported and loved and all of those things that we absolutely focus on foremost. So what I'm finding is that the schools are looking to us as a partner, as a community, as an extension of what they're trying to achieve, because we don't want to go up against anybody. This is about collaboration and community and working with the system and the people— the amazing, the powerful executive head teachers and SENCO leads, parents who are all trying to do the best for that individual child. And so the school community are a stakeholder in our Gaia Learning community as well because of that joined-up approach.

Yeah, no, Kirsten?

The humanness of what we do online, I think, is very unique. The fact that we can facilitate community by using technology is very powerful. There is so much, and there has been a massive spike since COVID in loads more edtech gadgets and shiny tools and games and, and that's, it's great, but it's, it's so overwhelming. And I know when I was a classroom teacher, like one with ADHD, even though I didn't realize it then, you want to try everything. It's like, yeah, I want to do that. I want to do that. There is absolutely no physical way that you can balance all of that as a teacher in a classroom and try those things. Never mind all of the risks around overloading kids and families and The data that all these tools are mining from kids and what they're doing with them is another whole strand. What we have created is a place where you can have those human interactions and that community and tap into the best of the whizzy gadgets and evolutions in tech without them becoming a distraction so that what is left is space and time for real learning and progress and development and understanding of self that is going to make our kids independent and self-sufficient in the future. Because I think that's what we all want. We don't want to have a place where they can't, you know, they're reliant on or they can't get out of. We want to equip them with the skills and the, and the community and the friendships and the peer network that will serve them.

But I would say that's an interesting doubt that many parents have about online education. I mean, you know, I can say personally, my wife and I have been talking about it as an option for our eldest daughter. And, you know, you do have genuine concerns about time on a screen and, you know, connection, real human connection. And so I think I'd love to ask you, because you mentioned earlier about, obviously the pandemic was a huge global experiment about how people respond to this kind of need for online education. And there were a lot of failed experiments there in terms of, as you say, just transferring the school design model onto the online space. What have you learned in that transition that has allowed you not to lose those human connections?

I just want to say from the outset, I had a message from a school leader in a, a large school. And they said, we don't believe in just sticking kids behind the computer screen. And I had, had a physical response because no part of Kirsten and I and the team's value sets, no part of Guy Learning is about pushing one specific agenda or tool or method of learning. It is about what is doing right for the child so that they can thrive. And it's also about No situation, no one method of learning, no one tool is permanent because we are responding to the needs of the child.

Yeah.

And I can feel me talking about Poppy, the heat rising inside of me as we talk about our personal experience with our children as well as the children that we support in and outside of the school setting, is that our absolute commitment to doing the right thing, understanding that child, doing the right thing for them. And if that is part online, part in school, part in a forest, part in a field, part play, part strict academic study. It's about the right thing for the child. And so what we have a commitment to is to understanding that child and staying true to that, because that will then drive— that lives and breathes across Gaia, whether we are working in partnership with a school or a local authority or a family. And I know Kirsten will talk about some of the specific things, but I did have that conversation very recently, and I think there is a back to the community and collaboration and not competition. If we all do the right thing for that child, that they will thrive, there will be a stronger economy, there will be better life outcomes and aspirations for the children. And frankly speaking, happier parents who aren't sat on the floor at night crying about whether their child is going to get an education wherever it may be. That is my soapbox done.

So I'm good. I mean, I love your soapbox, but it's interesting though, isn't it? Because It is not the logic of the standard business model because the idea of the standard business model would be to hook you in, to keep you in the ecosystem and keep selling you the product that you have, right?

So what we define success is, is that growing independence of the learner. So teaching them how to take responsibility for their learning and understanding their own strengths and how their brains work and what feels good for them and helping them discover their interests. So you might know us as a, an alternative education provider online, but we are building our own product, but that is agnostic and transferable and owned by the student to have that visibility over their own data and their own progress. Now they can move that anywhere. That they need to go. And from my own son's perspective, he is now back in mainstream school and is in, for the large part, enjoying the community and the friendship and the sport and that in secondary school, right? So that's great. So our success is actually when families and students need us less or need our online provision less because they're accessing and learning in different ways. But that is what we would dream to see in the future of education, or as it evolves, is more flexibility in all parties. Because there are times when children do need that different approach, and then if they want to reintegrate back— we work with lots of students who could go to school 2 days a week quite happily, but not 5. So the real driver for me, as it was when I felt very alone in this, was to have the evidence and the data to support what was working so that we could have those joined-up conversations, um, with everybody who cares about the progress of that child.

That's amazing. And I, I would— I really do want to talk to you about that in terms of the way you're building partnerships with different stakeholders. We'll come on to that in a minute. But I would also love to just ask, as you're talking about the development of the platform and the support structures around the young people. I know you've been playing with AI in that, in terms of how that might support and add to and personalize and meet the needs of the child. Could you just tell us a bit more about how has that AI learning and integration helped?

So making more time for human interactions, we have found as a business has been massively helped by AI and we can barely recognize the business as it was 4 years ago, even to 6 months ago, even to 3 months ago in the rate and pace of change that is happening. The real danger with AI is that in an open platform, there is so much information. We know, I feel as a parent, the biggest danger to my children is fake, false information and influencers who are spreading ideas and things that are not conducive to the kind of society that we dream of, right? So being able to start from a place of safety in a structured way where we are referencing and using content that is vetted, trusted, accurate as far as we know. We were one of the first 10 online schools in the world to be accredited as a Cambridge International School Online. So we offer that curriculum for primary and lower secondary. And when news came out of even Khan Academy developing their own AI tutor, I was very interested in that. But having worked in a startup where I had tapped into open source software and realized, actually, you know what, there's a whole lot of very clever people that do a lot of things that you can kind of stack together and create your own version of. You don't need to be an ex- expert in every kind of thing. And in one late-night hyperfocus of mine, I found a coding forum where literally a kid, a teenager, had coded their own AI tutor and shared code because the best inventors, whatever, just want to see their thing in the world, right? So he— anyway, so I took this code and it's as easy to read as HTML, right? So you just look at the tags. I realized I could customize that to personalize the lesson plans and structure that we already had with a globally recognized curriculum that was trusted and that we were using with partners overseas. And I found that a lot of the lesson plans were very Eurocentric and based around Northern Hemisphere ecosystems and time patterns and resources and things like that. So I could feed the same lessons through my adapted AI tutor and produce a personalized location-specific curriculum for those teachers to deliver to those schools. And I could do it in seconds. So previously Kate and I had paid 10 tutors over 3 months to produce personalized courses in very human ways, and it cost us a fortune. And actually, we were trying to make this accessible, so we weren't charging huge amounts of money for this, but we realized that that was business-wise a tricky thing to do. Whereas the invention of using AI to do this meant that we could personalize curriculum instantly, make sure that it was great, and free up the teacher time so that the educators that we were employing to work with these students, who we had chosen very deliberately because of their humanness and because of their passion and their enthusiasm and ability to engage kids meaningfully online and give them a great experience, But part of the bigger mission is to also empower other brilliant educators to earn a lot of money in a way that compensates them for their strengths and allows us to attract the best talent. The teacher retention crisis that we see going on now is because teachers got too much to do and they're overloaded. And then— and I see, for the life of me, think why every school all around the world redoes all of their lesson plans at the beginning of September when we can do that and adjust it on the go in a different way. So freeing up teacher time made it a far more lucrative business proposition to do, and we were personalizing it. So that's just step one.

Yeah.

Never mind.

And you're making it more human. I mean, and you're freeing up their time to then be more human with the young people. Incredible.

And also putting that content and the visibility over the curriculum in front of parents as well is something that a lot of our parents speak to us about, the fact that they don't know what their children are learning about in school, and so they don't know how to help them. And we've all had those conversations where kids come through the door and you're like, 'How was your day? What did you learn?' 'Nothing.' And yet if we can empower parents to say, 'This is what your kids are studying,' we can also— then we've integrated accessibility tools into that, all of those lesson plans and things. So that parents who speak a different language to their children who are accessing the curriculum can see very clearly what they're learning. And with those accessibility tools, we can empower all of the teachers, tutors, educators, kids to customize that content in a way that they can consume more easily, be that text-to-speech or adjusting the background background of the course to be easier to read, dictionary access, you name it. It's— and if I could create that in the middle of the night in seconds, the opportunities for this are massive. And we see a lot on LinkedIn, on social media, about people complaining about it. Wouldn't it be so good if it could be changed? It needs to be personalized. And a lot of anger and negativity. And so what we really do try to do online in the authentic, humble way that we share our very real stories is to say, yeah, but how about, but look, it is changed.

Yeah, build, don't talk, right? I mean, there's a lot of talk and not so much building. And I know I completely, I mean, my partner and I in the work that we're doing with the IB, we're saying exactly that. I mean, it's, it's so easy to talk and it's important to to share ideas, and that's— there's a place for that. But there's also a huge place for building and learning as you go, because yeah, I mean, especially with the tools available now, it's— it is pretty phenomenal. So yeah, it's amazing to hear that development. So if we think, think then about, as you were saying, you're kind of creating this ecosystem of support around these neurodiverse learners, not solely, you know, but as you said, that was kind of a a driving mission for you. Part of what you've been doing there is connecting with the different elements, as you said, the schools, the school leaders, the teachers, the parents, maybe the local authorities. And these are the brick and mortar organizations and then all the sports structures that already exist around the family, et cetera, around these young people. That seems to be a key strategy that you are employing. And I'd just love to, yeah, if we could take those 3 different stakeholder groups. It'd be interesting just to hear kind of parents, local authorities, and the actual schools themselves. How are you working with them in order to create that complementarity that allows the individuals to thrive, the learners to thrive, not just to grow your business share, right?

I mean, the mission is to make learning accessible, to level the playing field and, and show alternatives and to have built something as a— here's just an example of something different, right? It's not the only thing, it's not the best thing. It's just a rather than complaining, how about this? Let's just try this and to build something on the go. And our very first customers were very wealthy, high net worth families overseas because they valued the British curriculum probably more so than a lot of the British people and they saw the value in personalizing and being flexible with the curriculum. So that was what was so highly sought after. Then our first students or partnerships here in the UK were actually with the most vulnerable students in the UK who actually had a budget of the same as the high net worth families because they could not meet those children's needs. So there was nothing else they could try and we were experimented on because of like last hope kind of thing. And I'm sure it's going to work for these kids. So we'll give you guys a go, which allowed us as a business model to be able to offer the same educators, same curriculum, same methodology to billionaires as to kids who were on the brink of going into jail or not. And I'll let Kate expand on how that has evolved in the UK now with our partnerships.

I think the, um, the schools, the local authorities, the parents, and the students are all feeling the pain. They're just coming at it from a different perspective.

Yeah.

The— if I take the schools, the schools are dealing with a volume of children and doing their very best. They're trying really, really hard, but it's individual teachers and an infrastructure organization to service the needs of a group. And we all know the challenges of servicing the need to volume of people it doesn't work for everybody. Yeah. And the pain that the schools are feeling in partnership with the child is the child isn't always turning up. So there's a— we've got a lack of consistency, we've got a lack of attendance if we use some school language. If they do turn up, they're not consistent or they're not engaged and they're not happy, therefore they're not performing. And the parents are frustrated and upset, and the child is frustrated and upset, and the school leaders are frustrated and maybe a bit upset because they want to provide a solution for those children. So like Kirsten's just said, the education that that child needs and that what we can offer is the same in the sense of it's personalized, it's nuanced, it's interactive, it's small groups, it's engaging, all of those sorts of things, whether they come from a private family or through a school partnership. Because if the child is— I use the term happy as a loose word— but the child is happy, they are then more open to love learning and learning what they love and being capable in various situations. So the school, the problem we then solve for school is, okay, when your child, when those children aren't turning up, what do you do? That you've tried your own online learning, and I know Kirsten could do an entire Netflix series on how to teach inclusively online, which would be very good, by the way, if anybody was to watch that. Um, but there's these schools, through no fault of their own, don't tend to have the experience in teaching these young people who have those additional needs, and they certainly don't have the technology. So if we can give the schools a solution where we say, look, we'll work with you to educate that child in a way which works for them as your learning partner, where if we can get them into the physical school and we can work with you to take them back into the mainstream setting, because all parties—parents, educators, us at Gaia, and the student—agree that's the right place—if we could help them go back into the school, back into that school community, We absolutely will do. We don't want to trap them at home and trap them online in any sense. So with the schools, it's about, okay, you have this cohort of young people who aren't engaging. We are a solution to help you engage those people for a flexible or a fixed period of time. And every school in the UK has that challenge. The numbers are different, but they all have it. And from a local authority perspective, they are depending on the severity, for want of a better word, and the needs of that child. That child's name works their way up through the system, and the local authorities then go, I've got 5 in that school, 4 in that school, 2 in that school. And they say to me, we have this call every few days, what can you do with them?

What do we do now?

Yeah, how can you help them? And that's where we, we work with the local authority and then the school. So we end up in quite a consultative conversation with the child at the center.

Interesting. And I'd love you if you could just talk a little bit about the, the role that you found that you can play for parents as well, because I think from what I understood, they're often seeking advice and guidance for how to navigate the system, which is quite complex and bureaucratic. Thinking about this, the funding that's available for them to support and to look for alternative means of education, and they're often quite lost, right?

Yeah. And from— I'll let Kirsten talk about some specifics, but that is the most common entry point for a family, you know, business to consumer, B2C market. And then a family is going, we are considering taking little Johnny out of the system because of A, B, and C, D, E pain experience that I as a parent and the child has experienced. How do we do that? What does that look like? And that is our most common conversation and webinar and templates and advice that we give them that is around the needs of the child. Kirsty, I'm going to let you talk about that.

And yeah, we're really lucky on our governing board to have a lawyer to navigate that in terms of what parents' rights are. Yes. And what we're seeing is there is a lot— while the law remains the same across the UK in terms of what a child needs, fair access to an education that is broad and balanced and appropriate to their age and ability. And but there's been a massive change since COVID obviously, and the Children's Commissioner acknowledging that a lot of the kids that were off during COVID have not come back, and these talks about ghost children, missing children. Yeah, but really there's also— that doesn't acknowledge the very deliberate decision that some of those parents have made in the best interests of their children to meet those needs in a different way. And so we've seen a change in policy, but also a real gap in clarity over the policy and consistency that that's being communicated out across different local authorities and the ability that those key decision makers have, have got. But there was a landmark case earlier this year that has put parents in charge of, or allowed them to have control over the purse strings of that budget for choosing what, uh, different array of alternative providers can work with their children. Yes. And that's been a real brilliant change, I think, because previously— and it still is the case for a lot of parents— having to find the evidence from doctors, psychiatrists, school leaders, all that, to show the SENCOs or the local authorities that actually their children need for their mental health something different. And I think we've got a long way to go here in the UK to put the rights of the child first and foremost and be more visible in that, because it is so urgent. And the ramifications of not getting this right are so severe in the mental health needs of young people. And the stories we hear are harrowing. And I know because I've experienced them with my own child that there are children who are literally suicidal over this. So we can't delay and we can't get this wrong. And I think we're certainly seeing a real upsurge in that community voice to say enough is enough, listen to what children and parents are saying that their children need in something different. And so what we don't see ourselves as a one-size-fits-all alternative solution at all. It is about recognizing that we need to collaborate with other people, and we also do need to adapt the current templates and policies that we have around what good education looks like. I don't believe currently that the voluntary Ofsted accreditation process is fit for purpose for online schools, because just like we see with a lot of our competitors, you cannot replicate school online. You're just doing the same thing. Yeah, using technology. We've got to really, really talk about and show other ways of doing this. And that comes down to, for me, a really important need to look at online pedagogy and the role of the flipped classroom and teacher training that involves an understanding of neurodivergent ways of thinking and the tools that we can use to actually help, not a whizzy little toy or a shiny pen or something that sings and dances, but really embed that in the understanding of how we teach. And I also don't think we, we don't have time to keep that within universities and writing journal papers. And so I think what we're really doing is saying we are building the plane as it's in flight, but we are solving a very real need for a lot of people who are desperate for an alternative. But we're very, very keen to work with universities and educators and research people to, to show them the data. And we call them dialitics that we, we can generate every minute that that child is learning with us to see what does work. And this is not the end of this. This is where it's going. And we need more people to be trying and working together and, and evidence-basing this.

Yeah. Amazing. I mean, it's kind of a like practice-based wisdom accumulation somehow, you know, action research or, you know, I mean, fundamentally it's kind of a learning disposition, isn't it? You know, you're, you are committed to learning, as you say, just back to the core of what's best for those individual children and it's going to be different. And there is one thing I wanted to just come back to was because potentially you could argue that you're, you're kind of plugging the gaps in a broken system. Clearly there's all these, there's all these different things that are not serving children. And you could say broadly all children, certainly neurodivergent children, and you're supporting them to reintegrate back into a broken system or, you know, plug it, let's just say kind of plugging those gaps. How do you feel about that firstly? And how do you feel, I mean, in a way you've spoken to some of those things, but I just wanted to kind of end with this. How do you feel that you're, the feedback loop from what you're learning is then perhaps going back into those schools or back into those, the way parents feel about education that might actually be shifting some of those narratives and practices?

I think there is such a long way to go before we could even say that systemically the feedback loop exists. There is currently, there's a tech element to it in terms of providing feedback and sharing insights and sharing, you know, that holistic view of the learner and our dream would be to have that holistic understanding, most importantly for the learner's wellbeing and the parent and the educators, whether they're in mainstream school or not. Right now it's a, it's a labor-intensive feedback loop working in partnership with the school. So there's a tech and a future, and there's a thing that we're building that's going to enable that. And then there's a, where is the system in the main right now and how do we do that? And at the moment it's Persistence and working with this— when we talk about working with the school or with the parent, how do they want to receive information, at what frequency? What do— for the school, what do KPIs look like, as well as what can we give them that has that holistic understanding? Because we're big on wellbeing, we're big on whole child understanding, and need to fit that into what also the school need for an infrastructure to have measurements, data, of course, organization. But to be able to have one place where you can see that whole child, and so the feedback loop is not— it's not even a loop, it's just there and it's evergreen and it's growing and it's constant would be a dream state to get to. But there was a long way. That's the thing we're, the thing we're building. There's currently a manual way that we can keep pushing at that door with the schools.

Kirsten? Oh, I don't think that was, that was the politically correct answer. And then this might be the controversial answer is I don't believe that we are plugging gaps. I believe that we are highlighting and showcasing where it can be fundamentally different. And down to the foundation of the very name that we've chosen isn't accidental. It is based on the Gaia hypothesis as an Earth systems theory that says that, you know, it's, it's a controversial theory in itself applied to climate. Forget that, applied to education. We are empowering the student in an ecosystem where they have got power, control, and visibility over their education. That while we can show what their grades are, we show more the skills that they're building. And the skill sets are the most important thing for the employers who are ultimately going to provide them with the jobs of the future that we quite rightly do not know what those are. Even when we try to recruit educators to work on our platform, the skill set that we are looking for is very, very rare because it doesn't come out of traditional teacher training, for example. So we apply the Gaia Hypothesis to say, do you know what, the education system would naturally balance and come to a dynamic equilibrium if we empowered children, the learners, the parents and carers, and actually industry to say, what is it we need? What is the purpose of education. Why are we educating people and what for? And if we can showcase with what we're building to put in the hands of kids with their Evergreen CV that they can show that they are problem solvers, that they can think critically about the information that they are being given, that they can code their own AI that can save them time and free up their day so that they can be outside not near a screen. If those are the skill sets that industry are wanting, they can hire the right talent when those kids come out. So although we've got, uh, neurodivergent students mainly in our cohort, they would potentially be best placed to be top of the list when recruiters are looking for the most creative problem solvers. Yes, I think they'll be at an advantage rather than being supported in a special needs way.

That is exactly, yeah. Well, and compared to some non-existent norm that we like to keep perpetuating, but actually everybody knows it doesn't exist and everybody's different. But I also, I mean, I just think it's so interesting what you're doing because I think, as you say, the Gaia hypothesis and maybe it's not everybody's cup of tea, but I think more and more people are acknowledging that there's a deep interconnectedness and systemic way that things operate, right from the learner's prefrontal cortex, right through to, you know, six-continent supply chains. There is a deep interconnectedness that we have to acknowledge and center in anything we work in. So I really appreciate the kind of systems perspective that you're coming at this with. And I, yeah, I mean, I so appreciate hearing about it. Thank you so much. It's really, really interesting. Well, no, thank you for having us.

And that global perspective on it is really exciting because facilitated by technology, when the technology becomes invisible and we all see each other across the globe as equal humans who all deserve the same thing, I think the ability to even stop misunderstandings and wars and all that is possible.

Yeah, it absolutely is. Yeah. Amazing.

Thank you so much. Pleasure. Thank you, Tim Logan.

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