department for education fellowship application

KEVIN P. HUDSON

[email protected] www.kevinphudson.com 07714 323 556 33 Dean Close, LiDleover, Derby, DE23 4EF

Founder of…

Table of Contents

Statement of Suitability

IntroducLon – a story

My suggesLons on improving the CoaliLons business plan CV

Final Word

Referee’s Contact InformaLon

Statement of Suitability

Eric Ries defines a startup as “a por)olio of ac.vi.es”. He elaborates on this with the following definiLon, “A startup is a human ins.tu.on designed to create a new product or service under condi.ons of extreme uncertainty.” The goal of a startup is to figure out the right thing to build – the thing that customers want and will pay for. The Department for EducaLon – and every single school – is a startup. The tradiLonal business model of the DfE and the educaLon system is overly complex, built on assumpLons and outdated philosophies. The model of incremental evoluLon that currently exists isn’t producing near sufficient enough results, let alone the remarkable results that, as a strong society, we should be demanding and achieving. What does this mean? And why does knowing this make me a suitable fellowship candidate? I am a startup entrepreneur with recent experience both in building and delivering startup business models and strategies, as well as enduring (not enjoying) being a customer of the educaLon system. As a result I am best placed – with the right mindset, world view, experience and skills – to add great value to the DfE’s mission and future challenges. The DfE and its community of agencies and schools have the raw materials needed for innovaLon to occur. What you are lacking, it would seem, is the personnel and process for converLng these raw materials into real-‐world successes. I firmly believe that I am that person. In the following pages I will take you through a brief version of my thoughts and ideas for creaLng an innovaLve and successful DfE startup model and strategy. A strategy that adds value to every customer of the DfE and the UK educaLon system.

PotenLal start date: As soon as possible

Introduction

A story from my final hours at school.

Think Beyond The Exam Hall

One evening in June 2009 I was watching on as my year group were all stood in a marquee at 10pm crying into each other’s arms. Why were they crying, and why wasn’t I? It turns out that fear was the main reason for all the tears. This was our “leavers ball”, and it had finally hit many of them that what was about to come, they weren’t ready for. The collecLve fear was also being caused by impending exam results.

Sat there, watching on from my table, a quesLon stormed into my mind. Have we become so comfortable with the compliant nature of schooling that we fear freedom? Are we no different to a prisoner who develops such an aDachment to their captor that they actually fear being set free? I watched on as nearly 100 people who have been in training to prepare them for the rest of their life, cried at the very thought of it. The fear of “what if I don’t pass their* test” and “what am I going to do without them*” was controlling them, at the very moment that they should have been happy and excited to enter the very life they had been preparing for. How can so many people consume so much content, yet have so liDle confidence going forward?

From that moment on I decided to make it a part of my life, my mission, to solve this problem. This problem cannot be solved through incremental poliLcally-‐driven policies. It must be driven by a passion to challenge the status quo (including our own) of the most important system in our economy. When designing the future of educaLon, we need to begin by thinking beyond the exam hall, because that is where everyone’s happiness and success truly maDers. What happens beyond the exam hall is what the educaLon system must be measured on. We can and must do so much more than achieve a series of grades and percentages in league tables.

“If all we do with these tools is teach compliance and consumption, that’s all we’re going to get. School can and must do more than train the factory workers of tomorrow.”

-  Seth Godin, “Stop Stealing Dreams”

* Meaning school

Suggestions

A brief journey into my suggestions on how DfE can better achieve the

first 4 goals of the business plan.

I hope this section, albeit brief, gives you a good idea of my capacity for innovative thinking.

1 How to increase the number of high

quality schools.

The key to achieving this goal is to allow each school to operate as a startup. Eric Ries, author of The Lean Startup, defines a startup as: “…a human ins.tu.on designed to create a new product or service under condi.ons

of extreme uncertainty.”

What’s more uncertain than a child’s future and our economy? Schools are human insLtuLons, despite their resemblance of a mechanisLc factory. The new product is every pupil that passes through a schools gates. And the new service is every single class, project and school trip. School’s are startups, but they don’t act like them…yet. At the moment schools are acLng like departments of a larger corporate giant that produces only one product on mass. This the reason for the lack of quality. Instead, we should give schools the freedom (and support of the strategic funcLon) to customise the learning and support they give to each individual pupil. Instead of spending hours staring blankly at a whiteboard, pupils should be engaging in projects that involve cross-‐curricular lessons and mulLple skills and learning types. This process is not as easy to manage on a large scale – but we’re not mass market shepherds. By giving each school the freedom and conLnual support, it can be done. And it would produce remarkable results for the pupils. Here’s how this process could be successful: •  Instead of employing numerous “desk strategists”, the DfE employs

professionals with project management and business advisory skills, and assigns each professional up to 5 schools that they work with on a daily basis.

•  An internal social network is built to enable the sharing of best pracLces and projects across each advisors network of schools.

•  Each advisor is given a small budget to hire local business professionals to join an advisory board for his/her schools.

•  Each school isn’t measured against each other – as if we are trying to find the prize goat at the fair – but instead the school’s success is measured against achieving each pupils personal development plan.

2 Reform the school curriculum and

qualifications.

Where to begin. The school curriculum is boring, outdated, almost useless and does nothing but enforce the compliant nature of schooling. I have never used any of the content I learnt in school – besides the obviously necessary skills of reading, wriLng and numeracy. Of the one subject that caught and kept my aDenLon, Business Studies, I have found that the subject content is woefully outdated and simplisLcally wrong. Here’s a simple bullet list of ways to improve the curriculum and qualificaLons: •  Realise that the world changes, and what we needed to know in the early 1900s

is different to what we need to know now. •  Knowledge is one thing – but then Google came along – and now applicable skills

are of the utmost importance. School’s are lacking in their teaching of the most necessary and important skills, such as communicaLon and creaLve thinking.

•  Homework – would you like to take your work home with you every night? Instead of giving forced homework, allow each pupil to work on a 2-‐4 week project of their own – something that ignites their passion and apLtude (which means they’ll do it).

•  Exam grades do nothing but allow the system to mark the caDle and promote extrinsic moLvaLon. I never did find out what I got wrong on my A-‐Level exams…why is that? Was the grade the only important outcome? Was I not supposed to learn from the mistakes I made? If grades are promoted as the aim, then children will go through life only chasing extrinsic moLvaLons, rather than intrinsic happiness and success. And we wonder why money poisons so many.

•  Instead of subject exam grades, we should create a system of skills and competency based achievements. Including recognising humility, integrity etc.

Reforming the current curriculum will not work – we will only get what we got yesterday, just maybe a liDle more efficient to mark. We must treat the curriculum and qualificaLons as startup products and services, and give each other the freedom to innovate them.

3 Reduce bureaucracy and improve

accountability.

I fear repeaLng myself, but a reducLon of bureaucracy can be easily achieved by removing the command and control culture of Government, and replacing it with a startup model of freedom and direct, specialist support. By allowing each school to experiment and create minimum viable products of new lessons, learning models etc, we reduce bureaucracy and open up the system to major innovaLon at the same Lme. By allowing the above, we also SHOW that we want to reduce bureaucracy – a nice change to recent years’ empty promises of such acLons. I have just two ideas on improving accountability that I’d like to inform you have here: 1.  Create a system that allows pupils to review their teachers/school. When such

innovaLons occurred in the shopping industry, retailers feared the worst (backlashes, negaLvity etc), but the reality has been enLrely different. Many retailers are reporLng that the feedback (good and bad) has been extremely important in improving their value offering in the future. I believe such a system could significantly improve each school and the educaLon system as a whole. By allowing it at a school level, we improve accountability.

2.  Customised personal learning plans. Teachers and schools are held accountable for exam results in the main, but this is wildly unfair. An exam result does not decide the future (or the current success and happiness) of a pupil. Instead of holding schools and teachers accountable to “whole populaLon” (of school) exam grades, hold them accountable for achieving the nuances of each pupils individually customised personal development plans. This way, the school/teacher is accountable to each pupil, not just the UK educaLon systems world public face.

4 Train and develop the professionals who

work with children.

For teaching to improve we need to go beyond making teachers beDer distributors of textbook knowledge – they must become beDer role models, mentors, coaches and industry professionals. I have one idea that I am currently planning to build with The Remarkable Change Company, however, should I be chosen for the fellowship I would happily help the DfE to build it… Professional Networking and Mentoring for the teaching profession The idea is a series of human-‐connecLons, boosted by an online social network. The networking group would consist of local industry professionals meeLng for an evening meal with teachers to discuss the goings-‐on in their industry. This knowledge (as well as new skills, technologies etc) would then be integrated into the teachers classroom acLviLes. Such groups would also build stronger relaLonships between teachers and professionals, leading to beDer work experience opportuniLes for the teachers pupils (as part of that pupils customised personal development plan). The mentoring service would match industry professionals to teachers. The industry professional would then mentor, coach and train the teacher to improve his/her pracLcal knowledge and skills of the industry/ies that are relevant to the school subjects that they teach. The mentor could also introduce the teacher to his/her network of professionals, thus scaling the impact of the program on the teachers work and school. The social network would beDer facilitate conversaLons and acLviLes between the three core stakeholders: parents, teachers and professionals.

Bonus A word on measurement.

The tradiLonal ways of measuring success in the educaLon system are idenLcal to that of a major corporate giant – including the key point of being outdated. Standard accounLng is not helpful in evaluaLng entrepreneurship and innovaLon – which of course are the two core requirements for leading the educaLon revoluLon. Startups – schools – are too unpredictable (at least they should be if real customised learning is happening) for forecasts and milestones to be accurate. Each year the system makes changes to improve the results of the same tests, and then we worry about trends and fluctuaLons with other years… do we not realise that each human being is unique, and will therefore produce different results? Measuring me against the person who sat the exam last year is fuLle…and no good at all to me or the person last year. The success of schooling is being measured enLrely wrongly. Instead of measuring every pupil on the same sheet, like caDle, we should be measuring success against each pupils customised learning plan. We should also run away (as fast as we can) from the sit-‐down-‐quietly-‐alone standardised exam system. Instead, it should be our objecLve to work with each individual school to devise real-‐world learning and tesLng projects. It does not maDer if every pupil isn’t doing the same tests, because a) not every pupil learns the same way, b) not every pupil is a clone of the other, and c) as a collecLve, the only thing we work out from tesLng everyone the same is who can remember the most content and handle the exam situaLon the best. All it would take to devise this process of measurement is: •  Giving each school (startup) the freedom and support to develop customised

learning programs for each pupil. •  Members of the strategic funcLon, local professionals and parents, working with

the school to design worthwhile projects to test the learning development of pupils.

CV

EducaLon

Professional Experience

Skills and Strengths

Personal Development Plan & Vision

Salary – Annual salary of £18,500

Header

Subheader

EducaLon

Foremarke Hall | September 1996 – June 2004 •  Passed common entrance to Repton School. •  Chosen to represent the cricket team on a tour of Barbados.

Repton School | September 2004 – June 2009 •  9 GCSE’s – 5 A’s, 2 B’s, 2 C’s •  A-‐levels in business studies, economics and RS (philosophy and ethics) •  Duke of Edinburgh Silver Award •  House Prefect •  1st xi football team

Experience

Peartree Joinery | 1990’s | Chief Learner Peartree was the joinery and construcLon business owned by my

grandparents during the 90’s. I spent a large part of my holidays and weekends in the offices, where I learnt more about business and management than I did during 4 years studying business studies. The core skills I learnt during this period are: •  CommunicaLon •  Leadership •  Problem solving •  Crises management •  OrganisaLon and Lme management

Scargill Mann & Co | August 2007 | Work Experience I spent a two week period at the Derby Estate and Lesng Agent, working

closely with co-‐founder, Dean Mann. As well as learning the specifics of the estate and lesngs businesses, I also learned/enhanced the following skills: •  Leadership and management •  Analysis •  Strategic thinking •  Market research

Repton Security | 2010 – 2011 | Security Officer

In between two aDempts at University I worked for a Derby based security company as a staLc guard. My role consisted of working 12-‐hour shits at warehouse and factory premises monitoring CCTV and execuLng various other security responsibiliLes. My main responsibility was to manage the safety of the premises contents and any staff on site. During this Lme I learned/enhanced the following skills: •  Teamwork •  Crises management •  Assessing a situaLon and making a quick decision •  CommunicaLon •  Developing policies and processes to improve the service we offered

CredenLa | 2011 – 2012 | Business Development Manager

CredenLa was a property maintenance service provider started by myself and my mother. Together we grew the business to a sub-‐contracLng team of 10, with a customer base of 20 lesng agencies. My role comprised sales and markeLng, including training the sub-‐contract staff to enable them to beDer support the operaLons sales and markeLng strategy. Core skills: •  Training and coaching •  Influencing behavioral changes •  Analysis and applicaLon •  Business management •  MarkeLng IdenLfy Social Media MarkeLng | Mid-‐2011 – December 2012 | Owner

IdenLfy, a social media markeLng consultancy, was my first sole venture into business ownership. My work was split into three core categories: training, strategic planning and content creaLon. Skills learned/enhanced: •  Business management •  Training and coaching •  Strategy and analysis •  Content creaLon

Present Day Magni-‐Eye Ltd | January 2013 – Present | Lean Startup Advisor Magni-‐Eye is a property sotware development startup, founded by my mother and myself to beDer support property professionals in the technological economy. Using our collecLve experience of the property industry, as well as my love of technology, we uLlised the startup methodology to create a minimum viable product of our first release – TimeSaved, the property inventory app that improves efficiency, producLvity and profitability for landlords, lesng agents and home insurance companies. My role includes the following areas: •  MarkeLng strategy and implementaLon •  ExperimenLng (creaLng minimum viable products) •  InnovaLon accounLng •  Improving the customer experience

The Remarkable Change Company | September 2013 | Founder TRCC is on a mission to posiLvely transform the UK educaLon-‐to-‐employment journey for pupils, parents and professionals. We will achieve our mission through a three-‐pronged strategic approach: 1.  Work-‐related learning projects 2.  Young entrepreneur (students and graduates) startups 3.  Digital product development

Our first work-‐related learning project – due for pilot tesLng in January 2013 – is a 24-‐week volunteer program for pupils aged 15+. The program will see the pupils become their schools markeLng team. With the coaching support of myself and another industry professional, the pupils will create a markeLng campaign from start (strategy) to finish (measurement), including creaLng all physical content. We will also be creaLng TRCC’s first “school networking club” – see www.theremarkablechange.co for details and other WRL project ideas. At the same Lme as this is happening I am aiming to start a small integrated markeLng agency – that works with schools, chariLes and small businesses – made up of final year university students and first year graduates.

Skills & Strengths Skills •  CreaLve wriLng. •  CopywriLng and crating wriDen content of all types. •  CommunicaLon. •  InnovaLve thinking. •  Product and service creaLon. •  Startup business development •  Entrepreneurship

Strengths •  Crises management •  Self-‐confidence (in my abiliLes and choices) •  My vision •  Listening •  Learning •  Humility •  Integrity •  Trustworthy •  Passionate

I firmly believe that others are the beDer judge of my strengths and skills, so please feel free to contact any of these people to find out more: •  Rachel Hudson – Mother – rachel@magni-‐eye.co.uk •  Lauren Benton – Friend & Founder of BODY Charity – [email protected] •  Nino Simone – Partner @ Geldards Law Firm – [email protected] •  Angela S – Owner @ Virtual Admin+ -‐ [email protected] •  Simon Earwicker – Repton School Housemaster – [email protected]

PD Plan & Vision Personal Mission To become a world leading entrepreneur in the educaLon and social enterprise space. Goals •  Become a top ten trusted advisor and thought-‐leader in the UK educaLon

industry. •  Build the UK’s leading educaLon-‐to-‐employment consultancy. •  Significantly improve the UK’s youth unemployment problem – directly and

indirectly. •  Launch 3 successful The Remarkable Change Company (sub) brands, built on a

team foundaLon of young (students and recent graduates) entrepreneurs. ObjecLves •  Finish wriLng my first book, “Thinking Beyond The Exam Hall – a vision of the

future of school”. •  Start my second book, “Think Beyond The Exam Hall” – ideas and acLviLes to

help pupils, parents and teachers to innovate their roles, responsibiliLes and acLviLes to produce more remarkable outcomes.

•  Successfully launch and operate work-‐related learning projects on 50 schools by Q4 2015.

•  Create jobs for over 30 young entrepreneurs by Q4 2015. •  Mentor 10 young entrepreneurs in starLng up their own businesses by Q4 2016.

Vision To lead a company that thrives on the following three values: 1.  Passion never fails 2.  Do good by doing business 3.  Always be disrupLng – innovaLon is a habit, not a process To lead a company that supports the following three demographics beDer than any other organisaLon: 1.  Students (school and HE) 2.  ChariLes (the social good space) 3.  Young professionals

To achieve greatness today and tomorrow, we cannot

merely improve on what we did yesterday.

In the past decade the world has not gone through a mere evoluLon, but a revoluLon. As a result the DfE must do away with incremental reform,

and instead challenge ourselves to lead a revoluLon.

The key to a successful revoluLon is to think like a community of startups… to think beyond the exam hall.

Thank You

A Publication of Kevin P. Hudson

department for education fellowship application

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