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This September we’re unveiling Constellation, Starlight’s new leadership dashboard — and today we’re sharing a first look video walkthrough. Constellation has been built to solve a persistent problem: school leaders are often left in the dark. Relying on drop-ins or snapshots gives only fragments of what’s happening in classrooms. Constellation changes that. By drawing on thousands of anonymised lesson transcripts, Constellation connects the dots into a clear, navigable pictu

Launching Starlight into schools is about more than just technology. It’s about creating a safe, professional space for teachers to reflect on their practice without fear of judgement. One of the most common questions we hear is around data, ownership, and transparency. Teachers rightly want to know: Who owns the recordings? How is the data used? Can it ever be misused for surveillance or performance management? To support school leaders and staff in answering these questions

The first weeks of a new school year always feel like standing at the helm of a ship about to set sail. The direction you set now will shape the voyage for months ahead. For middle and senior leaders, the temptation is often to tighten the ropes, issue directives, and try to steer every turn of the wheel. But sustainable progress rarely comes from top-down control. It comes from cultivating the conditions in which staff can grow, contribute, and drive improvement from the gro

When schools talk about building high-performance cultures, coaching is usually near the top of the agenda. Few would dispute that great coaching—grounded in trust, dialogue, and relational warmth—can transform teaching practice. Yet despite decades of evidence, coaching remains patchy, inconsistent, or fragile in too many schools. Why? The barriers are not simply logistical but cultural and strategic. The Cultural Challenge Teachers value their autonomy. Professional pride m

The new report cards will assess schools across up to 11 distinct areas, depending on the institution's offerings. From November 2025, Ofsted inspections will look very different. Gone are the single-word overall judgements. In their place come multi-category report cards, richer narratives, and a sharper focus on how schools support the ongoing development of teaching. For school leaders, this marks both a challenge and an opportunity. The challenge: evidence will need to be

When we think about coaching, our minds often turn to elite athletes or high-performing executives. Top footballers, Olympic runners, Premier League managers, CEOs of global firms — none of them would dream of working without a coach. Coaching isn’t seen as remedial for them. It’s an essential part of sustaining and elevating performance. And yet, in schools, the very professionals entrusted with shaping the next generation are too often denied the same expectation of high-qu

We’re excited to launch our brand-new Launchpad Programme — and our latest video shows exactly how it works and how it can spark change in your school. In just one term, the Launchpad Programme equips a small, trusted group of staff — your Starlight Navigators — to explore the platform, master its full potential, and prepare to lead whole-school adoption. These early adopters are the foundation of long-term success, modelling best practice and inspiring colleagues to follow.

In March 2016, millions watched as AlphaGo, an AI developed by DeepMind, faced off against Lee Sedol, one of the greatest Go players of all time. It was game two. Midway through the match, AlphaGo played a move so unexpected that commentators thought it was a mistake. Move 37. A stone placed not where convention, training, or human instinct suggested — but where a deep, unseen strategy was unfolding. Lee Sedol left the room. Spectators murmured. In the hours that followed, it

Choice matters — just like colours on a palette, Starlight now lets schools pick the AI model that best fits their needs. At Starlight, we’ve always believed that trust, transparency, and flexibility should be built into every decision we make. Today, we’re excited to announce a new layer of choice for the schools and organisations we work with. As you know, AI is moving fast. New capabilities emerge every month, and we’re committed to making sure Starlight users can benefit

Today marks an important moment for us at STAR21. We’ve just released our first video to introduce our new YouTube channel — and it’s more than just an introduction. It’s an open invitation to join us on a journey. Our mission is simple but ambitious: to use AI to provide feedback that is specific, timely, actionable, and regular — feedback built for the 21st century. This is what we call our STAR approach, and it’s at the heart of everything we do. In the video, we introduce

Exploring Starlight together — colleagues discovering how AI-powered coaching can unlock new insights and enhance teaching practice. In 2025, the UK market for AI-driven coaching tools in education is set to expand, with projections showing strong growth over the next five years. The message is clear: AI is no longer a distant prospect for schools — it’s here, it’s viable, and it’s solving problems that have existed for decades. For too long, high-quality coaching in schools

From scarcity to abundance — when the right conditions are created, the orchard flourishes, just as teachers and schools can with the right support from Starlight. When I first stepped into teaching, I didn’t realise just how much scarcity shaped the profession. Not scarcity of passion — teachers have that in abundance — but scarcity of time, of feedback, of meaningful opportunities to grow. You’d get a formal observation once a year, maybe twice if you were lucky. Feedback c

At STAR21, we’ve always believed in sharing the journey — not just the destination. We launched Starlight, the UK’s first AI-powered coaching platform for teachers, to tackle one of the most persistent challenges in education: giving every teacher the specific, timely, actionable, and regular feedback they deserve - that's what we call STAR21 feedback, feedback fit for the 21st Century. But building Starlight has never been just about the product. It’s about the bigger vision

At Starlight, we never stand still. From the very first pilot, our mission has been clear: make high-quality coaching available to every teacher, without adding to their workload. That means constantly testing the latest AI models, pushing the limits of what’s possible, and upgrading whenever we find a way to deliver sharper insights and more meaningful feedback. Today, we’re excited to announce our next big leap: Starlight now runs on GPT-5. What does this mean for you? With

Technological change often comes disguised. Sometimes it creeps in through marginal gains, reshaping systems quietly over decades. Other times, it crashes through the gates — fast, disruptive, and irreversible. The former is evolution. The latter is revolution. What’s happening in education today with AI? It’s not slow adaptation. It’s not a gentle curve. It’s a hard pivot. And it’s happening now. At STAR21, we believe — and we’re seeing — that AI in education will be a revol

For as long as schools have run coaching programs, lesson feedback has relied on the memory and impressions of an observer. Even the most skilled coach can only see and hear so much in real time — and what gets remembered often depends on what stood out most in the moment. The result? Teachers walk away with valuable but selective feedback, while countless micro-moments of learning vanish into thin air. Transcript-Based Lesson Analysis (TBLA) changes this. Born out of lesson

Tim, Adam, and Enzo share a love of sailing — bringing the same teamwork, navigation, and adaptability to building Starlight as they do on the open water. Before Starlight was a platform, it was a question: How can we give every teacher the timely, specific, actionable and regular feedback (STAR feedback) they deserve—while giving leaders the insight they need—without adding to anyone’s workload? We knew the difference great coaching could make. But we also knew the reality i

In schools across the UK, professional development often takes the form of costly training days, external consultants, and cover-heavy INSET sessions. Yet ask most teachers and you’ll hear the same refrain: it wasn’t really relevant to me. That’s where Starlight changes the game. Starlight empowers teachers to access feedback on their own terms—whenever they choose. They record a lesson, upload it, and within minutes receive a personalised coaching report tailored to their pr

In the fast-moving world of education technology, many school leaders are rightly cautious. We’ve spent years building systems to protect data, comply with GDPR, and shield students and staff from harm. But in the age of AI, risk isn’t just about what you take on. It’s also about what you miss out on. Too often, conversations about AI in schools stall on a single axis: is it safe? But the better question might be: what happens if we wait too long? The Hidden Risk of Inaction

This September, we’re launching Constellation, the powerful new SLT dashboard on the Starlight platform that gives senior leaders real-time, anonymised insights into what’s happening in classrooms across your school. Designed for Teaching and Learning Leads and Trust Directors, Constellation transforms Starlight lesson data into a rich constellation of evidence to help you identify what’s working, where support is needed, and how your curriculum is being delivered in practice