Meet STAR21: The Team Bringing AI Coaching to Every Teacher

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 in schools — time-poor teachers, overstretched budgets, and too few skilled coaches to go around. What should be a right — personalised, meaningful feedback whenever a teacher needs it — had become a privilege.

That’s where we come in.

Who We Are

We’re a team of three founders with very different backgrounds, united by one mission: to give every teacher, everywhere, on‑demand access to the kind of coaching that changes practice — without adding to their workload.

Adam — The Educator

A serving senior leader in education with over 25 years in the classroom.Adam has led teaching and learning strategy, championed AI literacy for staff and students, and driven whole‑school improvement. He understands the pressures teachers face because he still faces them himself. Starlight began as his answer to the question: What if every teacher could get expert feedback, instantly, whenever they wanted it?

Enzo — The Engineer

An engineer and software designer who’s taken complex technical projects from concept to scale. Enzo brings deep expertise in AI architecture, scalable systems, and intuitive design, making sure Starlight is both powerful under the hood and effortless to use in the classroom.

Tim — The Strategist

A finance and operations mind with a passion for building sustainable, scalable solutions.Tim keeps STAR21 focused on delivering long‑term value for schools, ensuring our pricing and business model make sense for even the most budget‑conscious leaders.

Our Ethos

We believe technology should create abundance, expand opportunity, and give agency back to individuals. Everything we build starts with one question:

Will teachers love using this?

If the answer is no, we don’t make it.

What We’ve Built

Starlight turns ordinary lesson audio into extraordinary insight.

• Instant feedback — upload a lesson and receive a personalised coaching report in minutes.

• Live dashboards — real‑time, school‑wide insights into teaching and learning.

• Workload reduction tools — automatic generation of retrieval questions, homework tasks, and recap emails.

It’s the coaching teachers need, at the speed they need it, with none of the scheduling headaches.

Our Mission

To give every teacher the power to improve on their own terms — while giving school leaders the live, accurate data they need to support teaching and learning at scale.

Because when teachers thrive, students thrive.

The Insight Engine is written by Adam Sturdee, co‑founder of Starlight — the UK’s first AI‑powered coaching platform — and Assistant Headteacher at St Augustine’s Catholic College. This blog is part of a wider mission to support educators through meaningful reflection, not performance metrics. It documents the journey of building Starlight from the ground up, and explores how AI, when shaped with care, can reduce workload, surface insight, and help teachers think more deeply about their practice. Rooted in the belief that growth should be private, professional, and purposeful, The Insight Engine offers ideas and stories that put insight — not judgment — at the centre of development.