Starlight Is Now Open to Every Teacher

Until today, Starlight was only available to schools. A headteacher or trust leader had to sign off, onboard their staff, and roll it out as an institutional decision.

That model works well for schools, and it will continue. But it meant that the individual teacher, the one who just wanted to get better at their craft, had no way in.

That changes today. Starlight is now open to any teacher, anywhere in the world.

Two ways to sign up

There are two paths, depending on who you are.

If you are a tutor or an individual teacher, you can sign up directly at starlightmentor.com. You get a free trial with no card required. After that, it is £14.99 per month, cancel any time. You record your lesson, upload the audio, and within minutes you receive a structured coaching report grounded in what actually happened in your classroom. Not a generic tip sheet. Not a rating. A private, transcript-based analysis of your teaching, with specific strengths evidenced from your lesson and a small number of high-leverage next steps.

If you are a teacher working in a school, the process is almost identical, but we ask you to nominate a senior leader at your school as an authorising contact. They receive a short email with our data protection and safeguarding documentation and click a single button to approve. This is not red tape. It is how we make sure your school knows and supports what you are doing, and it means Starlight never becomes shadow IT on your school network. The trial activates only once that approval comes through.

What you get

Every individual subscriber gets the core Starlight experience: audio uploads and AI transcription, structured feedback reports, Teaching Journey progress tracking, and custom feedback templates. Your reports are private to you. Nobody else sees them unless you choose to share.

Schools still get additional features on top of this, including the Constellation leadership dashboard, anonymised school-wide trends, StarDrive recording hardware, and dedicated onboarding. But the individual plan gives you everything you need to start building a habit of reflective, evidence-based professional development on your own terms.

Why this matters

When we started STAR21, we set out to solve a simple problem: teachers do not receive feedback that is specific, timely, actionable, and regular enough to drive real improvement. That remains the mission. The STAR standard is our north star, and everything we build is measured against it.

Opening Starlight to individual teachers is an extension of that mission, not a departure from it. The research is clear. Coaching works when it is frequent, specific, and sustained. But most teachers receive formal feedback once or twice a year through scheduled observations. That is not a frequency that builds habits or shifts practice.

Starlight changes that equation. A teacher who uploads one lesson a week builds a corpus of evidence about their own teaching over a term. They can see patterns in their questioning, their explanations, their use of dialogue. They can track how their practice develops over time through the Teaching Journey. And if they choose to, they can use that evidence to support their own performance management conversations, not because anyone told them to, but because they have genuine, transcript-grounded data about their growth as a practitioner.

That is what autonomy looks like in professional development. Not waiting to be observed. Not hoping someone notices. Taking ownership of your own improvement and having the evidence to prove it.

Global from day one

This is not a UK-only launch. Any teacher, in any country, teaching in any context, can sign up today. We have already been working with schools and partners in Cameroon, Switzerland, The US, Hong Kong, and China. Opening the platform to individuals removes the final barrier. If you teach, you can use Starlight.

What comes next

We are not slowing down. Schools remain our core market, and the institutional product continues to develop. But making Starlight available to every teacher who wants it has been a goal since the beginning. Today it becomes real.

If you have been waiting for a way to get structured, private, evidence-based feedback on your teaching without needing your school to buy a platform, this is it.

Start your free trial at https://starlightmentor.com/pricing

Spark Insight with Starlight today and take control of your own teaching journey today!

Book a demo to see Starlight in action: https://starlightmentor.com/demo-request

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🌐 Read more on our blog: www.coaching.software

💡 Explore the platform: www.starlightmentor.com

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The Insight Engine is written by Adam Sturdee, co-founder of Starlight, the UK’s first AI-powered coaching platform, and a senior leader with responsibility for teaching, learning and coaching. 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.

🔗 Connect with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-sturdee-b0695b35a/