Starlight’s Enhanced Feedback Report Is Now Live

At STAR21, the company behind Starlight, our mission is simple: to make high-quality feedback more specific, timely, actionable and regular.

That is what we mean by STAR feedback.

Teachers do not need more generic comments. They do not need feedback that arrives weeks after the lesson. They do not need another overloaded dashboard that takes more time to interpret than it saves.

They need feedback that helps them see something clearly, reflect on it quickly, and decide what to do next.

That is why we are excited to share our enhanced Starlight feedback report, now live for users.

From lesson audio to clear, usable insight

Starlight works from ordinary lesson audio. A teacher records and uploads a lesson, and Starlight analyses the transcript to generate feedback, reflections, visual metrics and next steps.

The latest update makes that experience clearer and more useful.

The new report is designed around three layers of feedback.

First, the teacher receives an email summary. This gives them immediate feedback without needing to log back into the platform straight away. For some teachers, that may be enough: one strength, one area to refine, one thing to try next, and one question to reflect on.

That matters. Feedback is more likely to shape practice when it is timely and easy to act on. The email gives teachers a quick, low-friction reward for uploading a lesson and makes Starlight feel immediately useful.

Second, teachers can click through into the full feedback report. This gives them a richer view of the lesson, including a short summary, classroom discourse analysis, personal feedback, reflection, actions and progress.

Enhanced visual metrics make the feedback clearer at a glance, helping teachers quickly understand lesson patterns and decide where to reflect more deeply.

Third, teachers can go deeper. They can expand the areas that matter most to them, explore specific feedback categories, review the transcript, play back the audio, or use Ask Starlight to interrogate the lesson further.

The aim is not to overwhelm. The aim is to help teachers move from insight to action and prioritise what is important to them.

Specific: feedback that is grounded in the lesson

The enhanced report begins with a clear summary: Three things from this lesson.

This includes:

What worked: A clear recognition of something effective in the lesson.

What to refine: A focused area for improvement, phrased developmentally.

One thing to try next: A practical teaching move the teacher can take into their next lesson.

A question to reflect on: A prompt that supports professional thinking rather than compliance.

This is central to Starlight’s purpose. Feedback should be specific enough to feel like it belongs to the actual lesson, not a generic coaching script.

Because the feedback is drawn from the transcript, it can refer to the teacher’s subject, year group, topic, questioning, explanations, interaction patterns and classroom language.

That is the difference between broad advice and usable feedback.

Timely: feedback when it can still shape practice

Traditional lesson observation feedback often arrives too late.

By the time a teacher receives the notes, the lesson has passed, the moment has gone, and the opportunity for immediate reflection has weakened.

Starlight changes that.

With the new email summary, teachers can receive useful feedback minutes after uploading. They do not have to wait for a coaching meeting. They do not have to find time to write up notes. They do not have to dig around the platform before seeing value.

The email gives them the first layer of insight quickly.

Then, when they have more time, they can open the full report and explore the lesson in more depth.

That is the balance we are trying to strike: quick enough to be useful now, detailed enough to support deeper professional learning later.

Actionable: from reflection to next steps

The enhanced report is built around action.

Teachers can see specific next steps, reflect on the feedback, save their reflection, and connect it to their ongoing Teaching Journey.

The report also links back to action progress, helping teachers see how their current focus areas appeared in the lesson. This means Starlight is not just producing isolated reports. It is helping teachers build a rhythm of improvement over time.

The feedback categories are now easier to scan. Teachers can see rating indicators, short summaries and expandable sections. This keeps the report readable while still allowing depth. The rating scale can be turned off and all reports, transcripts and audio recordings can be deleted at any time, giving teachers full control over their feedback.

Rather than forcing every teacher to read everything, the design lets them choose their route:

• scan the summary

• review the visual metrics

• expand one feedback area

• listen to the audio

• read the transcript

• ask Starlight a follow-up question

• save a reflection

• choose an action.

We believe this is what actionable feedback should feel like.

Regular: building a habit of professional reflection

The real value of Starlight is not one report.

It is the pattern that builds over time.

When teachers receive regular feedback from ordinary lesson audio, they can begin to notice recurring strengths, repeated habits and small areas for refinement.

The enhanced report supports this by making each upload feel worthwhile. The easier and more rewarding the process is, the more likely teachers are to upload regularly.

That matters for teachers, and it matters for leaders.

For teachers, regular feedback creates a private, developmental record of professional growth.

For school leaders, regular uploads contribute to aggregated insight through Constellation, Starlight’s leadership dashboard. This helps leaders understand patterns across a school without turning lesson feedback into surveillance or performance management.

Starlight remains teacher-first. The purpose is always improvement, not judgement.

New visual metrics: reflection, not judgement

One of the biggest upgrades is the way classroom discourse is now displayed.

Teachers can see visual information about:

• teacher and student talk time

• lesson flow

• thinking time

• question mix

• interaction modes

• lesson climate.

These metrics are designed to be descriptive, not punitive.

New visual indicators show the balance of interaction modes and lesson climate at a glance, helping teachers reflect quickly on how pupils experienced the lesson.

A teacher-led lesson is not automatically a poor lesson. Sometimes direct instruction is exactly what is needed. A lesson with shorter pauses is not automatically weak. Sometimes rapid recall is appropriate. A question mix dominated by lower-order questions may make sense in a lesson introducing new technical vocabulary.

The point is not to score a teacher mechanically.

The point is to make invisible patterns visible.

When a teacher can see, for example, that almost all talk was teacher-led, they can ask a better question:

Was that right for this lesson?

If yes, fine. If not, what might I try next time?

That is the kind of professional reflection Starlight is designed to support.

A more human feedback experience

The enhanced report also includes Stellar Moment, a new feature designed to help teachers celebrate and share meaningful practice.

Stellar Moment identifies a positive moment from the lesson and turns it into a short, editable celebration that a teacher can choose to share.

We think this is important.

Teachers are often asked to improve, adapt, refine and do more. They are less often given simple, concrete recognition of what worked.

Stellar Moment helps rebalance that. It gives teachers a way to notice and share the small professional decisions that make a difference: the explanation that landed, the question that opened up thinking, the moment a class relaxed, the way confusion was normalised, the time a student contribution changed the direction of the lesson.

Teachers remain in control. They can review, edit and choose whether to share. No pupil names are included. And starlight leads can disable this function at any time, should they choose to.

It is not about self-promotion. It is about making good practice more visible.

Why this update matters

This release is another step towards the Starlight vision: regular, private, personalised feedback for every teacher.

The enhanced report is designed to be:

• clear enough to scan quickly

• specific enough to feel useful

• visual enough to support reflection

• detailed enough for deeper coaching

• actionable enough to change practice

• safe enough to build trust.

That balance matters.

If feedback is too thin, it does not help. If feedback is too dense, it does not get read. If feedback feels judgemental, it reduces trust. If feedback arrives too late, it loses power.

This update is about getting closer to the sweet spot: immediate insight, meaningful reflection and practical next steps.

Building the future of teacher feedback

Starlight is not trying to replace instructional coaching. It is trying to make high-quality feedback more available, more regular and more sustainable.

Human coaching is powerful, but it is difficult to scale. Most teachers cannot receive detailed, lesson-specific coaching every week. Starlight helps fill that gap by turning ordinary lesson audio into feedback that teachers can use.

That means more teachers can receive feedback more often.

It also means leaders can support professional development with better evidence, while keeping the process developmental and teacher-controlled.

You can read more about the thinking behind Starlight on the Starlight blog, explore the platform at starlightmentor.com, or learn more about the wider evidence base for effective professional development from the Education Endowment Foundation.

This update is live now.

Upload a lesson, read the email summary, open the enhanced report, and see what Starlight helps you notice.

If you would like to see how this works in practice, you can book a short demo.

Spark Insight with Starlight, and turn feedback into momentum.

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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/