The Day OFSTED Made me Crazy

It's now been over 3 years since it happened. OFSTED came in, said one thing to me and in an instant turned my life around...

I've never publicly spoken about it before in any detail (though others have talked about it on my behalf). I was always somewhat worried about the ramifications of doing so. I was also so angry, I never felt I could put an objective perspective to the story.

But a lot's happened since then. Not least, I've had a much more positive experience of OFSTED which you can read about here should you so wish!

Now before I start (and this is important), I need to tell you a bit about myself... I have been an ICT co-ordinator since 2001. I'm not one of those co-ordinators who just gets lumbered with the subject - I genuinely love it.

In that time, I have written numerous schemes of work, completely upgraded two school's hardware provision, developed software for Andrell Education, taught children how to code iPhone apps, started a family business developing apps for countless clients.

I suppose what I'm saying is... I know my stuff. Don't get me wrong - there's loads out there I don't know but in terms of my subject, I know what I'm doing and have a track record to prove it. I was known in the LA for my ICT and had lead LA wide training and meetings - all centred around the innovative use of ICT in primary schools.

So what? Well, the background to my teaching career and specialism is important when explaining how OFSTED made me crazy...

It was December 2010 when we got 'the call'. Usual stuff... car parks full till midnight, overly detailed lesson plans and hundreds of laminated resources that took 10 times as long to make as they would be used for.

I had a number of roles in school (being on the SLT) but when it came to OFSTED, I wanted to make sure my lessons were perfect.

So I'd planned a lesson using KeyNote - nothing particularly special about that other than our school had just acquired some iMacs and this was a perfect opportunity to have Year 4 children comparing the usability and functionality of two operating systems and their respective flagship presentation software.

To my delight, the inspector (who I will not name in this blog but I do hope she reads it) turned up, clipboard in hand. She walked in near the end of the lesson but I was about to teach it again due to the cyclical nature of the day's activities. So she smiled at me and said she would stay and watch it again.

In total, she was with me for 1 hour and 15 minutes. Quite a long time, even by 2010's standards.

The lesson went well (twice). I could see how I could have done things better but I was quite pleased and confident of a 'good' or better grade.

Then the feedback...

She began by saying "Well, that was a good lesson..." - I was happy with that. I'll take good, I thought. She then asked me what the software was we were using as she'd never seen it before. I explained and she commented on how impressed she was with both the software and how quickly the children had learned to master it.

And then she continued: "Your subject knowledge was good".

I raised my hand and actually said "Can I stop you there? Why was it 'good' and not 'outstanding'?"

Expecting a standard response linked to progress, I was shocked by what followed...

"Well, my subject knowledge isn't good enough to say whether yours was outstanding or not."

And in one sentence, she had ruined everything I had been working for for the last 9 years...

I was seething. Word soon got around school. People laughed. It was funny. Everyone knew that I was ICT... But the more I thought about, the angrier I became...

There were other issues with our OFSTED inspection, but for me, this was it. This meant war. How could someone judge me when they have admitted they're not qualified to do so.

So what could I do? Well, initially, I complained to OFSTED. It took a while for them to get back to me - in an email as I was at Ashford International on my way with the kids to Disneyland Paris...

A brief email to say that they were not upholding my complaint. I was furious. I emailed them back straightaway. I asked for copies of the evidence forms (which I duly received) and I escalated my complaint to their next stage.

This time it was upheld. I received an apology. A letter from OFSTED accepting that the comment was inappropriate. I had wanted the inspector to apologise but I was told that could not be arranged.

But by this point, it was too late. OFSTED had made me angry, bitter and disillusioned. I felt that the one area in which I was generally considered an expert by my peers had been brought into question by an OFSTED Inspector who by her own definition was not qualified to observe me.

Some people think I over-reacted. Some people think I should have tried to sue OFSTED for the damage they did to my health and my professional reputation.

I'm not really sure what I think anymore.

But to the inspector who judged me as having good ICT subject knowledge... Here's my Pocket Curriculum app - Come and observe me again when your app is in the App Store...

@TheRenegade78

The mystery of App Store rankings...

Okay, so you know how much I've been going on about The Pocket Curriculum being in the top 10, top 20 and top whatever of the education chart in the app store.

But so what?

How do rankings affect sales? And how many sales equate to a ranking?

It's all about status:

There's something kind of cool about being able to say your app is ranked at number 9 in the UK Education chart - it adds credibility to your app and convinces users that other people have found the app useful enough to download it.

But how does that equate to sales? 

Well, the best way for me to explain is to reveal a few figures... Let's start with the first day of sales for The Pocket Curriculum. We sold 45 copies. Now, in the world of paid-for apps, that's a fair amount. It's not Angry Birds... but it's a lot for a small independent software house with a limited market.

We waited anxiously for the charts to update. We entered at number 23 in the Education Chart.

The next day (which happened to be a Saturday) we sold an additional 70 copies. Our app didn't really move.

Why not? Well, there's a number of reasons:

1. App sales increase at weekends. So the apps above us were also selling more;
2. Rankings appear to take into account cumulative figures over the last few days of sales. So where we'd sold 45 and 70, other apps may have sold 30, 40, 45 and 71. 

The cumulative aspect seems to give apps like ours a fighting chance.

It's a curriculum app. Most of our sales are to schools and teachers. Schools only buy apps during the week. Teachers tend to buy apps in the evenings and at weekends. This means our app has fluctuating sales patterns.

By using cumulative figures, it would take a few days of poor sales in a row to significantly affect our ranking.

Top Ten:

So we thought... get to the top 10 and everyone will see the app in the App Store and buy it.

Nope! Yes, it was cool to get there a few times. But none of the times have resulted in increased subsequent sales. The ranking has been the result of a sudden boost in sales built on top of good cumulative sales in the prior days. The ranking itself has not lead to more sales.

Social Influencers:

Without a doubt, the biggest influence on our downloads is endorsements from social influencers...

Particularly @MrThorne and @AlanPeat. Their endorsement of our app and retweets have lead to a 70% increase in sales on those particular days. Coincidence? Possibly. But it appears that having a respected educationalist recommend your app can have a massive impact.

Long Term:

The Pocket Curriculum is a one-time download app. You don't need to buy it again. You don't buy in-app purchases. It therefore stands to reason that at some point, our app downloads will plateau and then decline.

Schools buying in bulk through the educational purchase programme DO NOT affect rankings. One school bought 120 on one day. The app went down in the chart. Why? Because it sold an additional 30 on the same day so the overall sales were recorded at 31.

This is surely a good thing. It would be very easy to manipulate an app's ranking if you could buy it in bulk! Developers would rush to buy hundreds of copies of their own app just to get it up the chart!!

To be honest, it still remains a bit of a mystery to me...

But I think that's part of the fun!

Doug Stitcher
@TheRenegade78

The Pocket Curriculum is available from the App Store for 69p!

The Pocket Curriculum - how we finally made a successful app...

Okay, I know - I've not posted on here for ages! And I'm sorry! So much has happened this last year, it's hard to know where to start.

By now, you've probably seen me tweeting about our app, The Pocket Curriculum, in what appears to be a desperate attempt to peddle my wares...

But I wanted to explain!

I began using Twitter about 3 years ago after someone (who I won't embarrass by naming here), mentioned the fact that I was a teacher who made iPhone apps. I was bombarded by followers and interest.

This coincided with the launch of the family business, Angel Applications - named after my daughter - with our simple business model of selling apps to school.

Bizarrely, our first client was not a school - but in fact TV Parenting Expert, Sue Atkins. She then put me in touch with a certain Mr Thorne and the rest, as they say, is history. Angel Apps took off... Not in an astronomical way, but in a 'pay-for-a-holiday' kind of way.

It basically added a third salary to our joint income.

And over the last 3 years, we've made apps for Peterborough United Football Club, Bleach hair products, clubs, teams and countless schools - and of course 16 (and counting) Mr Thorne apps.

But one thing has always alluded us - our own successful app.Don't get me wrong, we've made a few... A Teacher's Toolkit (which grossed a few hundred pounds), iManUtd (which makes around £50 per month in advertising revenue) but nothing to write home about.

It's difficult as a teacher. You want to make money. But you're driven by a core moral purpose to improve lives for children and to support other educators...

So then came iObserved - a lesson observation app, built out of necessity - I use it every week. But it isn't going to pay off the mortgage.

We priced it at £1.99 - which means after Apple take their cut, we make £1.21 per sale. Then tax! We're really proud of this app - it's useful and designed to do a functional job. But it has no mass market appeal. It's aimed at senior leaders who conduct lesson observations in the UK! I reckon that's a market of around 2000 teachers - when you take into account those with iPads!

But then it hit me... I was on a Focus course about the new curriculum. All the heads and deputies around me was desperately fumbling around for printed copies of the new curriculum. I knew the curriculum was under Crown Copyright and could be reproduced freely for commercial use as long as logos were removed. So we did it.

We built the Pocket Curriculum in about 4 hours. 

A universal app for Android, iPhone and iPad that simply collates the curriculum. We added a feed from the DfE - partly to help teachers but mostly to add functionality to get through the strict Apple approval process.

I was amazed at the response. I mentioned it once on Twitter and we sold 45 copies on the first day. Now, we only make 42p a copy! But still, enough of them is a fair amount...

The momentum kept building, and since its release in January 2014, the app has not dropped below 60 in the Education chart. But better than that, it's reached the top 150 of the overall charts in the UK.

We're not millionaires. In fact, we've not made that much at all. But we are proud of what we believe is a quality and useful product.

The reviews have been fantastic. Well... all but one. Most teachers appreciate what we are trying to do. Unfortunately, there are some people who see Angel Applications as a giant business profiting from the work of the government.

They don't realise that we are both teachers.

They don't realise that we didn't just wake up one day to find we can make apps.

They don't realise that we work 15 hour days and weekends.

The Pocket Curriculum is an achievement for us. Not in terms of money - we need to sell half a million copies to make £210,000 before tax! But in terms of credibility. 

We were featured in our local paper, well-known educationalists have endorsed our app, our Local Authority promote it on their courses.

And we worked hard.

So yes, we are teachers trying to make extra money (to pay for a holiday for our children to Disneyland Paris), but we are also teachers with a desire to use technology to enhance learning and make life easier for teachers.

So if you no longer have to route around the DfE website for a week and a half to find the documents, we think that's worth 69p...

And we hope you do too!

Doug

@TheRenegade78

The Pocket Curriculum is available from the App Store for 69p!