TECH
EdTech pioneers – Assessable’ s Dr Sam Shenton, left, and Lisa Gosnay, right, with EXTOL Academy Trust CEO Craig Nicholson.
GETTING THE BALANCE RIGHT
Tees project using AI to cut teachers’ workloads
WORDS: DAVE ROBSON PICTURE: TOM BANKS
An AI-powered EdTech tool developed on Teesside aims to bring balance back to the classroom. By using AI to support teachers with the assessment of primary English writing, Assessable creates balance by slashing the time staff spend marking work from hours to just minutes, without compromising accuracy.
And having successfully negotiated the“ proof-of-concept” stage – including winning the coveted Best Start-Up category at the Tees Tech Awards 2025 – its MVP( minimum viable product) is being fine-tuned in readiness to go into schools next year.
Its mission is threefold: create balance for teachers, accelerate progress for learners and improve consistency for leaders.
And helping develop it as an EdTech“ thought leader” is EXTOL Academy Trust CEO Craig Nicholson.
Craig said:“ Our collaboration with Assessable represents the sort of forwardthinking our sector needs. By combining real classroom experience with cuttingedge technology, we can start tackling some of the biggest challenges facing schools today.”
An industry-leading, Tees Valley-based tech team featuring the likes of product designer Tim Gale, Aqib Zeeshan, from Beyond Intelligence, and Peter Calvert, from Embeddable, has helped ensure everything learned from the initial stage is included in the updated version.
If all goes well, a test bed of 10-plus primary schools will start using it in January.
Built by teachers for teachers, the project is being driven by co-founders Lisa Gosnay and Dr Sam Shenton – former teachers whose classroom experiences have fuelled their desire to make things better.
Lisa, from Middlesbrough, was a teacher on Teesside for years before stepping back through illness in 2019 – a spell that saw her life saved by two stem cell transplants to combat aplastic anaemia.
Sam, who came to Teesside via Kent and Nottingham, taught A-level physics to international students for five years before starting her own business decluttering and organising people’ s houses and, subsequently, businesses.“ I just love organising, really,” she smiled. Lisa is Assessable MD and Sam the operations director – although neither likes titles. With their professional backgrounds, however, they’ re ideally placed to know how Assessable can use tech to transform education for the better.
And, as Lisa explained, the Tees Valley has been deliberately chosen for its development and rollout.
She explained:“ We’ re initially focusing on deprived communities where the need is greatest – teachers are overloaded and the kids have a lower baseline.
“ So, it should have a huge impact for teachers, because it gives them less work to do, and it should help the kids get higher-quality feedback so they make better progress.
“ Teesside is the second fastest growing
Visit assessable. com or email lisa @ assessable. com
tech hub outside London, so we’ ve got a real opportunity to make a mark on the tech and education sectors here and beyond. I think we’ ve positioned ourselves as best we can for that to happen – we just need the stars to align.”
Those stars will include investment, with up to £ 500,000 now sought to accelerate product development and launch.
But both Lisa and Sam are confident Assessable can be a game-changer by harnessing tech to benefit learners and teachers alike.
Sam told Tees Business:“ I thought it was a very exciting idea from the moment I heard about it – combining, dare I say, quite archaic systems with forward-thinking ones, which is what it’ s all about, really – balance.”
Lisa added:“ We’ re working in tech, which moves really fast, and applying it to education, which can move really slowly – but everything we do is about balance and trying to bring two opposite ends of the spectrum together to work in harmony.
“ The bottom line is that the sector needs systemic change. And with Assessable, we can make a difference, starting in our area, that could potentially have a wide-ranging impact across the world.
“ We’ re at a crucial point – ready to move from development to delivery. With partners who believe in our mission, we can create meaningful change and transform education for generations to come.”
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