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A message from CEO Rachel Johnson: PiXL is a leadership network organization that aims to serve school leaders so that they can improve life chances and outcomes and for young people. We want to stand alongside our leaders and equip and empower them so they can make a difference to the students in their care. We know that educators are transformers and our country will always benefit when they are valued and equipped.

For the last 12 years, we delivered our support to schools through an associate model where a person would go into a school, virtually or in person, up to 4 times a year as well as also providing a range of events and a plethora of resources and strategies to help school leaders. Over a year, our schools would have 4 hours of associate support. Although that model worked well for us for so many years, I wanted something that could push the boundaries of school support without adding cost to schools.

At the start of these ponderings, and before we made any big changes, we appointed the services for Freeman Clarke. This was the start of monumental change for us. It started with a full analysis of what we already had and where the gaps in our provision were but the conversation then quickly changed to the “art of the possible” conversation.

We had sometimes fallen in to the trap of creating what we knew we could pull off with technology rather than imagining what could be and then finding a way technology could make it happen. Part of what Steve Cairns did from the start was allow us to remove some blinkers when it came to technology, it was the servant not the master. He assured us that if we came up with the principles of what we wanted, however impossible it might sound to us, then technology would provide a way to make it happen. And so we did and the re-imagining began.

What would we want if we could have anything? What could schools access if we had a totally new approach and system? What was the desire behind it all? We knew, we had known for some time but we hadn’t been able to see the how to go along with the what. We wanted a platform that schools could control. We wanted unlimited support with a range of specialists where schools choose who they see and when and at the click of a button, we appear. We wanted open access, we wanted to be responsive to need. We wanted to map engagement so we knew what people wanted more of. We wanted to provide outstanding customer service and to be flexible. We wanted to run networks and for all of this to be quick and easy for schools. However we did this would be online and be easy for busy school leaders.

Freeman Clarke stretched our thinking, pushed our comfort zones and started finding partners who could make the dream a reality. And perhaps more impressive than all of that, they said they could deliver to budget and on time. And they did. Our brand new Specialist and Networking platform launched in October exactly when we told schools it would and has been transformational to our business.

Not only is the platform responsive, innovative and in the hands of school, it has also enabled us to make savings in travel which is better for budgets and better for the environment and has enabled us to invest money that had been spent on a non-technology model, into doing more for schools for less.

Our team has delivered this project under the guidance and direction of Steve. A voice of experience, wisdom and calm. When we were not sure it was possible, he assured us it was. We didn’t have to worry about the technical build or the best company to partner with us in the new project, we knew Steve would guide us on that. That meant all our attention was on the detail for our schools, our staff and our members.

At the time of writing, there have already been 23,000 minutes of conversations booked by schools since we launched and they are describing the platform as “instinctive,” “effortless,” “game changing” and “liberating.” The vision we had for how we wanted our business to work has been realized through innovative technology solutions. We dreamed big and they delivered in the detail. For PiXL, technology is now the liberating factor, not the limiting one.