We don't sell you software. We build it around the way you already teach.

Two parts, and you see both in writing before you commit. A one-off setup fee covers making the Engine Room yours: your branding, your classes loaded, your curriculum in it, your teachers trained. Then one flat monthly fee to run it, based on how many students use it. That fee covers everything: the marking, the feedback, the speaking practice, the servers, the support, and every update we ship. No per-teacher licences. No charge per report. And you do not have to take all six Buddies at once. Start with the one costing your teachers the most evenings.

A fair thing to ask a young company, so here is the straight answer. Your records live in a database of your own, not mixed in with anyone else's. Ask for them at any point and we hand over the lot: every student, every piece of marked work, every report, in a format you can open without us. And if we ever stopped, you would get your data and enough notice to move, written into your contract before you sign it. You are never left holding an empty box.

Faster than a full IT project, because we are not building for ten thousand schools, only for yours. We start by understanding how you work, then build around what we find and what you want. You get a realistic timeline before we begin, and we build in stages, so you see things working early rather than waiting for one big launch.

If you are a school, yes, and not as a box-ticking exercise. We build tools that raise the English students can actually use, and meeting Decision 2371 follows from doing that well rather than being bolted on afterwards. We design your reporting around the standard, so you can show progress clearly, to inspectors and to parents. If you are an English centre, the decision does not apply to you directly: it is aimed at schools. What it changes is the parents walking through your door. Their children are now measured on English at school, and they arrive expecting you to show them progress, not just attendance. That is the same reporting, for a different reader.

Your teachers stay in charge. The software drafts feedback in each teacher's own voice and house style, which they set in advance, and nothing reaches a student until the teacher has approved it. It is there to save the hour of writing, not to replace the teacher's judgment.

We work around them, not against them. Part of understanding how you work is seeing what already works and what does not. We build to sit alongside what you want to keep, and we replace only what is holding your teachers back. You decide what stays.

Yes, and we will show you exactly how before you commit. You get your own separate database. Your students are never sitting in a shared table alongside children from anywhere else. The data belongs to you, not to us. We do not sell it, we do not share it, and you decide who on your staff sees what. Ask us for all of it and we hand it over. Ask us to delete it and it is gone.

Not at all. Because we build around how your teachers already work, the software fits their current routine instead of forcing a new one. We keep it simple, and we train your staff so they are confident from the first day. If a tool needs a thick manual, then we have built it wrong.

No. We do not touch the teaching. We take the cycle around it, the marking, the chasing, the reporting, so your teachers spend more time teaching, not less. The software does the busywork. The teacher does the teaching.

Because off-the-shelf software was built for the average of ten thousand schools, so it fits none of them exactly, and your teachers spend their week working around its gaps. We start with you: how your teachers mark, how you report, what your students actually struggle with. And when something does not fit, you tell us and we change it. Try getting that from a company with ten thousand other schools to answer to.

You own your data. We own and run the system. That split is deliberate, and it is the right way round. Every mark, every recording, every report your teachers and students create belongs to you, sits in your own database, and leaves with you if you ever go. What we keep is the running of it: the servers, the AI costs, the fixes, the updates, the 2am problems. Owning your own software sounds appealing right up to the morning it breaks and there is nobody on the payroll whose job it is to fix it. That morning is ours, not yours.

Of course. We build in stages. Most people start with the one thing causing the most pain, see it working, and add more once they trust it. You are never forced to build everything at once.

Yes. We build bilingual by default, because you, your teachers and your parents all work in both. Each person uses it in the language they are most comfortable in.

Yes, and it is included in the monthly fee. Running it is our job, not something we hand back to you. We train your teachers before launch, until the manual is one page. After that, you message us when something is wrong and we fix it. You will never need to hire an IT person to keep it working.

It fits better, not worse. A centre has no year groups to work around, no state timetable, and usually one person who can say yes, so we can build around how you actually teach instead of around a system you inherited. The work is the same work: the marking pile, the speaking practice nobody has time to mark, the parent who wants to know whether their child is improving. The difference is that at a centre the person reading that report is a paying parent who can leave. We build for that.

They can, if you want that. We can build a parent dashboard that shows a child's progress honestly and clearly. It is optional, and you control exactly what parents see and what they do not.

That is normal, and expected. You change, and the software should change with you. Because we run it, an improvement reaches your teachers without anyone on your staff installing anything. Tell us what is getting in their way, and we will tell you honestly what it takes to fix and when you will have it.

Yes. The Engine Room covers your English department, and it is what we run for schools and centres month to month. Beyond it we take on bespoke builds: an admissions chase, a report-card system, the one job only you have. Those are scoped and quoted separately. Ask us, and we will tell you honestly whether it is worth building.

Less than you might fear. The heaviest part is early: a conversation with your teachers about how the week really works. After that, we do the building. We check in at the right moments, but we do not tie up your staff for weeks.

The ones you already have. It works on the computers you already have, teachers' laptops, and phones, so no one needs to buy new hardware. We build for what your staff and your students use now, and will in the future.

We build for the range in a real classroom, not for an average student who does not exist. Work can be set at different levels at once, so a student who is behind and a student who is ahead are both met where they are.