About us

Our Story

In 2017, two former teachers wondered if having your own classroom made it more likely that you would stay in the profession. To test their hypothesis, Professor Becky Allen and Laura McInerney built ‘Teacher Tapp’, a new survey app that could ask teachers three questions a day and find out what they thought about any topic.

It turned out, they were wrong about owning your classroom. But also, they were right. They were right to ask the question!

Decisions are too often taken in education without asking teachers for their opinions or finding out how it will affect their lives. Becky and Laura wanted to use Teacher Tapp to change that. And so they did!

It’s quick, easy and free

Teacher Tapp now has over 10,000 teachers answering research questions each day on the app. It’s quick, easy and free for the teachers taking part. And the data helps make the media, government and education businesses sit up and listen to teachers.

Go here for more on how we choose questions and are funded.

Vision

Our vision is for a world where every decision in education has the voices of those on the ground at the heart of it. By taking part in Teacher Tapp you help make those voices louder and more accurate.

Read our latest findings here.

Laura McInerney

Chief Executive Officer laura@teachertapp.co.uk

Laura was a teacher in London secondary schools for six years before becoming a journalist. She spent four years editing Schools Week, and is a regular Guardian Education columnist. She started Teacher Tapp with Becky in 2017 as a bit of fun. It soon became clear that it would be so much more. My Favourite TeacherTapp Finding Teachers who go to the pub together are more likely to work in outstanding schools. Is it causal? Someone should definitely fund a random control trial to find out.

Becky Allen

Chief Analyst becky@teachertapp.co.uk

Becky was a teacher before spending 15 years as an academic studying schools. She spends a day a week as a Professor of Education at University of Brighton. Most of Becky’s career has been spent gathering and analysing education data. She came up with the idea of Teacher Tapp through the frustration of trying to get teachers to answer email surveys! My Favourite TeacherTapp Finding Discussing organisational vision or mission makes me fall asleep, so I was entertained to see that 4-in-10 heads couldn’t state their own school motto or vision!

Karen Wespieser MBE

Chief Operations Officer karen@teachertapp.co.uk

Karen is an education researcher and has worked for NFER, CfBT, and the BBC amongst others. She is fascinated by education and in her spare time is a Trustee of Greenshaw Multi Academy Trust & sits on her local school appeals panel. In 2020 Karen was awarded an MBE for services to children with special educational needs. My Favourite TeacherTapp Finding The 5 of the most rewarding things about being a teacher. This set of stats show all the wonderful things about the teaching profession!

Nick Kostelnik

Chief Technology Officer nick.k@teachertapp.co.uk

Nick spent 20 years working in London for companies including Sony, uSwitch, and Ogilvy.

Over the years he has developed passion for great Engineering, keeping it simple and lean process.
My Favourite TeacherTapp Finding I’m genuinely thankful that so many people are dedicated to the discovery of information using our platform.

Samantha Payne

Head of Delivery samantha@teachertapp.co.uk

Samantha has worked with many large retailers developing their customer service and business to business functions.

She progressed into a franchising business model, confirming her passion for account management. Looking for an opportunity within the educational world, Samantha joined the team in July 2019. My Favourite TeacherTapp Finding It’s fascinating to find out teachers’ attitudes towards issues like Brexit. It’s also interesting who teachers plan to vote for and actually end up voting for!

Iain Ford

Head of Data and Product Lead iain@teachertapp.co.uk

Iain hasn’t left education since he started primary school. After completing his statistics degree in 2016, he spent the majority of the following five years working with education data in the edtech sector.

He joined the Teacher Tapp team in July 2021, citing that it combined two of his main interests – data analysis and education! My Favourite TeacherTapp Finding I can’t understand how 1/3 of teachers prefer the chisel tip board marker! My handwriting with one is illegible compared to when I use a bullet marker.

Grace Owen

Digital Content Creator grace@teachertapp.co.uk

Grace has always had a love for social media and found an interest in marketing during her time at university. Before joining Teacher Tapp in 2023, she worked as a Marketing Assistant at a civil engineering company, where she gained a digital marketing qualification. My Favourite TeacherTapp Finding The social media platform that teachers trust the most for education-related content is Twitter. It would be interesting to see if/how this changes in the future!

Darren Royle

Senior Software Engineer darren@teachertapp.co.uk

Darren spent almost a decade working for Oxford University Press building educational tools and online platforms. Since then he’s worked on building software for startups including AI coding, email marketing automation, and adult literacy tools. He came to TeacherTapp wanting to return to creating software that helps take the pain out of teaching, or at least making it more fun! My Favourite TeacherTapp Finding 12% of teachers would take A level computer science if they had to take another qualification now.

Grainne Hallahan

Head of Teacher Tapp Community grainne@teachertapp.co.uk

Grainne Hallahan spent ten years in the classroom before swapping her markbook for a reporter’s pad, and moved into journalism.

She spent five years at the Times Educational Supplement working as a senior content writer and then their senior analyst, covering topics from teacher pay scales to classroom practice to public exams.

Now Grainne has taken up the role of head of community at Teacher Tapp where she produces their editorial content and designs the three questions that ping onto teachers’ phones at 3:30pm every day.

With experience both in and outside of the classroom, Grainne provides a voice for teachers when speaking about educational issues on programmes such as BBC News, Sky News, and ITV, as well as radio stations and podcasts. My Favourite TeacherTapp Finding The colour of English exercise books! Although many Teacher Tappers made the incorrect choice (how did only 13% correctly identify red as the correct colour?) it brings me joy that 75% agree that there is a right colour, and it really does matter! But how do you really know until you ask YOUR team? I heard school surveys could be your magic tool kit…

Paul Kent

Senior Software Engineer paul@teachertapp.co.uk

Paul has worked in both startup and corporate settings, gaining valuable experience in creating software for different areas. He’s dedicated to making technology work for education in a positive way. At TeacherTapp, Paul works mainly on School Surveys and enjoys using his skills to make school better for teachers, parents, and students. My Favourite TeacherTapp Finding 14% of school have a pet. I wish that I went to one of those schools!

Katie Jones

School Surveys – Adviser katie@schoolsurveys.com

Katie worked in schools across the UK, Mexico and Oman for eleven years before moving into education technology. Working in such different settings gave her an understanding of the shared experiences of teachers across the world. She works in School Surveys at TeacherTapp and she was drawn to the role as she believes that teachers’ voices should be heard and amplified. My Favourite TeacherTapp Finding Three-quarters of secondary teachers feel that there should be more time for foreign language instruction at KS3. I completely agree!

June Stevenson

Head of School Surveys june@schoolsurveys.com

June started out as a secondary school humanities teacher in south Croydon. Her passion for education has led her to roles in government, business, the third sector, and most recently primary schools, with several school governorships along the way. She is motivated by working to improve the quality of what happens in schools, and particularly by helping school leaders make better decisions, with greater confidence. My Favourite TeacherTapp Finding I was pleased to see the majority of Teacher Tappers (52%) agreeing with my experience that wind is the worst weather for behaviour!

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About us

Our Story

It’s quick, easy and free

Vision

Meet the team

Laura McInerney

Becky Allen

Karen Wespieser MBE

Nick Kostelnik

Samantha Payne

Iain Ford

Grace Owen

Darren Royle

Grainne Hallahan

Paul Kent

Katie Jones

June Stevenson

Get in touch