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Meet the Team

We owe all of our enormous success at Teacher Tapp to our brilliant team. Bringing together expertise in education, technology and data analysis we are a small but skilled team who operate as a well-oiled machine. That’s how we’re able to survey over 8,000 teachers a day!

Laura McInerney

Chief Executive Officer

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 Teacher Tapp 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.

Email: laura@teachertapp.co.uk

Twitter: @miss_mcinerney

Becky Allen

Chief Analyst

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 Teacher Tapp 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!

Email: becky@teachertapp.co.uk

Twitter: @profbeckyallen

Alex Weatherall

Chief Technology Officer

Alex worked as a database developer for 9 years before training to become a Physics Teacher in 2010.

He co-founded Teacher Tapp in 2017, while still teaching. After too many post-period-5 bug fixing sessions he decide to work on Teacher Tapp full-time and has been doing so ever since.

My Favourite Teacher Tapp Finding: Teacher Tapp data constantly reveals the heterogeneous nature of the English school system. Even for us, it’s a constant eye-opener how different schools can be.

Email: alex@teachertapp.co.uk
Twitter: @A_Weatherall

Karen Wespieser MBE

Chief Operations Officer

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 at Parentkind, a school governor & sits on her local school appeals panel. In 2021 she was awarded an MBE for services to children with special educational needs

My Favourite Teacher Tapp Finding: Is it cheating if I say all ‘5 of the most rewarding things about being a teacher‘? This set of stats show all the wonderful things about the teaching profession!

Email: karen@teachertapp.co.uk
Twitter: @KarenWespieser

Shamaila Bhatti

Head of Partnerships

Shamaila has held a wide range of roles supporting students in school from behind the scenes.

Having worked across the spectrum of Primary, Secondary and SEN schools for 6 years in East London, Shamaila now works full time with Teacher Tapp, managing Client and Customer relations.

My Favourite Teacher Tapp Finding: I’m always particularly interested by our findings on teacher anxiety and wellbeing and how this changes at different times of year.

Email: shamaila@teachertapp.co.uk

Samantha Payne

Head of Delivery

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 Teacher Tapp 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!

Email: samantha@teachertapp.co.uk

Nick Scarratt

Data Services and Analytics Developer

Nick started out completing a Physics PhD. While blasting polymer cells with laser beams, he developed a love for coding.

He then designed scientific measurement equipment and analytical software for use in renewable energy research. With a broad bank of technology skills, he joined Teacher Tapp in February 2020.

My Favourite Teacher Tapp Finding: Nearly half of all teachers have technology fail them on any given day! It’s a real problem as schools become more reliant on technology.

Email: nick@teachertapp.co.uk

Humayraa Mulla

React Developer

Humayraa took up coding as a hobby before deciding to make the move into a career in tech.

She studied software development at a coding bootcamp and joined the Teacher Tapp team in October 2020.

My Favourite Teacher Tapp Finding: The fact that teachers anticipate pupil behaviour to worsen at different months of the year as well as in different weather conditions is really interesting.

Email: humayraa@teachertapp.co.uk

Harry Langley

Junior Developer

Harry’s first interaction with programming was at age 14 when he made command line quizzes for GCSE.

At 18, he joined Teacher Tapp, relishing the opportunity to learn on the job (especially in lockdown), and he “hasn’t looked back since!”

My Favourite Teacher Tapp Finding: More than 10% of teachers don’t use digital software to present to their classes… I find it hard to imagine a class without a PowerPoint!

Jack Ashworth

Data Analyst

Jack worked as a process control system engineer during his gap year before studying Computer Science at University. During this time, he developed an interest in building computer generated models as well as tutoring and teaching coding part time.

He joined Teacher Tapp in January 2021 looking for a chance to both use and expand his knowledge in both computing and educational fields.

My Favourite Teacher Tapp Finding: Language and Arts teachers are more likely (at 17%) to be left-handed than any other discipline with only 9% of Primary teachers sharing the trait.