Marcus Richards
We want children and young people to succeed in education and have developed a simple but powerful classroom approach which helps removed barriers to learning and strengthens memory skills, transforming progress in speaking, writing and reading.
Tell us about yourself?
I have been a teacher for over 20 years and have developed a way of teaching which makes learning and pupil progress in spoken language, memory, reading and writing.
The approach (Chatta) os instantly effective and I have shared it with teachers all over the world, leaving my teaching job to develop our company.
If you could go back in time a year or two, what piece of advice would you give yourself?
Be more assertive and confident in your vision and values.
What problem does your business solve?
We help teachers improve the impact of their work, saving them time and making teaching anything effortless.
We help all children and young people achieve and succeed especially those with working memory and processing challenges.
We help anyone learning a new language. For early years practitioners and families we help children learn to speak.
What is the inspiration behind your business?
We were at first inspired by Cheryl Bowers, head of early years workforce development for Hull City Council.
She asked us to help families and early years settings and schools make an impact on children’s early language and vocabulary development.We developed Chatta and very quickly began to see a big impact.
We have since been voted one of the world’s top 100 education innovations and I was able to invite Cheryl to join me In Helsinki to collect the Global HundrED Award, which we won for 3 successive years.
What is your magic sauce?
We have designed an approach which mirrors how people learn and built software to make it effortless to implement. Our magic sauce though isn’t our software it is how it is used.
The teachers using our software are where the magic happens and our training helps them unlock their incredible power. It ain’t what you do it’s the way that you do it, that’s what gets results.
What is the plan for the next 5 years? What do you want to achieve?
We want to be used in every classroom in the world. I’m every class there are children and young people struggling who don’t need to.
We have something which will instantly transform their experience of life and learning.
What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced so far?
Covid has been brutal to us. It stopped us working in classrooms.
We tried to move online with some success but because we are sharing something with quite profound and remarkable impact people need to see what is possible to believe in it and embrace it.
Now we are back in schools we have really sharpened our training and are beginning to build momentum again.
How do people get involved/buy into your vision?
Teachers and school leaders who are looking to improve outcomes in their pupils’ spoken language and vocabulary skills, their writing, their confidence and success at school will find Chatta a perfect solution.
Any school leader or teacher who contacts us and is happy to explain their teaching and learning challenges and priorities will find an instant high impact solution with Chatta.
We provided school development support and teacher training but welcome the opportunity to visit any school, free of charge, to demonstrate the impact of Chatta in the classroom with pupils of any age.
The impact is always staggering and this is the best way for us to start a conversation with school leaders, we show them what is possible and them make it happen.
