Having founded the start-up Good2Learn, an interactive platform that aids primary school children in their understanding of English and Maths, Paul Mandalia is now excited for the future as he progresses to the next stage of his project. We caught up with the former operations manager to see what inspired him to enter the world of education.
“Our mission is to help all children reach their full potential,” Paul enthuses. Clearly driven by enriching the development of young people, he explains that Good2Learn will make a marked difference in their lives, both at school and at home: “We are currently in the very early stages of putting together the platform; we have a team of individuals writing up lessons and filmmakers working on production.”
The resource is set to be highly visual, with a selection of curriculum-based lessons transformed into bite-size videos lasting three to four minutes. “We’re even looking into introducing graphical animation to our lessons,” adds Paul, which he is confident will help pupils to learn more effectively and aid memory retention.
Beneficial to children of all abilities, the tool will offer a series of interactive complementary exercises that they complete at their own pace. After a student has finished each short task, an alert is then pinged to their parents, allowing guardians to check on their progress and therefore feel more involved. “Every child has unique and individual potential,” explains Paul, “and we want to help it to grow and evolve.”
The company founder is dedicated to encouraging parents to support their child’s learning journey, and creating this easy-to-use resource with curriculum-appropriate lessons is a huge step: “One of the challenges for many parents is knowing how to teach and support their children; a lot has changed since they were in school,” Paul sympathises. “Good2Learn fits in as a bridge between what parents can confidently do in terms of support, and how much attention and time schools can realistically commit to.”
This is why Good2Learn has adopted a digital approach, which Paul believes is the future of education: “Being digital gives us a wider scope for student engagement”, he enthusiastically explains. “I’m not a technical person myself, so being based at the C4DI has had huge benefits in terms of receiving support and insight from fellow members.”
“For me, just having a few informed conversations has steered the start-up in different ways to how I originally planned. The main thing I would recommend to new members is to make the most of the people here. As they say, it’s the people who make the place.”
Looking forward, the rest of the year is set to be very busy as Paul and his team fine-tune their initial lessons and distribute them to children for a test run: “We have a number of schools and institutions already working with us on the project, so it’s all very exciting.”
To find out more about Good2Learn, or if you know a parent or school that will be interested in the platform, please visit www.good2learn.com
