Issue 1: A Briefing on Creative Thinking and the Business of Education
A creative call for national service, the legal battle against AI’s dark design, and RM plc’s £13.5m move to reshape assessment and strategy.
OPINION / Creativity
💬 Jonathan Lloyd
Sir John Hegarty, the advertising entrepreneur, recently called for the return of national service. But not the kind you’re thinking of. His version? Art school.
He imagines giving every young person a camera or a paintbrush, not a smartphone, and a year to explore, experiment, and create. I like his idea. It is easy to forget the role of creativity as digital media continues to crawl into more aspects of our lives. But I sense a slow shift starting. A pushback. A rediscovery of creative skills as essential, not optional.
If I were to build on Hegarty’s vision, I’d add time outdoors, trips, and service in the local community. Because our best ideas often come not from screens, but from being out in the world observing, listening, connecting and thinking.
As the noise from Silicon Valley’s AI PR machine grows louder, maybe the most important thing we can all do is this: be creative. Design your own version of national service for yourself, your students, your family.
This month, I’ve dusted off my pen and finally hit send on the first version of the updated Class Futures Briefing. Thank you for your patience. I hope you enjoy it. I’ll be using this newsletter to explore creative thinking alongside the changing sector of education, technology and business
BOOKS / AI
Dark Patterns, Deceptive Design, and the Law by Mark Leiser.
According to my local bookshop, this new release by Leiser was “a bit too specialist” to order in, and I get it. While the book offers sharp insights into dark patterns and AI powered deception, it quickly dives into the legal weeds such as GDPR, the Digital Services Act, and the EU AI Act. Yes, I’ve probably lost you already.
But for the educators, policy watchers, and design minded among you, it’s worth a look. Leiser discusses how regulators are scrambling to keep pace with the deceptive design tricks engineered into the interfaces we use every day. If you care about how students (and the rest of us) are nudged, manipulated, or misled online, this is essential reading. Another recommended starting point is Watter’s work on teaching machines.
Prefer to listen? It’s also available as an audiobook. View and order at Bloomsbury.
And yes, I’d love to hear your thoughts.
ARCHIVE / Podcast
INVESTMENT / RM PLC
Over a coffee with a friend who works in the City of London, I was intrigued to hear that RM plc has raised a cool £13.5 million to accelerate its AI assessment platform, Ava. I once taught an Ava, and of course, creative Alex Garland named the AI in his science fiction film Ex Machina Ava as well.
So why do so many AI edtech projects use names like this? Is it a lack of imagination, a desire to play it safe, or simply uncertainty?
The advertising process relies on taking a detailed brief from a client on its strategy. From this, you can uncover the intelligence that drives the creative design process. What is the story behind RM plc in 2025? What are its values? What does it stand for in a rapidly changing education landscape? What are key issues to focus on?
In the story behind the famous Vorsprung durch Technik advert for Audi, the catchphrase was taken from a faded poster on a factory wall in Germany. It would be fascinating to have a tour of the offices of RM plc. I remember the RM computer in my primary classroom in the 1990s, and I am sure some incredible advertising could be designed for its AI Ava product. Something that speaks to teachers, not just investors.
EdTech should be more maverick, more imaginative. What teacher really wants an assessment tool called Ava? To make real change, you need truth, trust, and a creative idea. It has to feel like it belongs in the classroom, not just the boardroom.
As I paused to reflect on the idea of feeding exam papers into a machine, I couldn’t help but picture Bertha, the cheerful factory robot from 1980s children’s TV. That is a name. Or perhaps it is just the beginning.
“At Manchester, my rule is I don’t look at their work. We read great books, and we talk about them.”
/ Martin Amis on his teaching approach at the University of Manchester