Member Article

Business lenders give green light to school system

A new system that tracks children’s behaviour and their educational journey has been given the green light thanks to a £40k loan from the Business Enterprise Fund.

Leeds-based Trackit Lights is an interactive behavioural management system, used by schools to display child behaviour using the traditional ‘traffic lights’ method; students are rated green for good behaviour, amber for a warning and red for low level behaviour.

Founder and former teaching assistant Oliver Brandon-Davies created the software out of a frustration with traditional behavioural management systems that he felt weren’t engaging the children enough.

He said: “I became familiar with the traffic light system for rating behaviour but it was a display placed on classroom walls which I didn’t believe the children were looking at actively. This system wasn’t very engaging and I wanted to create a dynamic and motivational system where the children could actively track their behaviour progression and aspire to watch their ‘green’ points increase.”

The system was developed in Little London primary school in Leeds and Oliver, along with his father, Graham Davies applied for a BEF loan to invest in the development of software and have since taken on a part-time computer sciences university student to support the team.

Julie Micklethwaite, investment manager at BEF, said: “This system is highly useful for schools and it was great to work with Oliver and Graham who are equally passionate about education and technology. At BEF, we are dedicated to helping business that have an impact on the next generation so we were delighted to support the Trackit Lights team.”

Oliver Brandon-Davies added: “The BEF application was extremely clear and Julie explained everything in detail. The loan and support has helped us greatly and we’re looking forward to raising the brand’s profile through marketing methods and developing the software to create more functionality for users. We’ve already had a report from a secondary school which has seen a 50% reduction in low level behaviour since using Trackit Lights.”

Social enterprise Business Enterprise Fund offers funding and advice to business across Yorkshire and the North East, offering loans with support from the Start Up Loans Company and the British Business Bank.

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