The founder, not a salesman. Three schools learning together, not in isolation. And a whole island reminded why a love of writing matters.
This week, we welcomed Simon Blower, co-founder of Pobble, to the Isle of Man. And while it would be easy to write this up as a lovely school visit – which it was – that would miss the bigger story. Because what actually unfolded over these few days was a small, living example of something I care about deeply: what becomes possible when schools stop working in isolation and start working together.
Let me explain why this one mattered so much to me.
A long relationship, brought home
I first brought Pobble into my schools years ago. I was a school leader looking for something that did one deceptively difficult thing well: get children to want to write. Not to comply with a writing task, but to genuinely want to put their ideas on the page. Pobble did that, through striking visual stimulus and a simple, repeatable structure that teachers could pick up and run with. I also needed something to help develop writing moderation across my schools – again, Pobble had a solution,
It worked. And it stuck. In several of the schools I have led, Pobble became embedded, legacy practice – including previous schools where, even after I moved on, it is still going strong. That is one of the quiet markers of good leadership, I think. Not what happens while you are there, but what remains after you have gone.
So securing Pobble across my current schools, and then hosting Simon here in person to work with our children, our staff and our wider Island community, felt like the natural next chapter of a long relationship. Bringing it home, in a sense.
And for Simon, this was personal too. As the son of a Manx Man, visiting the Island to work with our school leaders, teachers and pupils had been a wish of his for years. There was something rather lovely about helping to make that happen – a man returning to his roots to do the work he loves.
Laxey hosts, and the children write
Laxey was proud to host the week. Simon delivered his brilliant “Literacy Through Sport” sessions to our Year 5 and 6 children, themed this year around the World Cup. The timing could not have been better.
I have written before about the human edge in education – the things that great teaching does that no system, scheme or algorithm can replicate. Watching Simon work is a masterclass in one of them. Children who can sometimes find writing a chore were suddenly desperate to get their ideas onto the page, because the hook was something they already loved. That is the whole art of teaching writing, and the proof was in the books by the end of the day: the vocabulary, the energy, the sheer pride in what they had produced.
Get the stimulus right, and children who “don’t like writing” discover that they rather do.
The power of learning together
Here is the part I valued most, and the part that speaks to how I think about leadership across more than one school.
Staff from Willaston and Scoill yn Jubilee joined our Laxey team at various points over the week with the aim to “Make Writing Exciting.” Three schools, in one room, learning together.
This matters more than it might first appear. Too often, schools improve in isolation. Each one solves the same problems separately, develops its own language, builds its own practice, and rarely gets the chance to learn alongside its neighbours. As an Executive Headteacher across multiple schools, one of the things I believe most strongly is that this isolation is a waste. When schools learn together, something powerful happens. They develop shared practice, a shared language, and a shared ambition. The good ideas travel faster. The standard rises across all of them, not just one.
A one-off visit can inspire children for a day. Great CPD, shared across a family of schools, changes practice for years. The real prize of this week was never the single assembly or the single lesson. It was what our teachers, across three schools, will now use again and again, long after the World Cup theme has moved on.
And we went wider still. We were delighted to host Simon’s session for Literacy Leads from across the Island, bringing many schools together in one room. On a small island, that kind of collaboration is not just nice to have. It is the whole game. Collaboration over competition, every single time.
A word about how Pobble does business
I want to say something about Pobble as a company, because in an education market full of products being sold hard to busy schools, the way they operate stood out.
Yes, there is a product. And it is high quality. But rather than sending a salesman with a slide deck, we got the founder. Simon took the time to connect with senior leaders, with teachers, with governors, and with children. He met colleagues from a whole host of schools. He focused on collaboration rather than transaction. He tailored everything to our specific Isle of Man context rather than delivering a generic pitch. He led CPD, joined a staff meeting, worked directly with children, and made a genuine, noticeable impact on a school – and on a group of schools – in a remarkably short space of time.
That is how you build trust with schools. Not by selling to them, but by serving them. It is a lesson that reaches well beyond education.
What the week was really about
Simon told me he didn’t want to leave Laxey. Given his Manx roots, and the fact that he has worked with schools all over the world, that meant a great deal to us.
But stepping back, this week was about something bigger than any one school, or any one product, or any one visit. It was about what happens when you lead beyond your own four walls. When you bring schools together rather than leaving them to struggle alone. When you treat a small island not as a limitation, but as the perfect size for genuine, joined-up collaboration.
We inspired children to love writing. We invested in our teachers across three schools. We brought Literacy Leads from across the Island into one room. And we reminded ourselves why this work matters: because a child who learns to love writing carries that with them for life.
Manx Maxim is the blog of Max Kelly – Executive Headteacher, Isle of Man. Built for leadership.
