Weeknote 21/2025: Experts, gems, and unexpected solutions
Hello!
Sometimes, a few days deliver enough insights to fill weeks of reflection. A few weeks ago now, I celebrated my return to work after the operation by choosing to fly to London to absorb Esports expertise at Ibstock Place School. This event, finding new places to enjoy with my family and learning that my beloved Pocket service is shutting down, are highlights from an eventful seven days!
Learning from the experts: Esports in Secondary Education
I think that needs to be the title of any future conference on this topic.
On Friday 16th, I travelled down to London (yes, you might give me a lot of side-eye at this point and, frankly, it is deserved), navigating myriad planes and trains (not automobiles) to arrive at Ibstock Place School to hear how they have successfully established Esports in their school environment.
The copious pages scribbled in my notebook are a testament to the amount of useful information I gathered on my visit.
Amy Cartwright and Jacob Southwood challenged my viewpoint on how Esports should be delivered as an extra-curricular option, working with parents to carefully balance screen time and lead sessions with a coaching focus. Jacob, in particular, clearly described the difference between “Esports” and “gaming”, something which I’ve attempted to paraphrase here:
When coaching Esports, there should be planned sessions with clear goals, a mixture of drills, analysis and feedback to help students make progress. It should be fun learning that encourages students to improve, not “play as you like” - that’s gaming.
Sarah Finch, the school’s director of safeguarding, outlined the well-considered risks and safeguarding controls required when allowing students access to Esports in the school environment. She highlighted that support from the British Esports Community was invaluable and shared information about a new Esports Safeguarding course that is available from the British Esports website.
Ben Ogden and Nik Turner from Yoyotech shared their expertise around planning and constructing an Esports lab or arena. I was very impressed with their furniture design, which you can see in the image above. Something else I hadn’t known about was the software GGCircuit, which manages and monitors access to the Esports titles. In my planning for an upgrade of the Computing facilities at my school, allowing the room to be used considerately for external bookings was high on the priority list. GGCircuit manages this too, even down to taking payments, booking timeslots and choosing the titles users have access to.
I also really enjoyed the chance to speak with students at the school about their Esports experiences so far and what benefits and drawbacks they found. They answered questions honestly and impartially, sharing their experiences eloquently. Simply put, they were a credit to their school. I was also able to speak with the University of Roehampton about the strategic value of an Esports society at their establishment, and learn about the Esports scholarship they offer which empowers students skilled in Esports titles to gain a funded education in their chosen area (it doesn’t have to be Computing related and there is no Esports curriculum at Roehampton). This has, over the past 8 years, directly generated around £1m income for the university!
All too quickly, the conference was over and I was on my way to Heathrow for the late night flight home. Once there I took advantage of reduced-rate lounge access to get some food, gather my thoughts and construct a to-do list. Finances allowing, there is definite whole school value in introducing Esports into your secondary school, and there is a supportive community of educators ready to share best practice. If you are on a similar journey, please don’t hesitate to get in touch and I’ll help where I can.
When I reflect on the cost of tech conferences, especially in Scotland, tickets to these can cost many hundreds of pounds before you factor in travel. Ibstock Place School offered their expertise for the bargain sum of £60 per ticket and, with a bit of creative travel planning, I managed to budget the whole day into well under £300. I was exhausted, and it was certainly a challenge after my recent operation, but I was incredibly pleased to have attended. Thank you for an excellent event, Ibstock Place School!
Food and drink
Beyond the professional insights, the travel itself offered up lessons in expectations versus reality. I’d perhaps overanticipated my trip to the Plaza Premium Lounge at Heathrow Terminal 5. Apart from the much-needed phone charging sockets, it was incredibly busy and had limited food and drink options. It may have been the time of day, or the fact that many international flights were delayed, but it didn’t really feel special.
The reverse was true the previous week when I visited Gate63 at NESCol in Aberdeen with my partner, son and mum. We were treated to an amazing meal at a pretty impressive price per head, actually cheaper than the cost of the ticket to the Heathrow lounge! Gate63 is a training restaurant that gives college students experience in cooking and serving. It’s a brilliant resource, and we could see it was very well managed by the teaching staff. Our waitress was slightly anxious and was quite hard on her own performance, but we could hear the gentle support she was getting from her colleagues and managers as the evening progressed. We had an excellent time - and an excellent feed! It was our first time there, and it comes highly recommended!
There may be (reading) trouble ahead
This week, I learned about the imminent shutdown of another read-later service: the beloved and well-used Pocket.
Previous weeknote readers will know that I use this a lot. It’s essentially the backbone of my newsletter reading system. My Kobo pulls articles from Pocket. I subscribe to the fantastic Read Email Later service too, in order to funnel Substacks and other subscriptions into Pocket.
Everyone who owns a Kobo and uses the Pocket integration is currently running around looking for a new service. I discovered that you can install KOreader on the Kobo without overwriting the firmware. Essentially, it exists on the Kobo as a book, but runs a script when you tap on it that changes the UI and allows you to access even more features. I’m still in the exploration phase at the moment (which does mean I’m not getting through my newsletters, but I’ll catch up next week), but what I’ve seen so far is pretty impressive! If you want to know more, watch this video!
KOreader has an integration with something called Wallabag. I had never heard of it before. It’s a read-later service that you can self-host or choose to use a hosted version for around 11 euros a year. I signed up for the 14 day free trial and will report back in the next weeknote.
This appears to be a problem that already has a workable, if more convoluted, solution.
Distilling my notes from the Esports conference, looking back at my photographs from Gate63 and reflecting on my search for a solution to Pocket’s imminent demise led me to spot a common thread: whatever the question, there are communities out there ready to help and someone who has already figured out what you’re struggling with. The trick is knowing where to look and, in certain situations, being willing to make the journey to learn from them.
Take care and have a great week! xx