Ten Points began with a teacher who wanted every child to feel they belonged – and the conviction that the small moments of school life are the ones that shape it.
Every teacher knows the moment. The quiet child who finally puts a hand up. A difficult week that turns on one kind word. The small things that never make the data – and make all the difference.
The problem
Ten Points began in the classroom, with a teacher who kept noticing those moments slip past unrecorded. The systems schools already had were good at counting what went wrong – sanctions logged, points docked, a child reduced to a running total of their worst days. The good stuff lived only in a teacher’s memory, and memory doesn’t scale. Wellbeing had the same blind spot: noticed when it broke, rarely before.
Schools were rich in moments and poor in memory. We wanted to close that gap.
The people
Ryan had spent years in classrooms and senior leadership across large international schools. James had spent a career building technology for some of the world’s largest organisations. One of them knew what a Monday morning feels like; the other knew how to build something that could carry a whole school. Between them sat a single conviction: that recognising the good, out loud and in the moment, is the most underused tool in education – and that wellbeing belongs in the same conversation as behaviour, not in a folder beside it.
The build
One place where reward and reflection, wellbeing and insight live together. Where a point awarded in a corridor becomes a signal a parent sees, a pattern a head of year can act on, and a small piece of a child’s growing story. We were just as deliberate about what to leave out – no feature that adds friction to a teacher’s day earns its place. The best behaviour tool is the one that gets used a hundred times before lunch.
The name
Every teacher knows the sound of it – a point awarded out loud, a tally that ticks up where the whole room can see. Recognition, made public and made to count. It is one of the oldest ideas in schools, and one of the most underused. Belonging is built the same way: in points, small and frequent and visible, not grand gestures. Award enough of them, to enough children, and a class stops being a group of individuals and starts becoming a we.
The proof
In 2025, Ten Points won Rising Star: Start-Up of the Year at the GESS Education Awards. And when inspectors rated one school Outstanding for wellbeing and behaviour, they named Ten Points in the report. We don’t dwell on it, but it mattered. What matters more is what schools tell us, in different words: the children look like they want to be there. That’s the whole point. One at a time.
The schools we work with started the same way – a conversation about the children they wanted to reach sooner. Whether it’s one classroom or all of them, tell us a little about your school and we’ll find a time that suits you.
Your message is on its way to the Ten Points team. We’ll be in touch soon to find a time that works for you.