Carole Fletcher and Robert Hart

Virtual Entrepreneurs with Children in their Hearts

“I think society has forgotten that children are people. They are sociable, creative and clever – but as adults we hold them back, keep them ‘in their place.’ Our work is about trying to change that – to encourage creativity and to allow children to take responsibility for their own learning. The results are amazing!”

The words of Carole Fletcher, who for 20 years, with her husband and business partner Robert Hart, has pioneered internet-based learning for children and teenagers – chalking up success after success including a Bafta for their work in online learning.

Their global business spans nearly 50 countries and works with thousands of schools around the world. Eminent authors, artists, scientists, publishers and politicians support it, and teenagers now use the evidence of their online work and references from online mediators to secure places in further and higher education.

In October the couple will run the first ever online literary festival for children – Kids Lit 09 – building on the success of their Young Author of the Year competition in 2008, which saw children’s stories published in an anthology sponsored by Scholastic.

But this business empire is not based in London or New York – it has its home in a stone cottage over-looking the Higher Ferry at Kingswear. And according to Robert and Carole it’s the perfect place from which to run a company with aspiration and creativity at its heart.

“We love it here! The Dart is inspirational and every day we tell each other how lucky we are to be here. In such a beautiful place our ideas flow thick and fast – we wouldn’t want to be anywhere else,” Robert said.

Occasionally a trip to London is necessary, but Carole explained: “We love the contrast. I meet so many interesting people on the train who, like me, are heading back to their haven in Devon. It’s like a little club. We put on a suit for the day but it feels odd when normally we work in casual clothes, relaxed and happy at home.”

At the core of Bob and Carole’s business is Intuitive Media, an online learning company which incorporates the safe social networking sites SuperClubsPLUS and GoldStarCafe, open only to school children and their teachers, and ruthlessly scrutinised by trained mediators and technical experts to prevent bullying, inappropriate content and especially infiltration by undesirable adults masquerading as youngsters.

This virtual company does not have an office and employs a team of staff based in their homes all around the UK and in Australia and Canada. Meetings are held in the Midlands when face to face contact is needed, but more often happen via skype and e-conferencing between kitchen tables, attic desks and garden benches!

Both former primary school head teachers, Robert and Carole met in 1982 when they taught a class together at a school in Hertfordshire. For 20 years they lived near Bakewell in the Peak District and early on in their relationship realised they both wanted to leave teaching careers increasingly restrained by targets, national curriculum and strategies.

Carole said: “I knew I wanted to be a teacher when I was just five years old, because I loved school! What we do now is like running a huge school online. We want children to have a great learning adventure and by giving them opportunities to join our communities we are able to encourage them to develop their learning and aspire to achieve the most that they can.

“It was a big decision for us to come out of teaching but something we knew we had to do.”

Any child who has used a computer in school has Robert and Carole to thank. As consultants for education authorities, the Government and for Apple, Robert and Carole guided teachers through a new world as the internet went into schools in the mid nineties, joining forces with Tesco to launch SchoolNet 2000.

Robert explained: “It was huge - the first time school children had been able to publish their own web page without using any code. The work of the children formed the centre of the Learning Zone in the Millennium Dome in 2000, and after 2000 Tesco handed SchoolNet to us.

“We worked with 18,000 UK schools to show teachers how to use computers to help children learn, and we advised the Government. It was an exciting time.”

The growing culture of online networking and chat rooms, and its more sinister underbelly of intimidation, grooming of children and abuse, led Robert and Carole to launch their social networking sites, with child safety as key.

On her laptop at her kitchen table, Carole took me on an online tour. More than 1,100 children were logged in that morning as she showed me how children build not just a profile page but whole websites of their own, communicate with friends all over the world, work on projects linked to their education in school, become involved with global campaigns through organisations such as the NSPCC and RSPCA, and interview inspirational adults via an online hot seat.

“All the time they are writing, whether talking to each other, writing articles, completing activities. The quality is so exceptional it inspired us to launch the annual Young Author competition, and now the Kids Lit festival,” said Carole.

“Children lead the activities – researching their favourite books and authors, writing stories, sharing information, with some ultimately having their work published. During our book week a different author will be in our hot seat every day to be grilled by the children online.”

A desire to see work in print prompted Robert and Carole to form their own publishing company, Little Angel Press. Its first title was Robert’s debut novel, Rebecca’s Secrets, and the Young Author of the Year 2008 Shortlisted Stories followed, with a foreward by children’s author Jacqueline Wilson. Little Angel is about to launch Imagine, a short novel by 12-year-old SuperClubsPLUS user Anjit Tandahar, from Nepal.

Robert said: “Anjit’s book is an amazing look at the world through his imaginative eyes, and as our company evolves we hope to publish more like this.

“All we ever wanted was to encourage children by giving them a voice – and by making sure they know someone is listening.”

First published September 2009 By the Dart

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