Built from experience inside schools
RAISE Consulting combines nearly 24 years in education with practical experience across teaching, leadership, timetabling, MIS, SharePoint, data, AI and school operations.
The work is grounded in how schools actually function: limited time, competing priorities, fragmented systems and the need for solutions that staff can understand, use and sustain.
Why RAISE exists
Schools often have capable people working around systems that are fragmented, manual, underused, or dependent on knowledge held by one person.
RAISE grew from Ben's experience of seeing those problems first-hand and building practical ways to address them: clearer data, better workflows, usable digital platforms and responsible use of technology.
The aim is not to introduce technology for its own sake. It is to help schools solve real problems, reduce unnecessary workload, and create systems that continue working after the initial project ends.
Meet Ben Ford
Founder and Education Systems Consultant
Ben has worked in education since 2003, including nine years as Head of Mathematics, with classroom and department-leadership experience across both state and independent schools.
Alongside full-time teaching, Ben previously worked as a SIMS Administrator, managing the educational side of the school's MIS, including reporting and timetabling, while also supporting admissions and cover supervision. That included three years of direct timetabling responsibility, and he has since learned and supported the timetable and MIS process in a substantially larger secondary school.
Since then, Ben has built whole-school SharePoint platforms, Power BI dashboards, workflow systems, attendance and inclusion systems and AI-supported learning tools. The work has stayed grounded in current school practice throughout.
What experience inside schools changes
Understand the real problem
RAISE looks beyond the initial request to understand the workflow, people, constraints and desired outcome.
Work with school context
Solutions are designed around the organisation's existing systems, culture, capacity and priorities.
Build, not just advise
RAISE can move from analysis and recommendations into practical implementation.
Embed and document
Systems are explained, documented and supported so they do not remain dependent on one outside expert.
How RAISE works
Clarity over complexity
Make systems and decisions easier to understand and act upon.
Ethical judgement
Protect privacy, professional responsibility, fairness and safeguarding.
Collaboration in context
Build with the people who understand the organisation, not around them.
Sustainable capability
Help staff understand, maintain and continue improving the solution.
Bring the problem. Start with a conversation.
Whether the challenge involves attendance, data, workflow, reporting, Microsoft 365, AI or a process that has outgrown its current system, the first step is understanding what is really getting in the way.