Testimonials

Saqib developed an extremely useful live Tableau dashboard for the team, analysing and visualising our course attendance and booking data. He faced numerous technical challenges and roadblocks but demonstrated great project management and problem-solving abilities to deliver an excellent tool that I rely on weekly. Multiple former members of staff have attempted to create this over the years with no success - Saqib got it done within 9 months.

Having mentored Saqib through my Digital Teaching and Learning Online course, I can confidently say that he has a clear and pragmatic understanding of the key elements required in the design and implementation of technology in education. Saqib is passionate about his work and is a thoughtful and dedicated educationalist who can bridge the gap between technology and learning. He comes well recommended.

Saqib successfully led a digital transformation programme at TIBHS and took us to achieve Microsoft Showcase School status. When he started with us in Sept 2019, our goal was to improve pupil outcomes to become the top-performing boys' school for progress 8 in the country again, and I wanted EdTech to be one of many strategies we used to get there. Our focus us primarily on the ‘marginal gains’ to extract the odd 1 – 3% here and there. As a school we realised that there was a real focus on ‘zero loss to learning in school’ and offered additional after school and weekend interventions, but wanted to utilise late evenings and early mornings adopting a culture of 24/7 anywhere, anytime learning. He established excellent rapport with all the stakeholders. He brought all staff along with him, turned many of them into digital champions and was able to implement the use of EdTech across several curriculum areas to improve teaching, learning and assessment. Staff Notebook completely transformed all our meetings and we developed the use of Class Notebook for lesson delivery reducing both workload and costs. We adopted an agile approach to strategy development and implementation under his guidance in which we had room to experiment and find what works for us. He supported me in pioneering our SSOFT approach, in which we integrated the use of MS Sway, Stream, OneNote, Forms and Teams for the running of our school. It did not stop there. To help with operational excellence, a universal template on One Note using the OFSTED Criteria was adopted to capture all the minutes at whatever level, including SLT to individual 1 to 1 Line Management Meetings. In addition, to help with workload, MS Planner is used effectively as is Power Bi to review and analyse data in a sophisticated manner. When COVID-19 lockdown hit we were miles ahead of other schools in terms of delivering remote learning; our success story was noted by the DfE and later we also won the national ICT Facility Award sponsored by Fijitsu. He went on to innovate with initiatives such as Minecraft Education for teaching pupils to code and develop 21st-century skills. We subsequently became the first school in the North West to develop digital literacy through Minecraft Coding Credentials and also became a Microsoft Exam Centre so our pupils leave Microsoft certified. We knew it would never be an easy journey, but under Saqib's direction, I always knew we were in safe hands. He comes highly recommended. We achieved the MS Showcase School Status by almost default as we had an Ed Tech Strategy and we pursued it as a school – Saqib was at the helm and steered the ship in an excellent, coherent fashion.Thankyou Saqib for all your support.

Saqib has created the conditions for genuine culture change, ready to leverage the full advantage of digital innovation in his college. Winning traction and respect from senior leadership, creating a positive working relationship with academic heads and nurturing staff talent, he has opened the way for new technology to be accepted. In a short time Saqib worked powerfully with suppliers to introduce Canvas VLE, Microsoft 365, Surfaces for staff, transforming the possibilities for innovative, mobile, creative teaching, learning and assessment. I recommend Saqib as a highly effective leader in digital innovation.

Saqib worked with me at Star Academies. He was instrumental in getting us set up well for remote teaching and ran numerous highly accessible training sessions to support staff in this challenging period.

As the director of Cloud Design Box, I worked closely with Saqib at the Harris Foundation on the SharePoint and Teams implementation for their pilot schools. Saqib was tireless in his forward-planning on everything from site architecture to CPD and governance. He worked hard with key stakeholders to record their views and preferences in order to secure user adoption and trust within the project. Saqib has impressed me with his high attention to detail, his enthusiasm for driving digital strategies, and for his willingness to roll his sleeves up to move a project forwards. Saqib is well respected and trusted by the teachers he works with, able to stimulate the interests of the most tech-savvy teachers while also encouraging less confident colleagues to achieve positive outcomes. Helping to define scalable strategies for rollout and CPD, we feel Saqib has been pivotal in the pilot stage of this project.

Saqib is a true visionary and before the pandemic trained all our staff in the art of digital learning. Back in 2018, he devised a comprehensive training package at DLD College London which enabled all our staff to become Microsoft Innovative Educators (MIE) - a status that recognises educators who are using technology to pave the way for their peers for better learning and student outcomes. This was transformational work and of course, during the pandemic, it was priceless. Whilst other schools were scrambling around with their systems, we literally flicked a switch and went completely online within minutes - the Canvas LMS implementation which Saqib had masterminded was up and running allowing the students (and staff) to have a rich online learning experience. We have a lot to thank Saqib for his work at DLD and the powerful legacy he leaves behind - we still talk about him with great affection. He is a patient and diligent colleague who keeps the students at the heart of his thinking whilst being progressive and innovative. He is one that does not stand still and is always looking at ways to make teaching more efficient and easier for staff. He has the power to bring colleagues with him - a rare quality and it won’t be long before he is running his own school. Saqib is one serious talent!