In short
Performance Learning was founded in 2013 by Dr Tej Samani, who competed on the ATP Tour as a professional tennis player before turning to education. He spent more than a decade coaching learners the system had written off, focusing on how they feel, behave and believe. Performance Learning turned that coaching into a diagnostic and personalised learning system used across the UK.
How did Performance Learning begin?
Performance Learning began on the ground, not in a boardroom. Our founder, Dr Tej Samani, spent more than a decade coaching learners who had been written off by the system: young people who were failing in education, disengaged from learning and overlooked by traditional interventions.
Before he worked in education, Tej competed on the ATP Tour as a professional tennis player. Today, Performance Learning teaches young people how to learn with a method inspired by elite sport, and it is changing the lives of pupils and parents from Scarborough to Eton.
What made the approach different?
Instead of focusing on content, Tej focused on what most systems miss:
- Feelings: how learners feel about learning
- Behaviour: how they behave in learning environments
- Belief: putting a learner’s belief in themselves before their performance
That approach worked over and over again. But one coach could only reach so many learners. So we built a system that could scale.
From one-to-one coaching to a nationwide system
Dr Tej founded Performance Learning in 2013. What started as one-to-one coaching became a diagnostic and personalised learning system. Pupils take an assessment that captures how they feel, think and behave in learning, and then follow personalised learning online and through coaching. Today the system is used by:
- state schools and pupil referral units (PRUs)
- independent schools such as Eton College and Rugby School
- colleges across the UK
- multi-academy trusts that want a consistent approach across their schools
Families use it too, through the Foresight assessment, SOAR online learning, the Virtual Classroom with PL and one-to-one coaching with Dr Tej. You can see the results schools and students report on our impact page.
Built on research
From the start, Tej tested the approach with universities. He has partnered with UCL Institute of Education, Oxford Brookes University and Coventry University, and has co-authored peer-reviewed research on how students’ own views of their learning relate to their results.
| Year | Milestone |
|---|---|
| 2013 | Dr Tej Samani founds Performance Learning |
| 2017 | Dr Tej is first author of a paper on Performance Learning at the International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIED 2017) |
| 2017 | Dr Tej speaks at the Global Education & Skills Forum |
| 2018 | Researchers at UCL and Performance Learning publish a study of students’ self-reports and exam outcomes at AIED 2018 |
| 2021 | A case study of Performance Learning in UK further education is published by Springer |
| 2024 | An article led by Professor Michael Thomas reports Performance Learning data from Dr Tej’s doctoral research |
Students using Performance Learning improved by an average of 2.4 grades against their predicted grades (Thomas et al., 2024, an analysis of 940 students led by Birkbeck’s Centre for Educational Neuroscience). Our research page explains each study in plain English, including what it can and cannot tell you.
Why we do it
We are here to change how people think about underperformance. It is not always about intelligence. It is about perception, belief and behaviour.
We don’t wait for learners to fail before we support them. We identify early, act quickly and build systems that restore belief and deliver results. In practice, that means we:
- help learners understand themselves
- help educators support them with clarity
- help schools and trusts deliver progress with confidence
“Self-perception is the single most important performance variable. Change that, and everything else changes.” Dr Tej Samani, Founder and CEO
Meet the people behind the story
Performance Learning is led by a team with expertise in education, technology, neuroscience and behavioural science, supported by special advisors including Professor Michael Thomas of Birkbeck, University of London. Meet them on our about us page, or read more about our founder on Dr Tej Samani’s profile.
Frequently asked questions
When was Performance Learning founded, and by whom?
Performance Learning was founded in 2013 by Dr Tej Samani, who is its Founder and CEO. Before founding the company, Dr Tej competed on the ATP Tour as a professional tennis player. He went on to spend more than a decade coaching young people who were failing in education or disengaged from learning, and researching how pupils learn.
Why is Performance Learning's method inspired by elite sport?
Performance Learning describes its way of teaching young people how to learn as a method inspired by elite sport, and its founder, Dr Tej Samani, competed as a professional tennis player before working in education. The approach gives as much attention to how a learner feels, thinks about themselves and behaves under pressure as to what they know.
What does 'from Scarborough to Eton' mean?
It sums up the range of young people Performance Learning works with. The same approach is used by state schools and pupil referral units, by colleges and multi-academy trusts, and by independent schools such as Eton College and Rugby School. Whatever the setting, the focus is the same: helping pupils understand how they learn and what is holding them back.
How did Performance Learning grow from one-to-one coaching?
Dr Tej's one-to-one coaching worked again and again, but it could not reach enough learners. So Performance Learning built a system that could: a diagnostic assessment that captures how pupils feel and behave in learning, followed by personalised learning online and coaching. That system is now used by parents, state and independent schools, colleges and multi-academy trusts across the UK.
What does Performance Learning believe about underperformance?
Performance Learning believes underperformance is not always about intelligence. Often it is about perception, belief and behaviour. That is why it aims to identify barriers early, act quickly and build systems that restore belief and deliver results, rather than waiting for learners to fail before supporting them. In Dr Tej's words, self-perception is the single most important performance variable.
