About Anspear
Anspear is a learning and technology company reshaping higher and further education through expert-led learning experience design. In partnership with educators and institutions, we’re setting new benchmarks for accessibility, effectiveness, and affordability in online learning.
Mission and values
Our mission is to create the ideal distance learning model for universities and lead a transformation in how courses are delivered. As specialists in learning design, we’ve developed an innovative approach centred on AI-driven feedback. We work alongside our partners to deliver accessible, effective and inspiring learning experiences – empowering every learner with the confidence and opportunity to thrive in higher education. We are strongly guided by our company values:
Learner-first approach: we prioritise learners’ needs, experiences, and outcomes in everything we do.
Commitment to excellence: we focus relentlessly on delivering engaging, active and memorable learning experiences.
Innovation and progress: we embrace new technologies and methodologies to enhance education.
Equitable learning for all: we strive to make education accessible to under-served and disadvantaged groups, ensuring learning opportunities for everyone.
Our history
Founded as Pearson Publishing in 1991, Anspear has a long-standing commitment to educational innovation and impact. George Pearson has spent over 30 years advancing digital education and collaborating with leading organisations to deliver exceptional results. In 2014, we began developing our nimbl learning platform, which has since enabled us to design and deliver a wide range of bespoke programmes and training libraries. These have strengthened professional practice across UK education. Today, Anspear applies its technology and expertise in partnership with universities and training organisations nationwide.
Our Team
Anspear is a family-run business with experienced leadership and a dedicated team of specialists in education, technology and learning design.
An experienced product manager, Charlie has spent many years leading the development of Anspear's learning platform, seeing it through major customisations and redesigns. Charlie also works hard to make sure our technology is deployed and works smoothly in all our projects.
A former teacher, Ed has devised our learning model and design principles and leads our learning designers on major content development projects. He and his team work closely with our partners and students to design effective and enjoyable learning experiences.
George founded Anspear as Pearson Publishing in 1991, spending more than 30 years leading the company through many changes and technology trends. He now heads up sales and manages our most important strategic partnerships.
Hanna has managed our Virtual School product for several years, fostering partnerships with VSs around the country and supporting countless training projects. Hanna also works to support students on our BA programmes and Introduction to Academic Writing, making sure that their studies run smoothly.
Jacquie makes it her business to know all of our school and teacher training customers and know what they need before they do. She provides tireless support for users of our training products.
James has had multiple roles at Anspear and is almost certainly the only member of the team who knows how everything works. James mostly focuses on devising effective quizzes and AI writing activities for our learning material but also offers skilled support around the edges of our learning projects.
Jay joined the team to support our graphic design but soon decided he preferred words to pictures. Jay now munches through weeks and weeks of learning material from our authors, rigorously applying our learning design principles to craft transcripts that meet our high standards.
Jon's day job is dependable graphic design for our marketing material and fine illustration for our learning material. He'll take on any challenge and devise a creative solution. He never fails to make an illustrated birthday card for his colleagues and is the only person in the office who knows how to print anything.
Laura is the newest member of the team. She takes our final learning transcripts and rapidly turns them into interactive, multimedia online learning modules using our in-house authroing tool. Being from Luxembourg she also speaks so many languages it's just showing off.
Lesley comes from a purist learning design background and has taught us a thing or two already. She is fiercely committed to our degree projects and crafting clear, accessible and effective courses of study. She also lives on a boat.
Lucy used to be a Maths teacher so is no stranger to pedagogical principles. She applies them assiduously to our BA degrees, transforming two-dimensional scripts into something people can actually learn from. Quietly and with no fuss or fanfare, Lucy has done most work before anyone knew it needed doing.
Matt is extremely experienced in the ways of design and the ways of Anspear. He has been the principle UI/UX designer for our learning platform since its beginning. He is also the reason that all of our learning material leaves our office looking so smooth and professional.
Pieter is part of our company leadership team and generally sage counsel. He manages our finances, office and HR issues. From working with Pearsons for 15 years he knows more about Real Tennis and dairy farming than he ever imagined he would.
Sid arrives at work in a backpack or bike-drawn chariot and spends his working day greeting visitors and running in excited circles. He shouldn't be left alone with pork pies.
Our devs are so good they wish to remain anonymous. They work fast and furiously and between them they have 30 years of experience working on our learning platform alone. Their speed and clarity are the reason we find fast, efficient and elegant solutions to all technical problems. You seem to need a Maths degree from Cambridge to be in this team so the devs make the rest of Anspear look like dunces.