About us
Every day, across everything they do, our teams enable schools to work smarter, save time and make a real difference.
Our story
From our respective origins as a bunch of ambitious, experimental start-ups, each using technology to innovate and improve the way schools work, we have grown into a group of companies that serve over 20,000 schools between us. Working together as The Key Group, our mission is to support a sector where all schools thrive.
We are united by a shared belief that schools deserve best-in-class tools and content for the hugely important job they do.
We invest in great teams and empower them to build remarkable products, finding and accelerating ideas that can impact all schools. Our businesses succeed by caring about their customers, listening carefully, and solving meaningful problems.
Our timeline
The Department for Education puts out a tender opportunity to support school leaders with leadership and management
Ten Lifestyle Group wins the tender and The Key is launched as a 2-year pilot
Despite the pilot’s success, the government decides not to roll out the service to every school in England. The Key becomes an independent start-up, housed at Ten, with 300 pilot schools initially opting to pay a subscription for a question-answering service
ScholarPack is founded, providing a cloud-based MIS for primary schools, and inventing the nascent cloud-MIS market
Arbor Education is founded, providing a comprehensive cloud-based MIS for primary and secondary schools as well as multi-academy trusts
GovernorHub is founded, providing an online collaboration tool for everything governors, trustees and clerks need to run their boards
The Key, now with 5,000 schools, leaves Ten Lifestyle Group. It further develops its core product, and expands its services in governance, CPD and safeguarding
ScholarPack, now with 1,200 schools, joins The Key, and “The Key Group” is formed
GovernorHub, now with 7,000 schools, joins The Key Group, blending its tools with content from The Key for total governance support
Arbor, now with 2,000 schools, joins The Key Group
RM sells its cloud-based MIS, Integris, used by 2,000 schools, and its adjacent finance product (which becomes Arbor Finance), to The Key Group.