Founded in Dorset in 2013 by Jan Lever MBE, who had spent many years as a teacher, education advisor, counsellor, and psychotherapist before establishing the Jigsaw learning programme to focus specifically on PSHE for primary schools.

Funding story:

Jigsaw Education Group has been provided with a £2m funding package to support the development of Jigsaw PSHE Ltd and sister company Discovery RE Ltd, by leading alternative finance provider to mid-sized SMEs, ThinCats.

The company connects the pieces of Personal, Social and Health Education, emotional literacy, social skills and spiritual development into an easy-to-use lesson-a-week programme. Jigsaw have over 5,000 clients, reaching an audience of c2 million children, across the UK and in 100+ International Schools in 32 overseas territories.

Discovery RE provides a whole-school innovative programme for teaching primary school Religious Education.  The trading activity of Discovery RE merged with Jigsaw PSHE as part of this transaction, and Iain Aitken has been appointed as Managing Director and Tony Ford has been appointed Chairman and will be responsible for overseeing the growth strategy. 

David Parr, Director, Regional Business Development, ThinCats: “Both Jan and Tony have demonstrated an impressive depth of knowledge and experience in the education industry, and this area of education has grown in importance in recent years. The partnership between them will be a force to be reckoned with, and I am sure that many more schools will benefit from their expertise.”

In recent years PSHE has been made compulsory within all schools and is an increasing focus for OFSTED when assessing teaching and learning standards. Many schools lack the resources and experience within their existing pool of teachers to do the subject justice. This investment will enable us to unlock the next phase of growth in a sector in which there is significant potential to make a very positive difference to children, young people, teachers and families.

Jan Lever MBE, CEO, Jigsaw PSHE