Why One Size Fits All Software Failed This EdTech Founder

In this episode of Low Code/High Impact, we sit down with Sarah Sheikh, founder of The Power of Formative Assessment, an edtech company based in Dubai. Sarah spent over a decade teaching in international schools before identifying a critical gap in how student progress was being measured. In education, attainment (student achievement at a point in time) and progress (growth measured over time) are two distinct concepts, yet no platform effectively tracked both. That insight, combined with her master's research on formative assessment, led Sarah to launch The Power of Formative Assessment and build its core product, LearningBytes, a school improvement platform that tracks student progress from their starting point against each learning objective across any curriculum, whether American, British, or IB. What started as an Excel tracker in 2012 has evolved into a full-scale application with four dashboards, AI-powered data analysis, PDF report card generation, and a parent portal. Working with Caspio's Professional Services team, Sarah has completed six development phases and is now preparing phases seven and eight. Together, we discuss how she went from classroom teacher to edtech founder, why she chose Caspio over traditional developers, and how school feedback reshaped her product vision from a learning management system into a true school improvement system.