A few years ago, Squid Academy went through its first independent pedagogical evaluation.
At the time, our platform received an “Excellent” review, including a 92% score for pedagogical approach and 4.2 out of 5 for learning engagement.
That mattered to us.
But a certification is only particularly useful if the product continues to deserve it.
So when our renewal came around in 2026, the interesting question was not whether we could put the badge back on the website.
It was this:
Has the educational product actually improved since the first review?
We have now completed that re-evaluation, and our renewal certification has been confirmed.
The evaluator’s opening conclusion was fairly direct:
“High quality of product is still present.”
But the detail behind that sentence is considerably more useful.
The core pedagogy stayed. The product around it changed.
One thing we did not want to do over the past few years was rebuild Squid Academy every time we added a programme or feature.
The underlying educational approach has remained consistent: active learning, application, collaboration, learner agency, reflection and connecting esports to skills and outcomes outside the game.
The re-evaluation specifically recognised that continuity, noting that learners still set goals, reflect on their learning and connect esports to real-world skills.
What changed was how much structure now sits around that philosophy.
When the original evaluation took place, Squid Academy was largely centred around one broad esports careers programme.
Today, that has developed into four distinct programmes:
Modern Sport Pathways & Competition (MSPC) for secondary schools
Business of Esports for universities
Esports Educator Certificate for teachers and educators
Mind Your Game for gaming and esports wellbeing
The re-evaluation concluded that the quality of this new content remains on par with the material assessed originally.
That matters more to us than simply having added more courses.
Growth is easy to describe in terms of modules, features or users. Maintaining educational coherence as a product expands is considerably harder.
Assessment was one of the biggest changes
The first evaluation also gave us things to improve.
One of the clearest was assessment.
Earlier versions of Squid Academy relied more heavily on knowledge recall. That could tell us whether somebody remembered something, but it did not always provide enough evidence that they could apply it.
We have spent a lot of time since then changing that.
Knowledge checks now sit alongside practical assignments, applied scenarios, criterion-based assessment, reassessment, reflection and portfolio evidence.
The re-evaluation explicitly recognised that development:
“Assessment is no longer based on recall alone.”
That distinction is important.
Knowing what a tournament manager does is useful.
Actually building a tournament plan, responding to a problem, working within criteria, receiving feedback and improving the submission tells us considerably more.
The same principle now runs through our programmes in different ways depending on the learner and context.
Collaboration became more intentional
Esports naturally creates opportunities for teamwork, but simply putting students into groups does not automatically create good collaborative learning.
We have therefore moved toward much more clearly defined roles, responsibilities and outcomes.
Students might work as players, managers, casters, producers, journalists, analysts or community managers. The task is not simply “work together.” Their responsibilities are connected to a real output.
That could be a competition, event, broadcast, published article, campaign or portfolio piece.
The renewal report highlighted this too, noting that collaboration is now more structured and linked to authentic outcomes.
That is a fairly accurate description of how our thinking has changed.
The game may be the context.
The learning comes from what students have to organise, communicate, create, solve and demonstrate around it.
Teachers now have much more around them
Another area that has changed substantially is educator support.
A good programme cannot depend on every teacher already being an esports expert.
That becomes even more important when programmes are being delivered across different countries, institutions and educational systems.
Our teacher and facilitator resources now include combinations of delivery guides, lesson plans, classroom slides, student resources, assessment guidance and rubrics.
The evaluator specifically recognised the expansion in teacher support and the ability for educators to adapt programmes to their own context.
That is a direction we intend to continue.
Our aim is not to remove the educator from esports education.
It is to make them much better equipped to lead it.
The technology finally reflects more of the educational model
The LMS has also changed considerably since the first review.
It now supports distinct student, teacher and administrator roles, assignments, progress tracking, assessment and certification workflows across desktop and mobile.
Our self-paced programmes also use explanatory feedback, while wellbeing content includes additional safeguarding controls.
Those developments were also recognised in the renewal evaluation.
Again, none of those features matter simply because they exist.
The useful question is whether they make the educational model easier to deliver properly.
That remains the standard we try to apply.
So what did the renewal actually tell us?
The final conclusion of the re-evaluation was that Squid Academy continues to represent high educational quality and is proven to promote learning efficiently.
We are pleased to have the certification renewed.
But the part we are most interested in is what happened between the two evaluations.
The programme expanded.
The audiences expanded.
The technology changed.
Assessment became more applied.
Collaboration became more structured.
Teachers received considerably more support.
And the core pedagogical approach survived those changes.
For us, that is the useful part of independent review.
The badge tells people that somebody external has looked at the product.
The report tells us whether the work we have been doing actually made it better.
And that second part matters much more.