On 25 October 2025 Sheen and TDK Edventures signed a partnership agreement, photographed the way these things are always photographed — a handshake, a document, and a logo on the wall behind.

What the agreement was for

The partnership brings a coding and robotics academy programme to TDK Edventures' learners, run on Sheen's curriculum and hardware. It is a different arrangement from the school partnerships elsewhere on this timeline: not a set of kits and a training day, but the academy model itself operating under another organisation's roof.

Why we license rather than franchise everything

There is an obvious way to grow a robotics academy: open more of your own branches. It is also the slowest, most capital-hungry route available, and it caps your reach at the number of buildings you can afford to run.

The alternative is to work with organisations that already have the learners, the venue and the relationship with families, and to supply the part they do not have — the curriculum, the hardware, the teacher training and the ongoing support. That is what this agreement does.

It also means the programme is delivered by people who are already part of that community, which matters more than most providers admit. A visiting instructor is an event. A local one is a programme.

What has to be true for it to work

Handing your curriculum to someone else only works if a few things are non-negotiable:

• The training is real. Instructors are trained on the material and the hardware before the first class runs, not sent a manual.
• The support does not lapse. Questions get answered in term time, when they are actually asked.
• The hardware is replaceable. A programme that stops when a board breaks is not a programme.
• The progression is intact. A learner who starts here should be able to keep going — through the levels, into projects, and towards competition or career routes if they want to.

Part of a wider pattern

Between October and November 2025 Sheen signed or delivered four school and partner programmes in five weeks — Forest Village Leadership Academy, TDK Edventures, Bellville Preparatory School, and the Ceres STEM bootcamp. That period was when the company stopped being a single academy that also sold kits, and became a programme that runs in other people's buildings.

Interested in running a Sheen coding and robotics programme at your school or centre? See school services or start a conversation.