The Detective Experience was created by a former police officer and intelligence specialist who saw something missing in education: a way to make students read, write, and think critically without ever having to be told to.
Joe spent years working as a police officer and intelligence specialist for the Ministry of Defence, building cases, analysing evidence, and piecing together complex investigations. The skills that made him effective in those roles are the same skills students need in education: close reading, critical thinking, evidence evaluation, and structured argument.
The problem was that traditional classroom tasks rarely demanded those skills in a way that felt real. Students went through the motions. The work was surface-level. So Joe built something different: complete detective investigations that require students to do the real work of reading, writing, and thinking, because the case depends on it.
Every decision we make starts with one question: will this make students read deeper, write better, and think harder?
Students don't engage with reading and writing because they're told to. They engage when they have a reason. A detective case gives them that reason. Every document they read, every argument they construct, serves the investigation.
TDE is not a game. It's a literacy programme disguised as an investigation. Reading comprehension, persuasive writing, source evaluation, and critical thinking are built into every stage of every case.
Every case arrives ready to run. Facilitator guide, student tasks, evidence packs, model answers, and extension activities. Open the case and go. We built TDE to remove workload, not add to it.
When a school purchases a case, every teacher, every class, and every year group can use it. No per-student fees, no seat limits, no expiry dates. Buy once, run it for years.
TDE is used across elementary and secondary schools internationally, with cases designed to work in any English-speaking classroom.
Explore our cases, read the case study, or get in touch to find out how TDE can work in your school.
