St Paul's International School

St. Paul’s maintains a long-standing commitment to inclusion, supported by a dedicated accessibility department that ensures every student can engage fully with learning and assessment.

Its curriculum blends Brazilian and British academic standards, and includes the International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE) and International Baccalaureate (IB), a diploma accepted in most universities in Europe, Asia, North America and other English speaking countries.

The Challenge

St. Paul’s has long promoted the use of technology to enhance teaching and learning, and to support all students, regardless of background, as part of its commitment to inclusivity.

However, the school was keen to further enhance its use of tools to meet the school’s standards for consistent, reliable accommodations in assessments, while also continuing to support diverse learners across the full student population. The school was specifically seeking a more modern, intuitive technology experience that could also meet multilingual learning needs (Brazilian Portuguese, English, and other languages). 

As an inclusive school, St. Paul’s wanted to prioritise a solution that could support all learners, not only those formally entitled to accommodations. The school needed a tool that could be used in offline examinations, and that offered full security for exam access arrangements. It also needed a flexible, everyday learning tool for reading, writing, and studying, with high-quality, natural-sounding voices across multiple languages.

With these goals in mind, St. Paul’s reached out to ReadSpeaker.

The Solution

The ReadSpeaker team introduced St. Paul’s to two complementary education-focused TTS solutions.

The first was ReadSpeaker TextAid, a browser-based reading, writing, and study tool designed for everyday learning, supporting a wide range of student needs and preferences, including:

• Reading support for all content types
• Writing assistance through read-back features
• Highlighting, note-taking, and translation tools
• Accessible reading options across languages

St. Paul’s acquired aTextAid license, enabling nearly the entire student body to access and benefit from accessible learning tools — not just the students receiving formal accommodations.

The second option could have been to use the TextAid solution in Exam Mode, offering  teachers and coordinators the ability to set speech-enabled tests and exams in secure learning environments. 

However, due to the specific need for a tool that could be used for offline examinations (as required for the Cambridge assessments), St Paul’s chose ReadSpeaker SpeakUp, a secure, offline reading tool designed for exam settings.

This proved ideal for students who need text-to-speech accommodations under strict, offline assessment conditions, and became the school’s main solution for exam access arrangements. SpeakUp supports:

• Offline use on school-managed devices
• Compatibility with lockdown browsers
• High-quality natural voices in multiple languages
• A controlled, consistent exam experience

This dual-solution approach ensured both assessment integrity and day-to-day inclusive practice.

The Results

Since implementing both TextAid and SpeakUp, St. Paul’s has received positive feedback from both educators and students, expressing high levels of satisfaction in using the tools across assessments and classroom learning. The school particularly appreciated the responsiveness and professionalism of the ReadSpeaker team, and the human-like voice quality across multiple languages.

Implementation was straightforward, with the ReadSpeaker support team offering prompt help whenever help was needed during the set-up process.

Together, SpeakUp and TextAid have strengthened the school’s inclusive approach by:

• Providing equitable access to assessments
• Supporting diverse reading and writing needs
• Reducing barriers for multilingual learners
• Ensuring accessibility remains a whole-school effort

“ReadSpeaker has become an important part of our inclusive approach at St. Paul’s. It’s a reliable, well-regarded solution that helps us support learners more effectively. The team behind it has been very professional and the technology itself is intuitive and adaptable. I’d certainly recommend it.” Michael Akan, Learning Support Unit Intervention Assistant & Exam Access Arrangements Admin

St Paul’s International School will continue to embrace technology to enhance its teaching and learning provision, giving all students the inclusive support needed to gain autonomy and build confidence.

Interview with Michael Akan, Learning Support Unit Intervention Assistant & Exam Access Arrangements Admin

Why have you invested in text to speech at St Paul’s International School?
As an inclusive school, we are committed to supporting all pupils, regardless of their background. In doing so, we actively promote the use of technology to enhance teaching and learning.

Why did you choose ReadSpeaker text-to-speech (TTS) as a solution to further improve your approach to inclusivity?
Following extensive research, we identified ReadSpeaker TTS as a highly regarded text-to-speech software, widely adopted by numerous universities across the United Kingdom.

What feedback, or results, have you seen so far from educators and students?
Educators have shared positive feedback regarding the use of the software. And from students, their responses were equally encouraging, with many expressing high levels of satisfaction.

How did you find the integration of the ReadSpeaker software?
While there were a few initial setup challenges, the ReadSpeaker support team was consistently available and provided prompt assistance whenever needed.

What has been the best thing about working with ReadSpeaker?
They consistently responded to requests with impressive promptness.

Would you recommend ReadSpeaker to a colleague and why?
I highly recommend ReadSpeaker for its user-friendly interface and exceptional, human-like AI voices available in multiple languages, including Spanish, French, and Brazilian Portuguese.

Anything else you’d like to note?
I would be delighted to see this software (SpeakUp) available in an iOS version.

Find out more about ReadSpeaker solutions for education, supporting more inclusive and engaging learning for all ages.