Rugby stars, Leaving Cert grinds, lewd jokes and a High Court case  

Tessa yn siar, un fod krillw, Shakden. Ta agra newa eisiau gachdrdin le'ch skilti a gysdurrameu le'chw a chyr erynolus. Chwllach i ddim yn cwyddiw i an. Llywch chi'n gweld o'n gwrddol eisiau yn m'n cwllach. Biesiau yn cwyddiw'r ryddiw ar ddim yn yna i'n ddeud i'n sthym. Y cybwnnau s'ach arsiau ryddi ar leneu ni'n sônynch i yw'r cyflwyllol yn yna hefio. Haneu'r peth hegan belfas telegraff o gysylltio togyl caes yng Nghyrnau haraf ysog i'n gwrddio togyl caes. So, si'n gwrdd caes yw'r fysi'n gael sy'n gwrddio'r ffas telegraff. Shakden, ond endo asg i'n lig. On the latest episode of Real Heltered Meat Carth Henry, I'm delighted to be joined by John O'Driskel and it's all thanks to our national fitness. "Dating the there's kind of four pillars to people to help. There's physical mental, financial and nutritional. And if they're all kind of all intertwined. The problem with financial health or health issues is they don't leave you. You've got a better night if you're stressed about money, wake up in the morning, stress about money, so you can't just kind of box it off and compartmentalize. It's available on all podcast platforms. "Hey there, we are Indo Sport with me, John O'Loy, we cover sport and we have things like this. If you ask Arsenal's defenders, Gabrielle and Celeba, to play net PSG team or that Bayern team, they would be exposed as much as those centre backs were last night. Because effectively the attackers were on top. Then you ask the question, how many defenders were actually on the pitch last night? "Because not in the full backs, I have no interest in defending, they're like wingers. And I've seen Celeba and Gabrielle in an open game, in that lead cup semi-final double-header against Newcastle last season. Get torn apart by EZAC. I won't have anyone convinced me that they can defend that space." "Leaving cert season is upon us, and while for some that means stress and study. For others, it's a cash cow. The private grinds industry in Ireland is booming." "It's a huge industry, there's been figures put around that it's a 50, 60 million euro, I think it's well north of that." "Perhaps not surprisingly with so much money to be made, investors including well-known names like Brian O'Driskel and Kaelan Doris are keen to get in on the action. But the competition can be intense. And sometimes even bitter." "It's a cultural business, a lot of competitors. "Crying 360 when they came on, the scene last summer, he wanted to make a splash, one of the things they did is recruit Rob Brown. Very well respected Math teacher, he denied that he was trying to poach any student." "It's all played out in the traditional hallowed halls of the High Court, but also in the less formal, anything goes world of TikTok." "He put out a TikTok video, yes." "What's long hard and pink? That's right, the leading cert hire level maths paper." "I'm Kevin Doyle, and today on the Indo Daily I'm joined by Mark Ty, journalist with the Sunday Independent, to discuss how one Math teacher's high profile transfer to a new grind's company is led to an unusual legal battle." "Mark Ty, before we get into the details of this extraordinary story and court battle you're going to tell us about, I'm kind of fascinated by the grind's industry, we're in the middle of leaving cert season. I remember I did my leaving cert well, well more than 20 years ago now. People were getting a bit of help there for 20 quid, somebody new teacher in a different school in the next town who might give you an hour for a cup of tea and a biscuit. It seems like it has evolved entirely from then." "I especially around Dublin, it's a cultural business, there's a lot of competitors. One of the big new movers on the market is a company called Grind's 360, which we can talk about a bit more. There's a focus on online, tutorials, not only class-based, once where you can ask questions which charge big money but the new development in the last couple of years has been. Teachers who are very comfortable doing Instagram or TikTok videos, getting them to do that in a more formal setup where they're going through the syllabus, going through problems, and then they're going through questions and do video specific to problems, especially in maths, which is a problematic subject for so many people. It's such a necessary subject to score high on, maybe you're to get higher level, if you don't want to get certain engineering degrees and college need higher level maths. So the necessity of asing those exams is a lot of pressure on students to do that, a lot of pressure on themselves, they want to deliver or get into a certain college course. So yeah, it's a huge industry, there's been figures put around that it's 50, 60 million euro, I think it's well north of that. Some of the big companies are earning and generating profits on. Online is the way to go, if you talk about Grind's 360, they're charging 1399 euro for a one-year course for six-year students that's access to their online database of teachers across all subjects. If you want that from 50 or it's 1899 euro, so big money, big commitments, that parents will be required to pay if they want their students to do even these online courses. So it has moved online, the format I guess I would have remembered was that you went to a teacher's house or a teacher came to your house for an hour. It's now pretty much all online. Is it one to one? Are you in groups? How does it work? I wouldn't say it's all online, but that's maybe for people who can't make the time commitments, like there are institutes, the job and the academy of education, where there's a lot of class-based options available there, you come in and you can deal with a teacher and ask one to one, which increasingly there's a new market with Grind's 360, which is backed by a lot of sports stars from both GA, Walter Welsh from Kilkenny, who's also an agricultural science teacher. On the platform Grind's 360 and then you have the rugby stars like Brian O'Driskyl, Caelan Doris, Jordan Le Mour, they've all invested, among the investors, about three million euro into this new online platform Grind's 360. That's set up by two people, Brendan Kavanaugh, who runs a business all of those online training. They've been doing that for well over a decade. The likes of Tesco, even Land Rover would have employed them to do their online education for their staff, whether it's manual lifting or anything that has to be internal training on, they've been providing those videos, Ricky Sadlier, did a project with them online sex education. He's gone off into a specific market here along with Ronan Murdoch, who's a Grind's teacher and partner with Brendan Kavanaugh, and set up this new Grind's 360 company last year. It's been a disruptor in the market. There's a lot of sharp elbows that they've been very good in recruiting a lot of dire teachers, who would have been among the best known, leaving sort of dangerous teachers across education, who would be well known on multiple platforms in the media, who has been experts in their fields. You mentioned a couple of names there that will catch listeners ears, Brian O'Driskel, Kael and Doris, among them. How do they get involved in something like this? Brian O'Driskel is not a maths teacher. I know that much. In rugby, I'm in G.A. sportsmen, or else they only have a certain amount of time, but they also have a bit of money, I suppose, from their sponsorships, their salaries, not in the G.A. In case, obviously, with salaries, but these people are looking for investment opportunities. I know Brendan Kavanaugh as a businessman has very good connections in the sporting field, both across G.A. and rugby. He formerly wanted a sponsor to an English rugby team. He recruited some of these guys as investors, saying, "There's a huge, on-top market here for these online Grind's lessons and these rugby players that just get involved. They've come on board as investors, not equity investors, but you know, it's been widely reported that they've put their hands in their pockets. They're not involved in the day today, running so they're not involved in the legal dispute, whereabouts to talk about or the modus operandi of how that Grind's school operates, but they put some money in to see if they can get a return from these leaving certs students. And maybe to make it into a wider business where they could go abroad and repeat the trick in bigger markets than Ireland." So they're not giving the Grind's okay, we're straight forward on that. In Walter Walsh's case, he is giving Grind's, he is a clikini hurler, he is giving Grind's on ag science, but no, you're not going to get your maths or English section two from Brian Adriscaler, Kaelin Doris or Jordan Le Mour. But are they involved in the publicity around this? Are they promoting this, obviously, that their names, their faces would surely attract young people to go, "Oh, what's that about?" Yeah, they've helped Grind's 360 establish themselves and just having their names attached to his investors. As the Sunday independent and the Irish Times have reported in the last year as Grind's 360 has come on the market, that's the one that's backed by Brian Adriscaler, or the Ireland will be capped in Kaelin Doris. So that having that cachet, that kudos of being associated with them is getting them noticed, getting them attention. When someone comes to a business section of pitches and idea about a new business, like Brian Adriscaler's a backer, it gets more attention. So that has helped open doors for them, both with the general public and the media. But I presume whatever we're at the students, but certainly if you're the parents looking at this and you're willing to shell out some of the money that you've mentioned there, Mark, big money for extra classes and extra tutorials, is the reputation of the teacher that you'll probably be looking at mostly more than the names attached to the finance. Exactly. And Ronan Murdoch, who's one of the partners with Brendan Kavanaugh on this, he has a very good reputation in the Grind's industry for over a decade. It's his brainchild along with Brendan Kavanaugh's and what they've done is gone to the market and recruited some very high profile teachers, including Rob Brown, who's the centre of the case. We're talking about who's a really well-known maths teacher, really well respected for your communicating with kids, getting down at their level and explaining very difficult concepts, which as a father of someone who's just a second year and seeing how difficult the trigonometry and algebraic problems he has to solve are, you can see why having someone that can get down and explain complex things like that. We would explain why parents would put their hands in their pocket and go, okay, that's going to help them if the teachers aren't delivering, I'm going to pay a bit extra to make sure my Johnny can ace his maths exam. So I'm guessing, Mark, that you have forgotten the formula for pie is what you're telling me and you can understand why parents would pay this money. Yeah, yeah, I've looked it up recently. but I want to commit it. I can understand completely why many parents frazzled with so many demands on their time, going through things with your kids. It can create tension if they're not getting it the first time around. So yeah, I can understand completely why parents, whether it's such a competitive education system, to get into these course CO points, you want your little failure, little garyle to prosper. I can understand completely why people pay for these grind schools. So Mark, big students are somewhat competitive. I would suggest that the parents are certainly competitive. And that creates a competitive industry, which is why we're sitting here and talking about this. You mentioned that a teacher called Rob Brown is at the center of a dispute. Explain why. Yeah, so Rob Brown will be very well respected. Math teacher, he's been on RTE, talking about the Leven cert and the math curriculum. Grind's 360, when they came on, they seen last summer. He wanted to make a splash. One of the things they did is recruit Rob Brown. Last July, he would have told the Dublin Academy where he'd worked for over 10 years. That I'm leaving. I'm going to grind 360. He asked them all my material. Like Rob Brown will be well known for using TikTok videos and social media. Very good communicating down at the level or up at the level where these kids are talking. He's been able to explain very complex mathematical concepts to them. What happened then? He told the Dublin Academy, this is all on after David, that we've seen from the high court case that arose out of this dispute. He told the Dublin Academy, "Look, all my intellectual property, my courses, my slides, everything else, you're not there to use that. I'm working on a book, but my new employer is going to want to use and license that material as well, so you don't have permission for that." A rising out of that, the Kiran Hartigan, the Academy's principal. He wrote to the students of the Academy in August saying Rob Brown decided to step back from teaching to focus on publishing this year. He didn't mention that he was going off to a competitor, grinds 360. This email sparked a furious response from Rob Brown. Is that this point? The elbows come up. You can say he thought that was an elbows up move from his former employer for many years, that he thought that portrayed him as abandoning his fifth year students as he moved into the sixth year to do their leaving search and their final exams, that he'd abandoned them to write a book. He said, "That's deplorable," the way you portrayed me there. So what he did was email all the students from his two fifth-year classes and say, "This is completely an act that you've been told lies by the college." I'm actually gone off to work for Grinds 360. Here's the website address. It website address grinds360.com. I just want Grinds360.ie. I'll get it right. We'll offer you a hefty discount. He talked about all the other teachers that had moved. I also then got into really bitter attack on his former employer saying, "I've been working 7am to late in the evening some days. They've been burning us out. And this why so many people are leaving the academy. A no-holds-barred attack on his former employer." "Score shirt?" "Score shirt," the pen and move. Yeah. Offering a hefty discount to Grinds360. Not being shy about pointing his, the academy's students who are parents well paying their fees, pointing them to his new enterprise. This did not go down well with the Dublin Academy. So they sent legal letters using Clark Hill who are well-known, law firm who specialize in a lot of online and intellectual property cases. They sent legal letters asking, Rob Brown are demanding that he not send any more emails. They say he refused to give an undertaking to do that. He said, "You know, I'm within my rights to contact students who may reach out to me." They went to the high court and said that they'd made a very alarming discovery. They employed an IT firm to come and do a forensic analysis of their server. And they found that the day before Rob Brown had resigned, he downloaded two of his class lists, the contact details for all the students, the fifth-year classes, and downloaded that onto his personal computer or personal email. They said, "This is our data. This is a breach of our data." And he has now gone off with that to arrive, and is trying to entice our students, poach our students to his new enterprise, Grinds360. And they said, "He'd refuse to give undertakings." And we need an injunction now. We need an injunction getting him to preserve the data. We need an injunction stopping him trying to recruit our students. And otherwise, we phrased the disastrous scenario where we're losing money because our parents and our students are being enticed over to arrival. Brown did it. He accepted that he did download those student lists, but he said that he had done that because he wanted to retain the option of reaching out to the students and apologize to them that he was leaving and wished them well. But he did agree then he would delete them, isn't that right? So, this all happened last August, September. The High Court granted the Academy interim injunction. So that first part of the case was brought on an ex-part A basis. So, Rob Brown was not represented at that stage. He came in later saying, "This is all completely unnecessary. I did offer to give undertakings, but I also asked for them to give. I would only give the undertakers a day, giving them to send out more lies about me, or so there was kind of a sub-class there. So, yeah, he came in and said, "Look, I will freeze this data or give it to them or let them. whatever they want to do with it." He said, "It was only the details of two classes that I downloaded. I accepted I did that, but it was only to check in with my kids. His fifth-class students were going as they were settling back and to check in on them and let them know what had happened that I hadn't just abandoned them." So, he was saying, "He didn't do it for any malicious purposes." He denied that grinds 360 was a rival. So, he said, "We're different kinds of schools. The Academy is more day-focused, not so focused on the online side of things. I don't think that would be accepted by the Academy." In their submission day, he said, "Very much to grind 360, they consider them a rival." So, he disputed that and gave an undertaking not to contact those students any further arising from that core case. So, the case was ultimately struck out on that basis that those undertakings were given and there was no cost order on either side. There's also a row about TikTok videos. Yeah, as part of their submission, Chris Lodder, a director in the Academy, filed the affidavit, setting out stands up to school. And he said, "One of the alarming things that they had seen was while they were in legal correspondence with Rob Brown. He put out a TikTok video." And they said, "This is very much to make a splash about grinds 360 being set up and him moving there." So, what's long-hardened pink? That's right. The leading search hired a maths paper. I'm Rob, hired a maths teacher here at Grinds 360. Just reminding you that when you start looking at past exam papers this year, they can look very intimidating. Mr. Lodder confirmed that this intended amusing question was going out to minors off a school going age and he said, "The Academy would not have permitted such innuendo-laden advertising and raise concern that Mr. Brown, Rob Brown would direct this or similarly off-color advertisements to its students which risk causing offense to their parents or guardians may associate him with the Academy. The tone of these videos was not in keeping with the serious results-based services offered by the Academy." So, this was part of the ongoing dispute. There were monitoring his TikTok videos. They were getting grief from parents that after he'd sent this email, here he is making kind of, you know, "Lude jokes." Yeah. I got a rude joke. Look, I'm sure lots of students did find him using, but also a lot of parents maybe were not so amused. People are generally under 18 so you shouldn't be making jokes and involve references to genitalia. So, yeah, kind of an extraordinary level of bitterness between the two parts that that kind of thing was raised and that kind of concern was there. And it's way into the high course? Yes. Yeah, extraordinary. And I was looking at the response. He didn't directly address that complaint, but you know, he denied that he was basing advertising trying to poach any students or that they were competitors. That was the general gist of Mr. Brown's response. Where does all this end up, Mark? So, since September, the case of the Struggles and it settled, this dispute is done and thus as far as the courts are concerned. You can see that there's a lot of noes outside of joint, grinds 360. So, that's what they wanted to do to being a disruptor, but they didn't want to have one of their stire teachers in the high court. This has been widely talked about in the grinds and teaching circles around Dublin. I've been hearing about it for a few months. I don't know. You got my hands on the legal papers recently. Anyone that talks about grinds 360 was, "Oh, did you hear what happened with that rubber, in case?" And, you know, a lot of kind of maybe conjecture and rumor about it. And maybe it wasn't as bad in terms of looking, "Didn't download the entire database and give them all free grinds 360 accounts," or anything like that, but a very narrow focused bit or dispute, as well as shows just what that stake here for a company like the Academy to go to the high court requires at least 20,000 general legal costs. They felt that was money well-spent to ensure that there are just two classes, two math class weren't what they say, it used your amount of poaching. So it just shows what kind of stakes are at play here and how reputations are so important. For we wrap up, let's go back to the kind of celebrities attached to this. They obviously were not involved in any of those court proceedings or those rouse that you're talking about. Exactly. Yeah. I've reached out to some of their people at the rugby stars and none of them want to come and put it, there's no suggestion that they have any kind of day-to-day involvement in cases or, you know, we're involved in this dispute at all. So they're there solely as investors in the background and names that can be dropped to the media. I can't imagine though that they're overjoyed that their names get attached to the reporting round out of that we're sitting here, mentioning their names in conjunction with this. Exactly. That's going to happen though. That's a lesson for all investors. When you put your money in something, you know, you have to take the good with the bad. Finally, Mark, you know, we've been sitting here talking with this for 20 minutes. I imagine there are some people who fully understand the world we're talking about. There are other people who will be listening to this could only dream of paying these prices for grinds for the kids and think this is all a bit of an upper middle class sort of battle down the high court, maybe even a little bit ross or carol kelly. Yeah, there is an aspect to that long pink and hard joke wouldn't be at a place in a Ross Carle Kelly story. Look, as a student I remember going back, I did Easter grinds trying to get my head around Charles Dickens, Hardtines and look, there's plenty of students that do grinds and so it's buyer beware as well. There's no suggestion that there's any kind of Malafide's are wrong doing in terms of what the course content and what's delivered to the students by both grinds 360 and the Dublin Academy but you know in such a market you are always going to get sharp operators. The Sunday Times recently did an expose about a completely different grind school offer in who's based in Dublin and in England and they were able to show that the owner of that school was writing fake reviews using them in both England and Ireland the exact same reviews on their fake names and using different names for them and using the same photograph to kind of boost their credibility of the courses that he was offering through that so that's not one of the institutes that we're talking about today but buyer beware when there's a lot of pressure on you and pressure from your kid even to get these courses do your research into the teachers and the offering that's available and beware of that kind of online review thing because people can easily fake that stuff. And my thanks to Mark Ty. I'm Kevin Doyle and today's episode of the Indo Daily was produced by Dave Hanratti researched by Hugh Keenan with sound designed by Stephen O'Brien. This episode of the Indo Daily podcast is brought to you by Carzone Daraï. Hey there we are Indo Sport with me, Jamaloy, we cover sport and we have things like this. If you ask us who's defender's Gabrielle Saliba to play in PSG team or that buoyant team they would be exposed as much as they sent the back to the world last night because effectively attackers were on top. Then you ask the question how many defenders were actually on the pitch last night because another of the fullbacks I've no interest in defending they're like wingers and I've seen Saliba and Gabrielle in an open game in that lead cup semi final double header against new cars for last season get torn apart by exact I won't have anyone convinced me today can defend in that space.