The BBC Micro didn't have the UK schools market entirely to itself.

I was born in 1971 and both my primary and secondary schools had LINK 480Z computers by Research Machines. The primary school only had the one, but the secondary school had a lab with 12 or 16 (I forget) of them. Later on it replaced them with a larger number of RM Nimbus PCs (again from Research Machines) which used 80186 processors. Yes, you read that right: 80186 processors. As you'd expect, they were not properly compatible with real PCs.

I was lucky enough to get a BBC Micro at home a couple of years after starting secondary school; my parents held off because they thought that maybe it was just a short-term interest. I think they might be convinced by now.