Creating Value In Schools
James Browning is Chief Operating Officer at Lift Schools, a chair of governors, and has previously worked in edtech roles. He’s on the DfE’s estates strategy group and digital standards working group. This is an extract from our longer conversation, AI in schools: harnessing the potential, protecting the human. Prior to joining the trust space, I had 15 years working in EdTech as a provider to schools. Throughout that 15 years I yearned for this kind of golden mantra of having positive impacts on education. And to a certain extent, we had successes in those 15 years. What really excites me about AI is it feels like genuinely now for the first time, we have a technology that can make a difference. It has an ability to impact more of the cognitive work we do, both for our staff, but also to an extent our pupils as well. So it's beyond the clerical. We've had systems for some time that support the back office and the way in which we work. And yes, AI has a part to play with those, but also in the work that we do cognitively: really leveraging workload reduction, supporting high quality thinking (with an emphasis on supporting), allowing us to generate more foresight, spot patterns, testing scenarios. In the long term, I do believe that AI will help to genuinely personalise learning as well. So that really does excite me. Like many trusts and schools, two of our biggest challenges are around time and workload. We see how workload can be a drain upon people, not allowing them to be as effective as they can be. Then that also impacts on our ability to retain and develop people. It's not about replacing the teacher. So if we can use AI to support us with those two things, then ultimately it's about driving up job satisfaction, driving up impact. It's not just doing it for the sake of it, it's giving people more fulfillment. For me as an individual and for us as an organisation, we feel passionate that AI is there in a supporting role. It's not about replacing the teacher. It’s been a key part of our strategy to get that message out there and repeat it continuously, because AI does bring about a fear of replacement and marginalisation. And for us, that is absolutely not the case. I definitely have my fair share of worries about AI, but I like to think of myself as kind of in the middle of the conversation and the debate. Even though I'm a technologist by background, I'm not what you might call a techno futurist where I just run to the tech. If I were to be pushed, I would probably be one of those early adopters. I'm not the kind of person that always just sees the positive, but I'm also definitely not the kind of ultra concerned, ‘lock it and block it’ type of person. I think my worries first and foremost play to that point around making sure that we're using it in the right way. Because if we were using it in the wrong way, I think that it could risk marginalising roles where it could devalue the experience. There is a risk that if we get it wrong, we could create a bigger divide and a bigger disadvantage gap. One of the key points is making sure that human connection is protected. Human connection is so important to the teaching and learning process, and underpinning that is the ability to have empathy, to be really creative in our connections. So making sure we safeguard and protect that is a worry. Writing, reading, understanding information – these skills are core to that human connection. There are parts of the curriculum which I think we should safeguard as well, such as physical education and the creative arts. More widely than that, I worry that if done wrong, then we could create more inequality. And that's particularly relevant to us as a national trust, which has schools right across the country in different communities. And I think there is a risk that if we get it wrong, we could create a bigger divide and a bigger disadvantage gap. If done right, it could do the opposite. So that's just a few of the worries. By naming them, hopefully you get a sense that it’s not a reason not to embrace AI, but it is really important to find your middle point on that spectrum between techno futurism and a lock it and block it approach. We’re officially one year into our AI strategy at Lift Schools, although we’ve been working on it for 18 months, maybe longer. In short, as with many of our strategic initiatives or change programmes, we break the work down into three horizons. We call upon McKinsey's model of thinking – which I’ll no doubt butcher here, so apologies to anyone that has associations with McKinsey – which is about considering any strategy through three horizons and doing that in parallel. The first horizon for us has been about driving up awareness across our workforce. It's not a waterfall model. The first horizon is the stuff that you do today that supports the today. The second horizon is the stuff you do today that supports the medium term, and predictably, the third horizon is the stuff you do today that supports the long term. With our AI strategy it’s very meaningful, because this is a rapidly changing space. And it is about being conscious that those three horizons potentially have very, very different landscapes that we're dealing with. The first horizon for us has been about driving up awareness across our workforce and to an extent with our pupils as well. And we're a big organisation, four and a half thousand staff, and we have actively chosen to invest in every member of staff being exposed to some basic awareness of good use of AI. We’re making really clear and reinforcing some of those guiding principles that I’ve already touched upon. Getting out there with an initial tool set of things that can help with these productivity domains, or helping to impact teaching and learning. For us, getting that out there has been far more important than creating an AI policy. Horizon two is thinking about that in a slightly more sustainable way, because you can't just do that over and over forever. Horizon two is being conscious of the fact that actually this is going to be a rapidly evolving world. How do we sustainably onboard new technologies, new tools? How do we think about changing and adapting our IT service model? So, for example, we have introduced a brand new role into our IT service, which we call the technology support officer. And we have 20 of those TSOs, across our 58 schools, and they have a permanent remit to support teachers and other members of staff in use of these technologies, because we recognise that doing a one-off CPD is not going to have the impact. We're not going to have the impact we want if we just do it in isolation. Then finally, horizon three, which once again I stress we are thinking about and doing work on today, is being conscious that if we're going to be really impactful with this, we need those tools we onboard, we need the systems that we work with today, to really join up. Because using the data that comes from those systems and creating a joined-up, AI empowered ecosystem, is going to be fundamental to the long term. It will be contributing to the long-term vision we've created of what a school might look like. And so doing that's really important. We are also really keen to work with the sector. Even though we're a big trust, the pupils that we serve only represent about half of 1% of all the children in the sector. So we're not going to have the impact we want if we just do it in isolation. The focus for us is around the periphery of the role, so that we can enable the teacher to focus on the teaching and learning process. So in the first instance, we've looked at areas like lesson preparation and marking, and really tried to make those as efficient as possible, as well as hopefully more effective. So we are using a tool called Brisk. Many of our teachers are using that to help them in doing effective prep for lessons. So the thought still has to go in from the teacher, but they're able to create engaging lessons efficiently, using their own content, but with other content brought in as well, things like quizzes and formative assessment tools, in a really effective way. And they can do that in minutes rather than hours. On the marking side, we're in the midst of a trial with a platform called No More Marking, where we're taking an approach powered by not just the AI but the technology generally, to be more efficient in the way that we think about that follow up from the teaching and learning process. Then if we think about our support staff, AI does play to where a lot of our members of staff are spending their day-to-day, in systems like our MIS. So we're working with our MIS partner around areas such as report-writing, and in some cases, taking that a step further and automating some tasks. The key is making sure that we own the input and the output. For example, there's a bit of technology in our MIS which allows us to automatically capture voicemails regarding absence. Previously our attendance officers were spending quite a long time listening to voicemails, turning that into reports, and inputting that data. Now, the objective is less about capturing that data and more about taking the relevant support action. That's so critical because, like much of the sector, attendance is massive for us. Our HR team is using AI really effectively to support the recruitment and, to a certain extent, the retention process. So things like drafting job packs and interview questions, and helping us to be thoughtful. It’s not just about being efficient, it's also about actually challenging ourselves on what good questions look like. The key there is making sure that we own the input and the output. You know, it's not just doing what AI says, but really owning that. So that's a good example, of many examples across our central team where we're encouraging people to use tools in their day-to-day work, to hopefully be more efficient, but also be more effective and impactful as an output. For more from James on AI, including pupil usage, environmental impact and equality, listen to the full podcast (33 minutes).
Top takeaways
What excites you about the impact of AI?
Meeting challenges and not replacement
AI worries and protecting the human connection
A three horizons strategy
Examples of staff usage: teaching
Examples of staff usage: operational
What next?
