Teach Secondary 14.4

£96 million The total amount spent by schools in England on supply teachers in 2023/24 Source: DfE data cited by Access Education’s ‘School Budget Crisis Report’ The government announced in March a £45million investment package into school infrastructure as part of its ‘No Child Left Behind’ strategy, alongside a set of updated Digital and Technology Standards for schools. But as I’ve found through conversations with teaching staff, there’s some uncertainty regarding the latter’s purpose. So how should schools be approaching them? And how can they use them in practice? WHATDOTHE STANDARDS MEAN FOR SCHOOLS? Schools rely on a diverse array of technologies to provide the best education they can. This includes not just the laptops students use to access the internet, but also the broadband connections that enable that access.The Digital and Technology Standards – first published in 2022 and updated earlier this year – provide guidelines to help schools and colleges use the right digital infrastructure and technology. Meeting these Standards can help leaders make more informed decisions around the technology used in their schools, leading to safer, more cost-efficient practices and new learning opportunities for their students. Since the procedures and systems schools need to operate can often be complex, the Standards are mainly intended to describe ‘best case scenarios’ that everyone can strive for, in areas from cybersecurity to digital accessibility. Before the Standards, there was no single, consistent source describing such scenarios for schools. The wireless connectivity at a school I was recently working with in the North East, for instance, was so patchy that staff had a complete lack of internet access in some areas. It didn’t matter that their hardwired broadband connection was good – it was the wireless coverage that was the issue. The government’s Standards gave our teamat RMTechnology a helpful framework they could use to explain what needed to be fixed and why. Another area is cybersecurity. Many schools understand how important it is, but lack a framework for standardising and implementing the policies they adopt. The government’s Standards – by suggesting that annual security reviews take place, for example – help ensure that all schools understand what ‘good’ looks like. HOWCANTHE STANDARDS BE IMPLEMENTED IN PRACTICE? Arguably, one of the most important Standards is set out under ‘Digital leadership and governance’ – designating a member of SLT to lead the school’s technology strategy. This person can help to ensure the school is doing everything it can tomeet the other Standards. This person needn’t necessarily be a ‘techie’, but they should at least understand how technology can be used froma strategic perspective. They should be thinking about what their school can use to improve its operations and enhance the educational experience. Many schools still use manual processes that could be automated, for example; a designated IT lead would help to initiate this transition. It’s important that schools review the Standards and devise strategies for meeting them– but equally, senior leadership shouldn’t worry if they’re still some way off this. Rather, they should approach themas markers towards an optimal set-up, showing the best path for creating environments that will enable the best education for all students. CLOSE-UPON... MEL PARKER IS AN EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGIST AT RM TECHNOLOGY, ADVISING SCHOOLS ACROSS THE COUNTRY ON THE IMPLEMENTATION OF EFFECTIVE DIGITAL STRATEGIES, HAVING PREVIOUSLY BEEN AMATHS TEACHER AND DEPUTY HEADTEACHER; FOR MORE INFORMATION, VISIT RM.COM The Social Market Foundation has called on Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson to ‘slimdown’ the GCSE examination process and instruct schools to collect more accurate data on pupil wellbeing. In a briefing paper titled ‘We Used To Have It All’ (available via tinyurl.com/ts144-LL8 ), SMF researchers reject what’s become an increasingly widespread view across the profession – that boosting pupil attainment necessarily entails pulling back from efforts aimed at improving pupil wellbeing. Instead, they point to 2003 as a year in which the UK fared better than average in both maths scores and pupils feeling a sense of belonging at school, compared to other OECD countries in those respective PISA measurements. That’s in stark contrast with 2022, by which time UK pupils’ sense of belonging had declinedmore than any other OECD country (though its relative academic improvement did see some gains). The SMF goes on to highlight the example of Japan, where schools typically offer pupils a diverse curriculum in combination with an extensive programme of extracurricular activities, and how the country attained both the highest increase in PISA’s ‘belonging’ score, while also recording the highest maths score. The SMF’s recommendations thus include recalibrating schools’ key focus towards treating pupils’ academic performance and general wellbeing with equal importance, while also reducing the volume of high stakes formal assessments pupils are expected to sit. DIGITAL STANDARDS 77 teachwire.net/secondary L E A R N I N G L A B