Category: Journal

Focus and distraction

I recently read Stolen Focus by Johann Hari which looks at the perception of how we are increasingly less able to focus and hold our attention on a particular task or activity, with this particularly impacting our children and young adults.   Now one of the predominant views generally held in this area is that this is the result of technology and in particular the smartphone and social media however Hari goes to point to a few other things which could impact on our increasing inability to focus.

Environment

We live in a more polluted world plus increasingly are the subject of environmental changes resulting from global warming.     Now in some ways we are making progress with lead no longer included in petrol and the move to electric vehicle, plus the reduction of smoking in the UK however smog is still an issue in some cities.   There are also chemicals used in the production of modern goods or as by products of modern processes which all end up in the environment and eventually in our bodies.   How do we focus when our bodies are subject to pollutants over a prolonged period?   The answer according to Hari is simply that we cannot focus as well as we might have been able to in the past.

Reduced free play

Freedom to explore, to play and to have fun and make mistakes is a key part of the human learning process.   We have evolved as a species over millions of years using this approach however more recently, we have reduced the opportunities for freedom and exploration.    We increasingly supervise or even track our children to the extent that they don’t develop the social and resilience skills they may have once developed through play.    I feel we do this for the reasons of seeking to keep children safe based on a perception of a more dangerous world, but this is a perception rather than a reality, resulting from the ease with which we receive news of when things go wrong and our human tendency to overweigh the importance of what comes easily to mind.    As such we restrict our children from playing unobserved and freely.     And the reality in terms of safety is that we are likely safer than we have ever been before.  Hari makes the point of the likelihood of a child kidnapping, something we worry about and which drives our need to supervise and limit children’s freedom, being less than the likelihood of being hit by lightning.  I don’t think we keep children indoors and monitored to protect them from a lightning strike!

Food

Another issue impacting on our ability to focus is our changing diet.  Gone, largely, are the healthy home cooked meals involving fresh ingredients, which might be served around the family dinner table complete with family discussion.   The modern diet increasingly involves microwave or other convenience foods, foods loaded with preservatives and other additives, or high in salt or sugar content, often consumed on the go or while distracted by TV or social media content.   These aren’t the ideal ingredients to develop our ability to focus and in fact negatively impact on this human capability.

Sleep

Sleep and in fact the reducing amount of time spent engaged in quality sleep is another issue which Hari identified.    Now some of this is certainly the result of technology and our on-demand access to TV and movies, plus to addictive social media apps which encourage doom scrolling, however I also would suggest part of it relates to the increasingly fast pace of life and the need to squeeze every second of every day for the maximum we can get out of it.  This means we might get less than eight hours of sleep, maybe even only five or six hours, or less.This points to the increasing focus on the need to be more efficient, to be faster, to do more and to focus on growth and improvement.

Focus on growth

And this is the one which I think is a driver for some of the other issues, particularly the environment and our change in diet, the focus on growth, on doing better and doing more.    The world focusses on growth, so the world gets more frantic, faster, busier so we have less time to do tasks and need to move on quickly;  This builds a habit.   We also have the economic focus meaning tech vendors prioritise profit over societal good, in the name of growth, being a more profitable or bigger company this year when compared to last year.   This all drives a focus on doing whatever we can do to drive growth even where it isn’t positive for society as a whole.   Now I was always a fan of the educational concept of continual professional development however on reflection here my worry is that this is unsustainable, we cannot constantly develop and get better when faced with an infinite timescale.   In fact this driver, this need for growth, may make things worse and mean we are less focussed on identifying what really matters and what we need to do to achieve this.

Conclusion

I really enjoyed Hari’s book as it clearly established that technology and social media are part of the problem we now face in relation to our ability to concentrate and to focus, but they are not the whole, or the root, of the problem.   There are a number of factors feeding this problem including the environment we live in, our increasing risk adverse nature which leads to a reduction in opportunity for children to play and experiment, the poorer nature of the modern diet, reduced periods spent in quality sleep, and also the driving force focussed on growth above all else.  

This brings us neatly to where Hari begins in trying to solve the problem by cutting out technology and social media use for a period of time, or banning mobile phones as a school might decide to do.    This impacts on part of the problem but it doesn’t cover the other factors;   Maybe we need to have a broader discussion in schools in relation to focus and the things that might affect it? Maybe the problem is bigger than schools can address, and needs a more community or societal approach?

2023-24 in photos

2023-24 was such a busy year with so many great opportunities and so many great people to meet and share thoughts and ideas with.   From the outset and attendance at the ISMG Cyber Security Summit then presenting on AI at the VWV conference, it always looked like it was going to be a packed academic year but little did I know quite how packed it was going to be.   Little was I to know that the year would see me speaking in Amsterdam, Venice, Birmingham, London, Cardiff, Bristol, Leeds and a fair few other locations, and never mind the locations, it was the brilliant people that I had the pleasure to meet up with and talk all things technology and education with along the way that made it so very worthwhile.    The academic year also saw me become vice chair for the ISC Digital Advisory Group and become one of the founding members of the amazing Digital Futures Group (DFG). 

This collage of some of the photos is just the tip of the iceberg which was 2023-24 including some amazing memories from BETT, the Schools and Academies Show, The Edufuturists Uprising, EdTech Europe and also an attempted murder at FutureShots in Venice.     I can only hope that 2024-25 sees similar opportunities arise and further chances to share and collaborate with such great people, albeit hopefully without the attempted murder!

Thoughts on a new academic year

As a new academic year begins, this being my 26th academic year (has it been that long??) I just thought I would share some thoughts and maybe predictions.

Artificial intelligence

I don’t see the discussion of artificial intelligence in education going away as there is such potential.  The use of AI to support students, to help teachers and rebalance workload and much more.    It also makes for a good talking point for conferences or for developments.    I have two problems though.   One being that I think there will be a lot of talk, especially from vendors, without the reliable evidence supporting the impact and benefit of their tools.    As such I feel there will be a lot of misdirection of effort and resources when looking across schools in general.    Two is that artificial intelligence is all well and good, but it needs the relevant access to devices, to infrastructure, to support and to trained and confident teachers.    These digital divides need to be addressed before schools in general can then seek to use AI and leverage its potential benefits.

Online Exams

The issue of online or digital exams feels partly related to the sudden growth in AI and the resulting potential for AI marking of student work and therefore for AI based marking of student exams.    Again, I see this as another talking point for the year ahead but again am not sure we will see much real progress, possibly seeing less progress in this area than in AI.     The issue is that exam boards are taking things very tentatively so there first step will be “paper under glass” style exams which simply take the paper version of an exam and digitise it rather than seeking to modify the exam or examination process to benefit from the new digital medium.    For me the key benefit of online exams will be realised when they are adaptive in nature so can be taken anywhere and at any time.   This then means that schools wouldn’t need access to hundreds of computers for their students to sit an English GCSE exam as the students could sit the exam in batches over the day or over a number of days.    This would help towards the digital divides issue as it impacts online exams as schools wouldn’t need as many devices, but they would still need the infrastructure and the support to make digital exams work.

Mobile Phones and Social Media

Oh yes, and then there’s this old chestnut!   I suspect the phones and social media discussion will trundle on.   Students are being given phones without any parental controls and then schools are having to deal with this.   And some schools are taking the prohibition approach which is unlikely to succeed and may just deplete patience and resources.   I continue to believe we should be seeking to manage student mobile phones in school, so might restrict use in some areas and at some times but embrace and use them at other times.   We need to spend time with students talking about social media and its risks and benefits helping to shape the digital citizens which the world needs.

I also note here that social media is being blamed for the lack of focus and ease of distraction in students, and through association it is the fault of smart phones.    The world isn’t that simple, and having recently finished reading Stolen Focus by Johann Hari I am not more aware that other factors such as increasing levels of societal pressure to succeed, increased consumption of processed foods and our on-demand culture are all having an impact on our children.    Yes, social media, and by extension smart phones are playing their part but they are not the root and sole cause of the issues in relation to attention which we are seeing in schools and more broadly with children.

Fake news and deepfakes

This links to AI and also to mobile phones and social media, in the increasing ease with which fake news content can be convincingly developed including the use of images and video, and then shared online.    As fake news becomes an increasing issue, which I suspect the US elections will draw some focus on, there will be an increasing need for schools to consider how they discuss and address this challenge with their students.   More locally within education and within schools will be where we start to see increasing use of AI tools to create “deepfakes” by students and involving other fellow students, either “just having a laugh” or for the purposes of bullying.     This will be very challenging as the sharing of such content will quickly stretch beyond the perimeter of schools, spread through social media, messaging apps and the like, but where the victim and likely the perpetrators will be within the school.   

Wellbeing

This one came to me last, but if I was re-writing this I would likely put it first.   We talk about wellbeing very much but every year we look to see if the exam grades have gone up and are faced with increasingly compliance requirements around safeguarding or attendance or many other areas.    Improvements in results, or even the efforts to improve results mean more work, which means more effort and more stress.    More compliance hoops equally mean more effort and more work.    So how can we address wellbeing if educators are constantly being asked to do more than they did previously.   And exam results and compliance are just two possible examples of the “do more” culture which pervades society possibly driven by the need for economic and other growth as something to aim for.    Although growth and improvement is something laudable to seek, it cannot be continuous over time, not without deploying additional resources both in terms of money and human resources.    As such there needs to be a logical conclusion to the “do more” culture and my preference would be for us to decide and manage this rather than for it to happen to us.    AI can help with workload for example giving more time for wellbeing however my concern here is that this frees up some time to simply do more stuff, albeit stuff which might have an impact, but not positively on wellbeing.

Conclusion

The above are just five areas I see being cornerstones of educational discussion in the academic year ahead.   I suspect other things will arise such as equity of opportunity, although I note this links to pretty much all of the above.   There will also be other themes which arise but it will be interesting to see how these particular five themes develop during the course of 2024/25.

And so with that let me wish everyone a successful academic year.    Let the fun begin!

A world of cameras

We now live in a world where, if there is a car accident or a fight or something similar everyone reaches for their phone to film it.    No-one, or very few, rush in to help and support, instead the majority whip out their mobile phone, video the event before publishing it online for the world to see, in the hope of going viral.   

A positive spin

This can be helpful in getting news out quickly plus can be useful in terms of evidence of actually what happened, hopefully removing subjective memories from the equation, although as I will mention later things are not quite that simple.    I remember watching a movie which centred upon the use of video footage and a bloke with a handy-cam to unpick the events leading to a terrorist attack.   We now live in a world where everyone pretty much has a camera with them, in their mobile phone, and therefore the chances of doing something criminal and not being recorded are slim, albeit that has just led to a growth in face coverings and hoodies to obscure the identity of those seeking to do ill.   But maybe the common access to phone cameras might discourage some from committing crime in which case that can be seen as another positive.   

But privacy I hear you say

What privacy do we have where we might get caught on the camera of someone we don’t know, and where they might then publish this online for all to see, all without either our knowledge or our permission?   In a world of social media where we publish our own content this happens all the time and we may find ourselves laughing at the person who falls over however how do they feel with our own mistakes captured for eternity online and for the world to watch and laugh at?    Also, what about the videos of what happened where only an excerpt is shared online such that the content shared does not convey the context of the event and instead is purposefully picked to suit a particular narrative?  

At the edges

There is also the issue at the extreme edges of this balance, where individuals post their arguments  with security staff or police online regarding their rights to film in public, or in relation to their right to privacy and not being filmed when involved in a march or demonstration.   To the person stating their rights to film in public, I wonder as to what their aim is in filming where security or police feel the need to challenge, and to someone stating their right to privacy, if they are not doing anything wrong and the footage is only for the purpose of policing and identifying those corrupting free speech, etc. again what is their concern?   Now I know, again, things are not that simple.

Balance and pragmatism

I often cite balance and will do so here, that having mobile phones and the ease of filming and photographing events presents a benefit but it also presents a risk.  The technology is a tool and some will seek to use it constructively whereas others will seek to use it for their own negative ends.    Am not sure what the answer is to this, although my personal feeling is we need to be a bit more pragmatic in terms of what is acceptable and unacceptable, and maybe rather than the law leading the way, it is our national culture which should lead the way in terms of what we consider acceptable and unacceptable.  

I think the key issue is that the video capture isn’t going away, and in fact it is getting better, higher resolution and also easier to edit with AI tools so the challenges are only likely to grow.   And the editing or creation of fake, or synthetic, imagery or footage is a clear and growing concern.It is for this reason that I think this is something we need to talk to students about as part of discussing digital citizenship.   What do they think is acceptable or unacceptable and why and how do we build a world where we, in the vast majority, stay on the acceptable side of the fence?

Social media and extremism

The recent issue with riots in the UK and the link to posts being made on social media got me once again thinking about fake news and about fundamentalism and how technology amplifies what I feel is a societal issue, plus how there is no perfect solution to this problem.

Is societal cohesion breaking down?

In recent years, societal cohesion appears to be fraying, with the rise of “us vs. them” thinking, amplified by both social and mainstream media. Social media platforms often promote binary arguments, encouraging people to view those outside their group—whether divided by race, religion, or ideology—as the enemy, with the short form nature of social media only adding to this.   Even attempts to address the issue, such as highlighting how a particular group might be marginalised or be targets of abuse often only serves to strengthen the polarisation and the view of “us and them”.     I also note, that this “in group”, “us”, vs, “out group”, “them” thinking is partly hardwired into us as humans in our unconscious bias with those like us stimulating a different reaction at a brain chemistry level than those who are not like us.

All of this polarization fosters echo chambers, where in-group members are conditioned to see the “other” as a threat. In such an environment, it hardly matters who the “them” is; the division itself becomes the focus. This breakdown in unity provides fertile ground for extremists and anarchists, who exploit the growing divide to further their agendas, often using civil unrest as a smokescreen for crime and violence.    The recent riots being just one example of this.

Preventing hate speech

So, we recognise there is an issue, and that extremists and anarchists are seeking to exploit this to their own gain often using social media.   The issue is that preventing hate speech in the vast sea of online content presents a significant challenge. With millions of posts generated daily, identifying harmful speech is like finding a needle in a haystack, often requiring sophisticated algorithms alongside human oversight. Yet, the question of who defines “hate speech” is also complex. While clear instances of racial, religious, or gender-based abuse are widely condemned, the grey areas are more contentious. Cultural norms, political contexts, and free speech concerns mean that definitions of hate speech can vary, raising questions about who gets to draw the line—and whether some voices may be unfairly silenced in the process.    Consider the issue in Gaza currently where I would suggest that there are two very different perspectives on the Israeli and Palestinian sides as to what might be hate speech, and anyone viewing from outside is likely to come down more towards one side or the other, but are either wrong or right?

Maintaining freedom of speech

While preventing hate speech is crucial, it’s equally important to safeguard freedom of speech. There’s a growing concern that governments could misuse their powers under the guise of regulation to suppress dissent or unpopular opinions, leading to oppression. In such scenarios, controlling the narrative becomes a powerful tool, with authorities shaping public discourse to suit their agenda. We have already seen some governments around the world actually seeking to turn off the internet at a national level in order to control the flow of information and we also know that targeting communications systems is a key initial phase of military operations.     This manipulation or control of information can easily blur the lines between truth and propaganda.   So how do we find a balance between preventing hate speech while maintaining freedom of speech and who makes the decisions as to where this balance lies?

Hate speech, fake news and the truth

And its even more complex than finding a balance;   Hate speech, fake news, and truth may seem like clear and distinct concepts, but identifying them in practice is far more complex. What one person considers hate speech could be seen as free expression by another, and fake news might be interpreted differently depending on one’s beliefs or sources of information. The truth, often thought to be absolute, can be clouded by bias, context, and perception, making it subjective and open to interpretation. In this highly polarized and fast-moving digital world, the line between these terms becomes increasingly blurred, as individuals and institutions apply their own definitions based on personal, political, or cultural lenses.

Conclusion

In an age of rapid information sharing and deepening societal divides, navigating the complexities of hate speech, fake news, and truth requires careful balance. While it’s vital to combat harmful rhetoric and misinformation, we must also safeguard freedom of speech and avoid allowing subjective interpretations to silence genuine expression. As technology evolves, so too must our approaches to maintaining societal cohesion, fostering open dialogue, and ensuring that efforts to regulate speech don’t become tools for oppression. Ultimately, finding common ground in an increasingly fragmented world will depend on our collective ability to engage with diverse perspectives and uphold democratic values.   My feeling is that we are heading one way, and it is the wrong way, towards a breakdown of societal cohesion, but I feel social media is just amplifying and contributing to the issue rather than being the root cause.    I wonder, are we more insular as a society when compared with 20 or 30 years ago?    Are our groups or local communities less diverse but in a more diverse world?     Are we more inclined to discussion and disagreement in terms of binary positions?   

The news tends to point towards simple answers such as preventing or policing hate speech as a solution, but the issue is that things are seldom that simple.   I also think it is worth considering that all of the press around the riots in the UK are referring to maybe a few 1000 people involved in criminal activity, but that’s out of a population of over 69million.    Are we ever going to be able to stop such a minority bent on chaos, damage and mayhem, and therefore does the very act of discussing them simply feed their aims?

Exam Results 2024

It’s the start of the exam results period this week with the release of the Cambridge International results ahead of the A-Level exam results on Thursday and GCSE results the following week.   The pressure on teenagers to perform well in exams such as GCSEs and A-Levels is immense. Schools, parents, and society place great emphasis on achieving high grades, often portraying these results as the ultimate determinant of a young person’s future success. However, while exam results are undeniably important, they are not the be-all and end-all of a teenager’s life. There are numerous other factors that contribute to personal development, mental well-being, and long-term success that deserve equal, if not more, attention.

The Limitations of Exam Results

Firstly, it’s crucial to recognize the limitations of exam results. Exams typically measure a specific type of intelligence which revolves around memorization, understanding of theoretical concepts, and the ability to perform under exam pressure within a limited time frame. However, intelligence is multifaceted. Skills such as creativity, emotional intelligence, problem-solving, leadership, and the ability to work well in teams are not measured by traditional exams but are equally vital in both personal and professional contexts.   I also note that school and college exams, being sat in a hall with hundreds of other students, is far from ideal for many students, plus is not really representative of the kind of experiences students will encounter in life beyond formal education, and there is the research which points to the environmental conditions in exam halls in relation to heat, CO2, etc simply not be conducive of maximum performance.    

Mental Health and Well-Being

This intense focus on exam results can have detrimental effects on a teenager’s mental health. The pressure to achieve high grades can lead to anxiety, depression, and burnout where mental well-being is a critical component of a teenager’s overall development.    Teens need time to relax, explore their interests, and build relationships. These aspects of life help develop a balanced and healthy individual.   I note that I put too much pressure on myself in relation to exams when I was younger, which led me to difficulties with mental health mainly related to results below that which I expected in my Higher grade exams in Scotland.    These results were not the end of me, as I felt they were at the time, but actually spurred me on and taught me a valuable lesson regarding the unpredictable nature of the future, and how so-called life defining moments, such as exam results day, are simply just a stop on a much longer life journey.

The false narrative

The focus on exam results, as will be evident in the press over the coming week or so, perpetuates a false narrative of winners and losers, where students are unfairly categorized based on their results. This binary perspective suggests that those who achieve high grades are destined for success, and are “successful”, while those who do not make these grades are not. Such a narrative overlooks the diverse range of talents, skills, and potentials that exist beyond the confines of standardized testing.  It also overlooks the multitude of factors which might impact a students exam performance.   Success, or failure, in my view, is determined by the longer picture of your life, your contributions, your memories and efforts, and exam results are a small part of that in the longer term.

Conclusion

Life is a journey rich with diverse experiences, and exams are just one of many milestones along the way. Whether a pass or a fail, exams do not define a person’s entire future; they are simply a moment in time, a stepping stone on a much larger path.  For those getting their results this week and next, know that they are a small part of your life.   If you do well, celebrate, and then move onto the next stage in your life.    If you don’t do well as defined by your own expectations rather than the press or others, learn from this.   It may be that exams weren’t for you, that your performance was impacted by external issues, that the courses didn’t fit your interests, that you didn’t put in enough effort or many other factors;  That’s fine, so pick your next steps and move forward.   I know I did and with that I will leave but one last thought:  I learned from my disappointing Scottish S5 Higher results and worked harder to get to University in S6 but it was many years later before I learned about the need for balance in relation to study or work, and our wider lives.    How do you balance out work/study with the wider need for fun, enjoyment and need for experiences and human flourishing?   As your exam results come and go, I would suggest this is something well worth considering.

Efficient mental health?

Am currently reading The Lonely Century by Noreena Hertx and managed to get a good few chapters read while on the train from Bristol up to Leeds for the EduFuturists Uprising event.    It was in reading it, and on thinking of AI in education, the efficiency narrative and concerns in relation to mental health and wellbeing, that I thought I would scribble this blog post together.   And I apologise in advance for what will likely be a series of rambling and loosely connected thoughts, but hopefully you will find some value in them and be able to draw some semblance of sense from them.

Now I have written on the efficiency narrative before, that we are forever looking to be more efficient.   This is about getting more done with less so taking less time, or using less resources, or reducing errors.    The issue though is that this isn’t sustainable as ever time we save time, or save resources, we simply identify further things to do which will make use of the saved time, or saved resources.    Often under the guise of “continual improvement” we end up doing more, but we cannot continue this approach indefinitely.     One look at the teacher wellbeing index and we can see the resulting stress and workload issues brought about by a culture of “efficiency” and “do more”.   So individually we are all being challenged to do more, and our organisational structures, our teams, our leadership structures, etc, are all being challenged also to do more, but also to oversee continual improvement, which in turn means doing yet more things.

I have also written in the past on the subject of social media and the false sense of connectedness that it provides.    I have found myself surrounded by virtual friends and colleagues, sharing thoughts and ideas, but still finding myself isolated and alone.     This presents another challenge as we seek to be connected, to get involved and contribute, but all without the benefits of face to face get togethers and proper, real life socialisation.

Loneliness, or as Hertx describes it, that lack of connection not just from friends, family and colleagues but from our wider communities, our political parties and society as a whole is another concern.   Now Hertx points towards this as being a contributory factor in the fracturing of current society, including the growth in extreme views particularly as related to far right politics.     Now for me this links to social media where such ideals can be easily shared and garner favour or even see their way to going viral.    And for the students currently in our schools this is quite significant given that all they will have lived through is a world of social media, of extremist views, the breakdown of social cohesions, covid and its related lock downs and isolation, and similar other challenges.

Maybe we now live in a world where more than ever we need to reconnect with what it means to be human and in particular being the human, social, animals we are.   Maybe we need to spend time rebuilding our communities and rebuilding the social cohesion which I feel, on reflection, was an important part of my childhood.   A time where we knew who our neighbours were, and we worked, or as kids, collectively looking after each other, our kids and our families.    Technology can do so much for us but I do wonder if too much of our lives are now experienced or moderated through technology, rather than being “properly” experienced.   As I sit typing this on the train, I can see some irony in that.   I note I did enjoy some momentary chit chat with my fellow travellers, given the crammed nature of the train.   I could have been getting on with work and being efficient, but instead I sparked up a conversation with the strangers around me and felt, in myself, a little better for it.

Maybe it is these conversations which we need to have much more, putting down our technology, putting aside our “get more done” culture and just being human social animals a little more!   

Attendance or Family Time?

There is currently much debate in the UK on school attendance and parents who choose to take kids out of school to benefit from cheaper holiday costs during term time.   The debate is often framed as quite basic in that taking kids out of school impacts their learning however I feel the issue is more complex and multifaceted, touching upon academic performance, mental health, family bonding, and socioeconomic factors. As education systems around the world emphasize the importance of regular attendance for student outcomes, families face the challenge of balancing these demands with the need for quality time together. This balance becomes particularly complex when families consider taking children out of school during term time to take advantage of cheaper travel options.

School Attendance

Regular school attendance is widely recognized as a key factor in academic success. Many studies show that students who attend school regularly are more likely to achieve higher grades and perform better on standardised tests.   Additionally, schools provide students with a structured environment where they can develop important social skills, learn to work in teams, and build friendships. These experiences being essential for developing emotional intelligence and resilience, with attendance at school therefore being a prerequisite.

But attendance is not just about being present; it’s about engaging with the curriculum, participating in class discussions, and building relationships with teachers and peers. An unhappy child is unlikely to be “fully” present so this might point to the importance of family time and holidays possibly.

We also need to consider that the attendance discussion is largely being promoted from the point of view of government, from that central viewpoint where, on average, students with poorer attendance achieve less than those with good attendance.   But there is an issue in terms of how “achievement” is measured as it is often measured in terms of exams or standardised tests;   Are these tests, this grading and categorising of students all that really matters?   Or is there more to education than a GCSE or an A-Level?

Family Time

While the importance of school attendance is generally clear, family time is equally crucial for a child’s development and well-being.  Quality time spent with family fosters a sense of security, builds strong relationships, and provides opportunities for parents to impart values and life skills. For many families, vacations and time spent together are important for bonding and creating lasting memories.  In today’s fast-paced world, both parents and children often lead busy lives, and taking a break to relax and enjoy each other’s company can reduce stress and improve overall wellbeing. These moments of respite are essential for maintaining a healthy work-life balance and preventing burnout.

Traveling with family can also be educational. Exposure to new cultures, environments, and experiences can broaden a child’s perspective and enhance their learning in ways that classroom education sometimes cannot, igniting curiosity, encouraging a love for learning, and providing practical lessons in geography, history, and social studies.

But for many families, the cost of travel during peak school holiday times can be prohibitively expensive where traveling during term time can make vacations more affordable.   So, some parents may decide to take kids from school to allow for a family holiday and their children to experience destinations they might otherwise not be able to visit. This economic consideration is particularly relevant for lower-income families who may have limited opportunities for leisure travel outside of term time.

Conclusion

The current attendance or lost learning argument is yet another false dichotomy.   Additionally, we need to be careful in viewing holiday time with parents as frivolous and without any educational value.  This is a very simplistic view of learning, and might result from the narrow association of learning with traditional exams and standardised testing.    Learning is much broader, more nuanced and more complex than this.

I feel there is a balance to be reached as parents taking students out of school, when done proportionately and with appropriate communication with the school, can have educational and more importantly wellbeing benefits.    It is therefore very much about the relationship between school and parent, accepting that both have a responsibility for learning, and that such responsibility is interdependent.

Or maybe schools should look to vary their timetables to challenge the holiday, supply-and-demand model, or the travel agents need to be challenged on their pricing model and prevented from pushing prices so high during the holiday periods?    Sadly I suspect these options are difficult to implement, so it is very much about school and parents communicating and working together.

ANME South West

Last week I ran the ANME’s South West meeting, once again allowing me to take part in some of the excellent discussion with other IT staff in schools across the South West.   It was also great to see fellow ANME ambassador, Andrew White, back at the meeting after his recent health concerns.   As always the event proved useful in allowing IT staff from schools in different contexts and at different stages in their digital journey to get together and share thoughts and ideas.    It fits perfectly with the David Weinberger quote I so often use, “the smartest person in the room, is the room”.    In seeking to manage the increasing pace of technology and change, sharing and seeking collective solutions is likely to be our best chance to be successful and to thrive or flourish.  

One of the sessions, delivered by Michael Bewis focussed on wellbeing among school IT staff.   Now I found this session to be very refreshing as when looking at workload in schools the focus is often on teachers with well known research such as the teacher wellbeing index seeking to assess stress and workload of teaching staff over time.  But what about the IT staff, who are often quietly working behind the scenes to ensure the technology works as it should, often being very busy to make sure everything works, even when it all seems to be working well, never mind how hard they work when things aren’t going so well.   As such it was good to see some feedback from a survey of IT staff, involving SalamanderSoft and the ANME itself in gathering the data.   That ¼ of IT staff feel their workload is unacceptable and 40% feel undervalued is concerning although I do think this goes to a wider issue in education, including with teachers.   Now budgets, and linked to this staffing, were mentioned, however this is outwith our control, however our expectations in terms of what is done, when and to what standard is within our control, plus communication is also within our control.   We can therefore focus on what is within our control to hopefully seek to reduce workload and increase job satisfaction.    In the session I mentioned my current 3 keys words or entropy, prioritisation and reasonableness.    That we need to accept that education as a social endeavour has so many variables that there will also be a bit of the unexpected and a bit of chaos, but in dealing with this we need to prioritise what matters and do what we reasonably can.    I also note in relation to workload I have concerns as to the efficiency narrative, and trying to solve the issue by being more efficient.  This invariably leads to simply doing more but maybe we should be asking what matters most in schools, in teaching and learning and in IT, and then focussing on this rather than simply trying to do more.    I also think a key part of workload isn’t the tasks, but the culture of the team and of the organisation.  Is working long hours, being first in and last out, being knackered seen as the sign of a good employee?   Or is a good employee the person who gets the job done but knows when to say no or “not now/yet”, and sometimes works late, but other times leaves early, who clearly seeks to balance out work with their wider life?     It is the little things which build the culture, so do the little things in your school build a culture of wellbeing or not?    And as to wellbeing groups and initiatives, I am not a fan, as all too often these are just things tagged on in the interests of being seen to do something, rather than the cultural change which is really needed, and for cultural change to work it needs to be at all levels, at teacher and support staff level, middle leaders, senior leaders and even governors and trustees.

The other session delivered by Toby Ratcliffe, another ANME member, discussed building a resilient IT support team.    I liked the acknowledgement that things are never simple and plans seldom progress as you planned.  This aligns nicely with my concept of entropy as mentioned earlier.    Some of the other ideas presented matched very much with mine such as the importance of gathering data in relation to the performance of the IT team as a whole.   I personally make use of data from our help desk ticketing system as well as office 365 usage and storage information plus also data gathered from an annual staff and student perceptions survey.  This data allows me to highlight all the work my team do plus the ongoing increase in work as we have more systems, more users and more data to support, helping others understand the nature of the work we do on a day to day basis, never mind when things go a bit wrong.   The annual perceptions survey, as Toby noted, tends to be very subjective however, this aside, having some data is surely better than having no data, as would be the case if you never run a survey.   The key about satisfaction surveys in that it allows you to make decisions based on data, or data driven decision making as it may be referred to.  

Overall, it was a very useful and interesting day, with lots of sharing and discussion above and beyond the two presentations mentioned above.    Discussions dipped into cyber security and business continuity, esports (and I note this came up randomly and not of my doing…..honestly 😉) and Windows 11 deployment among other areas.

So that’s the last of my ANME meetings for this 2023/24 academic year, but I look forward to 2024/25 and further meetings in the new academic year.  Through sharing and collaboration we can best meet the challenges of the future, especially where technology is moving at such an increasing pace.

Reflecting on 2023/24

And so another academic year draws to a close so I thought I would share some initial reflections:

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

AI continued to be a big topic of discussion throughout 2023/24 and saw me speaking to school leaders, teachers but also to school support staff on its potential as well as the risks and challenges.    I think like a lot of Tech AI has those which are heavily engaged and supportive of its use, then a larger body with are unsure or reluctant, followed by those that are anti and against its use.    As such at the moment the impact of AI when viewed generally, may appear less than its potential or what those positive about AI are proclaiming.   For me it is about getting more staff experimenting and finding out how AI can benefit them in schools, often in little and simply ways rather than the flash examples we often see.   Personally, I am slowly introducing greater use of AI into my various workflows and in doing so seeing benefits in time saved but also, and possibly more importantly, on the quality of outputs.    By using generative AI to assist me, AI and I (??) are coming up with more ideas, using a wider vocabulary range, creating better graphics and reducing errors among other things.    Two heads, even if one is a headless AI, are better than one!

Digital Divides

I have already mentioned AI and generative AI but it represents yet another aspect to the issue of digital divides.    Technology, and generative AI has such potential to enable greater creativity, address imbalances such as those related to SEND or to language proficiency, support collaborative and communication and much more.   But you need to have access to the technology, the software, the hardware, the internet bandwidth and more, with this access often the product of a digital strategy or plan, and the relevant budget and finance.   You also need access to support and help, to a culture which embraces the potential of technology and generative AI, at school but also add home and in your local community, friends and colleagues.    The number possible divides between those that have and those that have not is only increasing, and the magnitude of each divide is only widening with each passing day as those that have, experiment, adapt and innovate, while those that have not are held back, continuing to work in ways that are long established, as the world around them changes.

Digital Future Group (DFG), collaboration and sharing

Generative AI advancement is just one indicator of the increasing pace of technology change, with resulting impact on society more broadly.   But how can we keep up with these dizzying advancements and changes?    Can one person keep up with all the apps, the tools, the different approaches?  For me the key here is in approaching the problem collectively and collaboratively rather than individually.   For example, this year has seen the creation and my involvement in the Digital Futures Group, which is all about sharing and networking.   I am so blessed to be part of a group of professionals who operate across different contexts, in different roles and with different skills and experience, across the UK, and I am better for my involvement.   I have also had the pleasure of being involved with the Association of Network Managers in Education (ANME) and also the Independent Schools Council (ISC) Digital Advisory Group.    Each of these organisations has allowed me to network with some amazing people, gaining from their experiences, their values and views, the knowledge and maybe even their humanity, and in a world of increasing use of AI, maybe our humanity, and sharing our humanity is all the more important.

Wellbeing

I think another reflection on the academic year relates to wellbeing, and it may be that this jumps to mind due to a recent presentation at the ANME South West event in relation to wellbeing and IT support staff.    This academic year has for me been a very difficult one personally with a major personal upheaval hitting me in the first term, something that I am not sure I have fully recovered from as we complete the final term.   Actually, thinking about it I don’t think it is about recovery but more about adapting to the changed circumstances I now find myself in.   This has forced me to stop and reflect and in doing so identify a lot of personal practices and habits I have developed which have led to an unbalanced life.   It took a significant life event to make me stop and reflect such that I am now trying to rebalance and establish new habits.   This has also got me thinking about the “be more efficient” narrative and what it means to be a good employee.   I get the concept of being more efficient and therefore doing things quicker or using less energy, etc, but if all this leads to as being asked to do yet more things, surely this isn’t a sustainable model.    Laura Knight talked about resilience and how this isn’t something we should aim for as its ok to being resilient to short term issues, but having to constantly exist in a state of resilience isn’t really living and in all honesty isn’t something we can do for any significant period of time.    For me “efficiency” may suffer similar problems.    And if being efficient is driven by an organisational need for efficiency, so does this mean that to be a good employee I need to be efficient and get more done than others, and if this is the case does it not possibly drive unsustainable hours, stress and workload issues.   So maybe schools and other organisations need to consider what it is to be a good employee, with leaders modelling this and with the expectations clearly espoused.  Maybe we also need to stop and identify what really matters, rather than constantly adding more tasks, more requirements and more considerations to our everyday roles.

Conclusion

This for me has been a year of difficulties but also of a greater sense of community and collaboration.   AI, Digital Divides, Networking and Wellbeing are definitely the four themes which currently stick out for me from what has been a busy academic year, but then again when are academic years in schools or colleges not busy?    Am hoping that 2024/25 will be another positive year and soon enough it will be upon us.   I am going to post in the coming weeks a month by month review of some of my highlights for the year including some photos but for now let me just wish everyone a good holiday period acknowledging that myself and my team, plus many others, particularly IT teams, will actually be working much of the holiday period on IT upgrades and many other things, ahead of the new academic year.    All the best to all.