Bedrock Talks from Bedrock Learning

Impactful trust-wide digital transformation with Richard Anderton

• Bedrock Learning • Season 2 • Episode 20

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Prepare to transform your approach to education technology with insights from Richard Anderton, the Digital Transformation Lead at the Arthur Terry Learning Partnership (ATLP). Richard joins us to unpack his extensive role, focusing on how ATLP's digital strategies extend beyond simply handing out devices to students. Learn about the critical elements of online safety, the far-reaching implications of artificial intelligence, and how these elements come together to create a more efficient learning environment.

In this captivating episode, we explore the delicate balance of integrating traditional and digital methods in the classroom. Richard discusses the strategic use of digital tools for marking and feedback while advocating for traditional handwriting exercises. 

Discover how ATLP is promoting equity with their Learning Futures initiative, creating a more efficient and inclusive learning environment for all.

Speaker 1:

Hi everyone, welcome back and thank you for continuing to download and subscribe to the Bedrock Talks podcast with me, andy Sammons, I'm the head of teaching and learning at Bedrock. Again, keep the emails coming, keep the suggestions coming for guests. It's lovely to have kind of an active community on this. It's really, really great. Again, guest today was actually recommended to me by a colleague. Guest today was actually recommended to me by a colleague.

Speaker 1:

My colleague, daisy in the New School Partnerships team, said she worked with this chap who'd been brilliant to work with, talk to around implementation and when I kind of got to talking to Daisy about this colleague, it was just incredible the scope and ambition of his learning partnership, what they're trying to achieve and what he's spearheading at that partnership. So, um, thank you so much to richard anderton. Um, today coming on, uh, who's digital transformation lead at the arthur terry learning partnership. Thank you so much for coming on, richard. I know you've, uh, we've just said you've just stopped the back of a holiday, so you're kind of you've been kicked into normality talking to me the day after you get back, right no, it's absolutely fine.

Speaker 1:

Uh always happy to talk about, uh, the atlp and the things we're we're doing at our organization well, it's interesting, I think, because recently we at bedrock, we're we're increasingly finding ourselves talking and, in some cases, facilitating the device um, supply of devices, um, and and we'll get on to that with what you guys do a bit later. So I think, for lots of schools, your input around the pedagogy and around the implementation will this will be a really time, uh, timely podcast, I think, for them to listen to. So, um, as we get into this, then give us a sense of you know, obviously, that that I mean I remember joking to you with you before saying you've, I've saying you've, got my dream job, that what you're doing is a dream, and there'll be lots of jealous people listening on this. So what does a digital transformation, a large trust, a large learning partnership like yours do? What do you do?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so, as you said, I'm the Digital Transformation Lead for the Arbitrary Learning Partnership or the ATLP. We've got 24 schools out of the Midlands and my role is really split into two categories. The first is really the bread and butter of what I entered education for, and that's teaching and learning and that's really ensuring that the education technology we use and we've implemented is done effectively, that we're ensuring that our digital transformation is underpinned and embedded with teaching and learning and pedagogy. So for me, that's you know, that's the thing I love to do. And the second part is the broader digital strategy of the organization working really closely with our IT teams, with safeguarding especially. We know the ever-growing potential challenges with online safety and also new technologies such as artificial intelligence, and leading the developing strategy for that as well.

Speaker 1:

So digital transformation is a big word. Just Just give me an idea. What is that? At the ATLP, you know what does that? Is that device one-to-one for every pupil in the trust in learning partnership? Sorry, what is that?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So digital transformation in a simple sense is looking at how digital technologies can transform and enhance the way that we work as an organization, whether that's our central teams, the efficiencies that can bring, especially for workloads, and also the benefits it can have for our young people to support them in the world that they're going to enter in the future, and also in the learning within the classroom and at home. So it really encompasses all aspects of the organisation.

Speaker 1:

It's interesting that because I had it in my mind that you were dealing primarily with one-to-one devices and that was kind of. The scope of your role is much wider than that. And it's interesting actually because we've had Patrick Hickey and we've had Dan Fitzpatrick on the pod, both really interesting guys and both said the same thing and you mentioned it there as well about AI, and I've been experimenting a lot with AI in the last couple of weeks and what's really interesting I found is that you've got to approach AI as an individual, an organization, with a really critical eye. It's phenomenal and what it can do and what it can outsource for you is incredible. But I think there's a really big piece now around teaching young people to engage with that effectively.

Speaker 1:

This morning I was chatting to Olivia, our doctor of education, about keeping on top of latest reading. Chatting to Olivia, our doctor of education, about keeping on top of latest reading, and I found this incredible website called SciSummary and you can put PDFs links into it and it will basically allow you to chat with one or multiple papers. And she said is this making us lazier? Is this going to make you lazier in terms of what you're doing? And I said no, because when I was doing my piece of writing yesterday, all it did was it just outsourced some of the thinking for me and enabled me to channel my thinking elsewhere onto what I really wanted to get out and, I suppose, is that the angle you're taking when it comes to AI, and what other considerations have you had with AI actually as well?

Speaker 2:

Definitely for us, it's about making sure that we do things the right way, not just the the quickest way. You know, I think there's an element of potentially organizations wanting to be the first to really utilize it, but for us, we are taking, as you should do, a really careful approach to it, really making sure that data privacy GDPR is really thought about. We're focusing first on teachers and our central support services, looking at how it can support workloads, but being really careful about what that's being used for. So really iterative use cases. Looking at the things we're already focusing on through our Learning Futures initiative, our one-to-one device programme, which I know we'll talk about later on but looking at the things that we're already focusing on, such as checking for understanding, multiple choice quizzes. How can now artificial intelligence support teachers in doing the heavy lifting, so that they're focusing then on the assessing of the common misconceptions rather than the creation of the questions and the marking of the questions?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I love that. I've actually been building some content for our. We have a tool called mapper where pupils, teachers can select subject knowledge for pupils to be taught about. The algorithm will learn whether they've um understood the term or not. It, you know, probes in different ways in terms of images, synonyms, antonyms, and I've had to use um I I sorry to use chat, gpt this morning and DALI to help me produce images and questions, and it was only.

Speaker 1:

It wasn't like a one second bang click job for me. It was a real place of clarifying what I wanted, going back and forth between myself and the AI, and I agree, I think there is a. I mean, it's incontrovertible that there is so much heavy lifting that this is going to do for us, but I think you're right to really proceed. Caution is the wrong word, but very deliberate steps to kind of get there, because I suspect if I did do your job, richard, I would be everyone's worst nightmare Because every week I'd have I've got a new AI solution, I've got another one for us this week, guys, and implementing every Monday morning's implementation. I think I'd be a nightmare.

Speaker 2:

So I really respect that approach, that sort of delayed gratification approach, if you like, and I think that is hard, of course, because with technology, especially with artificial intelligence, new things are coming out all of the time. You've got to be really clear, uh, on your implementation, on the strategies that you have, and even if you see something that looks fantastic and you think, right, this could make a difference. We know that change culture and change management is really difficult, and if you are constantly introducing new things or you know, changing the direction of travel, then that's where you can potentially use that by lose that buy-in. So for me, um and he's taken a while to get to this point, of course but being really clear on small, gradual steps, bringing everyone together on that journey, so that we don't have a huge gap in those that can and those that are potentially struggling so do you have one-to-one devices across the entire partnership?

Speaker 2:

Yes, so we have one-to-one iPad from year one all the way to year 13. We've got 17 primary schools, six secondary schools and an alternative provision setting as well. Our devices go home from year one all the way to year 13. And for us, when we were looking at this, you know this huge endeavor uh, it just it was just after the covid19 pandemic and we really saw the the barrier between um access to technology and the impact it had on children's progress. And for us, one of the core drivers of our trust is that children are at the heart of everything we do. We really wanted to ensure that was backed up by actions and not just words. So that's why we launched our learning futures initiative with the real drive of empowering our learning and shaping futures, to ensure that we adjust any inequality inside the classroom and outside of it to support our children's progress so if we start the biggest picture here you've just sort of touched on it a little bit but how do you join the experience?

Speaker 1:

and what common threads, what sort of golden threads run through that entire framework, from 1 to 13, if you like? What? What have you done to ensure that kind of sense of consistency and cohesion?

Speaker 2:

so for us, uh, with other trusts that I talked to, um, some have gone with uh an approach where they've brought in the whole curriculum at a trust level um and sort of enhance that with digital technologies at the heart of it and then send that back out to schools. And we don't necessarily have a curriculum that is uh followed centrally. We have the principles and then send that back out to schools, and we don't necessarily have a curriculum that is followed centrally. We have the principles and then schools um utilize those and contextualize those. They use their, their local settings. So for us, we wanted to have some real, clear um sort of frameworks that were underpinned by pedagogy and underpinned by teaching and learning that schools could then codify into their settings the age groups that they teach, to support teaching and learning. And that was the top five for the digital classroom. So that explanation and modelling, you know, the bedrock of effective teaching. All our teachers have iPad Pros, they have Apple Pencils, apple TVs in every single classroom so they're free to present their lessons, to model, to explain, not tied to the front of the classroom any longer, being able to capture live models, share it with children so they can access it in school at home and for us it has been a real, real key driver. The second is classroom management. So we use an app called apple classroom that allows us to manage ipads effectively in the classroom but also to support with key pedagogical strategies such as intentional monitoring. So being able to view all screens of the ipad really supports children and teachers in being able to support that progress. The third is accessibility. For us, one of the reasons we chose ipad was because they're built to be accessible from the ground up, meaning that children with SEND, additional needs, eal, can really thrive within the curriculum.

Speaker 2:

Fourth, assessment We've touched on it briefly with multiple choice quizzes For us. We know the benefit it can have to workload, but for us as well, it's about how we can get teachers to focus on the common threads that digital assessment can show us, rather than the heavy lifting of marking individual questions and not necessarily seeing those common misconceptions. And the final one is workflow and we use a tool called showbie. Um, we've we've toyed around with the idea of. You know, this shouldn't really be its own element because the principles of showbie.

Speaker 2:

This shouldn't really be its own element because the principles of show be a direct instruction, independent practice, assessment of feedback and they really do fall within all those elements I've mentioned. But it's such a big part of the implementation that it does need its own section and that is used from reception all the way up to year 13. It's a place where teachers and children interact within lessons and at home together. So that's really been the bedrock of our implementation. Schools have codified that and we've sort of adapted it slightly for secondaries as well, and that's what all CPD, all stakeholder engagement, has really revolved around.

Speaker 1:

I think what's interesting that you've said there is the idea that kind of I mean, I love the idea that you use ShowBee. People who are listening to this will know from my time in my previous role that I brought ShowBee in during the pandemic at my school and I was a big advocate for it. How does this, though? For example, you talk about moving around the room, modeling and all that, all that great teaching and stuff that we all love. How does this tie with your, for example? How does show be, for example, tie with your bookmarking policy or policies around kind of that every day, because I know the teachers will be thinking this sounds amazing, but how does this link to you, know?

Speaker 2:

I think that's a really important question to ask so, as a trust, we haven't um dictated, you know, a preferred mechanism for whether work should be completed in books or within uh, within showbiz or an ipad. We we say there should be an important balance, you know, and given some guiding principles around the fact that all extended writing should be completed in books or on paper. Where that can be then stored could be on Shobi, with digital marking, voice feedback, which we know Evidence says has impact. So for us, it's really about ensuring that our leaders are skilled in being able to make decisions that are right for their context, and whatever decision they make has to follow whatever sort of policies they have in place for marking and for feedback.

Speaker 2:

We've had Ofsted's since going one-to-one, some really positive feedback, especially from one of our schools where Ofsted talks about it not being a gimmick and then really seeing the benefit of it. Feedback, especially from one of our schools, uh, where ofsted talks about it not being a gimmick and then really seeing the the benefit of it and then sort of seeing the important balance between books, um and the work completed digitally. We're, you know, we're really clear that writing uh is an important aspect. That needs to stay um. But we have also invested in one-to-one stylists for all our children, so that any work that is completed completed digitally. Uh, we have also invested in one-to-one styluses for all our children so that any work that is completed completed digitally.

Speaker 1:

We have high expectations of presentation interesting and just before we move on to the kind of the other, the pedagogical side of this how, how is how? Are these ipads financed? In terms of you know, how have you done this at such a massive scale? Is there any pupil contribution or parental contribution, or for schools' budgets? What's the impact?

Speaker 2:

So for us, going back to that point around, equity is really the core driver of this initiative and we didn't want that to be a barrier to certain parents. So this isn't an initiative where any parents have to contribute to the initial costs of iPads or any peripherals. It's taken from central budget and our sort of initial IT yearly expenditure. And then we're looking at other cost saving mechanisms that can support that becoming even more sustainable. So, for example, printing, looking at retendering um, the reduction in the hardware that's where the most money is saved and then real drive forward with um the reduction in printing, you know, copies, uh, etc. And we're looking at about a 50 reduction um across the trusts, at least next year.

Speaker 1:

Interesting, and so if we were to kind of dive into a little bit now, a bit more depth around the pedagogy. You've mentioned the framework you've used. I'm not going to spoil this for people, I'm going to let you introduce this properly. I really liked it though. So what have you in terms of your framework? Just talk us through how you've done this, because I think it's such an important thing and I've been reading lots in the last few days around reading and teacher development and how the key is really to move away from one-off events, one-off things, but actually more deeply embedding it into the teacher's toolkit and professional sort of psyche, if you like. So how have you embedded this in terms of the pedagogy and given staff a deep and meaningful understanding of what you're trying to achieve?

Speaker 2:

yeah, so we uh use something called the t-pack framework, uh, which is the technological, pedagogical and content knowledge framework, and uh, for us, it was really helpful to support leaders and teachers being able to contextualize. What does this look like? What, um, what is the sort of intersection between digital technologies and between, uh, the curriculum, pedagogy? So at the heart of it is, um, content knowledge and pedagogical knowledge. You know what children need to know and understand and the most effective pedagogical methods to deliver them, and the intersection of those is what we all strive for as effective teachers, isn't it? It's effective teaching and learning, um. But then if we bring technology into the mix, if we're not careful or strategic with that implementation, it can be seen as an add-on or a bolt-on, potentially an afterthought, and that's where there can be a downfall. The TPAT framework brings those three elements together.

Speaker 1:

So there's the technology, the content knowledge, the pedagogical knowledge all overlapping, so that teachers and leaders are really mindful in ensuring that all those three elements have an important part to play, with the content knowledge, the pedagogy, being really, really important so let's say, for example, if I was going to come into your um, into one of your schools, and be inducted into one of your schools, for example, um, normally you get a login and you say you know, go and dig into the schemes of work over there, mate off your pop. That's what normally happens, isn't it? How are teachers kind of inducted into this and how are middle leaders particularly instructed to make sure that this is part of their plans and things like that? Is that you know? Is that lesson plans? Is that particular ways of presenting information? What is it?

Speaker 2:

So, from an induction perspective, we have trust inductions three points over every year, and I give a sort of introduction to learning futures, to digital technologies, the Alpha Terra Learning Partnership, to give a sort of broad overview of the initiative and the why that's really important for us. We want our teachers and leaders to understand the why of you know why have we done this and not just going into a school seeing there's lots of ipads but not really understanding, yeah, the reason behind it, uh, but then, yes, of course, it's really clear that there needs to be sustained professional development, and sustained is for me, the most important word um. I think it's quite easy to front load a lot of cpd um before the deployment of ipads or just at the start of the implementation, and think right, our work is done now, um, but we know that staff changes. You know constantly um, that people need to be. You know, with our growing knowledge of cognitive science, of how anyone learns, that there needs to be retrieval of that content for it to be embedded. So we really want to ensure that that cpd is sustained for our cpd calendars and that we're moving away now from having standalone learning futures you know ed tech, cpd but rather, we're focusing on a pedagogical aspect, such as intellectual monitoring or checking for understanding. What are the principles behind that pedagogical approach? How can digital technologies support you in achieving that goal as well?

Speaker 2:

And regarding middle leaders, I think we try to avoid the term sort of instruct, but rather guide into um. You know the right direction and each school will have their individual contexts and they need to have ownership of around how they implement it and it will look different uh each school you'll go to. Some schools will have more of a book focused uh model. Some schools will have more of a digital uh focus model, but there will be consistencies around how ipads are used to scaffold the modeling. Yeah, you know, for digital resources, um, etc. But for us it's about empowering our middle leaders, our senior leaders, um, to make the best decisions for their department or for their phase in primary school and to take ownership of that and do you have um?

Speaker 1:

do you have access to software through the ipads throughout the, throughout the partnership in the sense of you know um? I think you mentioned before something that you had, but is there a way? You know you talk about afl, you talk about questioning and those type of things. Is there something that all schools have access to?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So what we've tried to do is to have broad consistencies over some of the tools we use so that it can support CPD at scale. So I've talked about SROB. That's embedded across the trust at scale. So I've talked about Shobie. That's embedded across the trust.

Speaker 2:

Socrative, which is our sort of quizzing arm. That's also embedded across the trust. So if you're checking for understanding for multiple choice quizzes, that is the tool that is recommended. We use Freeform, which is a free app on all iPads, really simple app for using it as mini digital whiteboards a fantastic tool that is very low cognitively demanding for the students and for the teachers. And my sort of one takeaway point would be if you are looking at getting started with iPads in the classroom, especially at secondary school, we know the research behind mini whiteboards, but now we're putting that into the hands of all students with um, the use of ipads, and it's a great tool to start using it um consistent, consistently within the classroom.

Speaker 2:

So we we really focus on tools where um we can see that impact. You know bedrocking a number of our secondary schools, things like TT Rockstars across our primary schools. We've seen great impact on our multiple choice sorry, on our MTC results this year, improving in all sort of subgroups across the trust and Reading Plus as well, and the impact that's had on our reading at key stage. Two outcomes, so being really specific on the tools that we use, but also looking at what the impact we want to see from that so that we can start to show the impact of learning futures as well that's interesting, and so when it comes to, for example, something like Socrative, are colleagues able to share, write quizzes and share them across faculties and schools together?

Speaker 1:

Is that collaboration, something that you sort of bake into your time?

Speaker 2:

That's what we're really driving forward with. So when we introduced it to schools we were really clear to have, you know, primary school you would have a whole school library where you know you create a quiz. It will be added in there so that you know. There's a bit of front loading for resource creation, less so now that they've got a um ai tool feature. Of course we want teachers to have that human element of checking the ai um responses. But that has also reduced the time element of it so that teachers aren't having to um replicate things that are already done At secondary school. Then looking at department level shared libraries, but then we're also then investigating next year whole trust-wide libraries. So if there's a science department, there's a science department across the trust where teachers because there's a broadly aligned curriculum and teachers can pick and choose quizzes that have been used at other schools to be able to use them in their own practice. So yeah, for us replicating is something sort of you know, teach them to do things over and over again is something we want to avoid and using digital technologies to support that.

Speaker 2:

One of the things that we're most proud of is centralising the whole of the French curriculum at primary on ShowBee. So we've got a fantastic French primary curriculum that's been developed by our Trust, mfl lead, and we really saw the power of that being digitised, the power of children being able to record their pronunciations and have them played back to them so that they can listen to them, improve them, the teachers being able to model pronunciations and have the children listen to them. So that's being centralized. Teachers then have to just copy and paste it into their class on ShowBee and that's a resource for the year. Of course, we want teachers to adapt that when necessary, but the feedback around supporting workloads, but also supporting confidence in teaching it, and also the response from children in um benefiting it, has been fantastic. So we're also looking at other subjects potentially where we could follow that approach as well that's.

Speaker 1:

I mean that really really genuinely quite exciting. I remember in my brief dalliance with Shobi, I loved doing the verbal feedback so powerful. I remember thinking this is really going to change the game and I wished it's something that we, as a school, we continue with. I think one thing that COVID did give us was exposure to some of these things, and I love the fact that the people are you know, some schools like yourselves are carrying on that legacy and driving it and actually packaging it as something about, you know, learning futures. That sounds incredibly dynamic as well. Just before we finish, I know there'll be financial people, there'll be logistical people listening to this who will want to talk, want me to ask you about sustainability and finances around what? And we've touched a little bit on the finances, but how? How are you ensuring this as a sustainable piece of work? Because you know technology moves quickly, doesn't it? And this stuff is expensive and can probably cripple a school budget if, if done poorly. So could you just briefly give us a sense of how you are ensuring sustainability?

Speaker 2:

yeah. So for us, when we're looking at uh purchasing or leasing whatever model um organizations want to go with, we wanted to go with a um, a device that held residual value. So at the end of the, the term where we finish using with it, there's still a value to the product at the end of it, and for us, ipad um has the highest value of any of those. So we um across our organization um have our devices for three years. We retain, retain a residual value on those, which is then used to invest in the next wave of deployments. We're really careful, then, about looking at okay, we've invested in this, where can we sort of stop certain things that we no longer have to invest in? I've talked about printing, but there's also other elements um such as staff retention. It's something that I'm actually working on um next year.

Speaker 2:

We've got anecdotal evidence of a higher retention rate, with teachers uh moving across schools within the partnership instead of uh moving uh externally, and that's because we've got probably the most aligned offer that the organisation has ever had. You know, all children have the same device. We're very similar now approaches to pedagogy and teaching and learning, in part because of Learning Futures. All teachers leaders have the same device, you know same software, so there's a lot less sort of getting to know new tools and new systems, which supports that, and of course that comes at a cost, saving um as well. But for us, we're really set on making sure this is sustainable for the long term. We don't see this as being a three or four year uh project. This is something that we want to go forward with for, you know, the next however many years, but for us, at the heart of it is always equity, and that's really important.

Speaker 1:

I love that, I think you know, and I love the fact that there was a real long-term plan here, not just a one-off event. As you know, the EEF talks about implementation being a social process, but also something that's ongoing, and it really seems to me that here is a here is a group of people that have properly researched, thought this through and are doing it for all of those right reasons. So, and also just to say thank you as well, I think you've been, you've been so open and so helpful and supportive and I know that there'll be, there'll be colleagues listening to this thinking do you know that there'll be? There'll be colleagues listening to this, thinking do you know what it sounds like? There is possible to have a really thought-through process out there and, um, yeah, you've been really generous with your time.

Speaker 1:

So if you've got any questions for myself um, listeners you've got you can email me at education at bedrock, loanorg, and I'm sure richard would be happy for me to put you in, put, put you in touch with him as well to talk this through. I'm actually going to make a point of reaching out to some of the ATLP schools who have bedrock to kind of touch base and listen to how they're going about doing it, and any CPD, any support we can provide there as well to get this moving even more effectively for you, whatever small part we can play. So thank you for your time today, richard, massively appreciate it, and I'll let you get for you whatever small part we can play. So thank you for your time today, richard, massively appreciate it, and I'll let you get back to enjoying the rest of your summer holidays no, thank you, andy.

Speaker 2:

Appreciate the time, um, and schools and trusts that are looking at this. We are working with um organizations to support their digital strategies. So, um, I'm sure, andy, you've got my email address. If schools do want to or trusts do want to reach out, feel free, um, and we can look at working together. Top man thanks very much, richard thank you bye.

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