The government has increased a grant offered to schools and colleges to install electric car charging points to £2,500, and said settings could use them to generate revenue.
Under the scheme, state-funded schools, colleges and nurseries could previously apply for up to £350 towards the cost of installing charge points.
Today, technology minister Anthony Browne announced the government will now cover up to 75 per cent of the cost of buying and installing the points, up to £2,500 per socket.
Charge points could be used by staff and visitors, and the government said education institutions could also “generate revenue by making their chargepoints available to the public”.
The announcement is part of a wider scheme to create more charging infrastructure across England. Funding of £381 million is going to local authorities to install the technology in their areas.
‘Exciting opportunity’
Baroness Barran, the academies minister, said it was an “exciting opportunity to become part of an ongoing move towards a greener public sector”.
Baroness Barran
“Schools [and other education settings] engaging with this grant will be supporting the development of green infrastructure, helping to improve their local environments.
“Developing a greener education estate is a key element of our sustainability and climate change strategy. The expansion of this grant supports our ambition to improve the sustainability of our schools in the ongoing move towards net zero.”
The government said its schools grant was for state-funded education institutions, including colleges, “which must have dedicated off-street parking facilities”. Applications can be made online.
Ofsted chief Sir Martyn Oliver has ordered a “rapid review” of the inspectorate’s system for recording inspection evidence after long-standing issues with data being wiped were revealed.
Multiple current and former inspectors described situations in which their screen “froze” and evidence “disappeared” in front of their eyes during visits. Others discovered evidence had been wiped upon returning to their hotel room.
Following Schools Week’s story, the Observeralso covered the problems, as well as claims inspectors had been forced to “make up” evidence after the system crashed.
An Ofsted spokesperson told Schools Week it had seen “nothing to support the claim that evidence has been ‘made up’ – something that would never be tolerated”.
But they added: “Sir Martyn is initiating a rapid review to satisfy himself that the EEG and the guidance to inspectors is robust. If schools or inspectors have any concerns, we would want to hear about them directly, so we can respond appropriately.”
‘Blame turned back on inspectors’
Current and former inspectors told Schools Week that Ofsted was repeatedly warned about the problems, but initially refused to accept there was something wrong and “blame turned back on the individual inspectors”.
Ofsted said it was “aware that on some occasions inspectors can have issues with the EEG, for example connecting to WiFI due to the provider they are in or to the system itself”.
But they said these issues were “more frequent when the system was first introduced” and inspectors have been “instructed to use other means to record their evidence in these circumstances”.
The watchdog also said it believed there had “only been a very small number of instances since 2019 where we have declared an inspection incomplete as a result of a technical issue”. This was said to potentially be as low as one or two.
In those instances, “we have then returned to the school to collect more evidence to ensure the judgement is secure”, the watchdog said.
The countdown to the 10th Annual Apprenticeship Conference (AAC) is in its final stages with organisers announcing final keynote speakers.
This flagship event, renowned for bringing together apprenticeship employers, providers, and enthusiasts, is set to be the biggest yet, with over 1,200 delegates expected to attend. Taking place at the International Convention Centre (ICC) in Birmingham on the 26th and 27th of February.
The AAC will serve as a platform for crucial political dialogue, especially given the proximity of the upcoming General Election. Keynote speeches from the apprenticeship minister, Robert Halfon and Seema Malhotra MP of the Labour Party are particularly noteworthy. Their participation promises to shed light on each party’s stance and policies on apprenticeships, offering invaluable insights to delegates.
Sir Martyn Oliver, the newly appointed Chief Inspector of Ofsted, will make his first major education conference appearance since his appointment earlier this year. Sir Martyn’s session is highly anticipated, as it is expected to shed further light on his vision and priorities for the education sector.
Sir Martyn Oliver, HMCI Ofsted
Adding to the conference’s high-profile speaker lineup, Rory Stewart, a distinguished political thinker, will deliver a keynote speech on “Politics, Populism and the World”. This session is set to offer a profound understanding of global political dynamics, drawing from Stewart’s extensive experience.
A cornerstone of the AAC is its extensive workshop program. Over the two-day event, more than 60 workshops will be offered, covering a wide array of topics relevant to apprenticeships. These workshops are delivered by partners such as the Department for Education, Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education, Ofsted, and Ofqual, among others. The breadth and depth of these sessions underscore the conference’s commitment to advancing the apprenticeship agenda.
Highlights video of AAC 2023.
A highlight of the AAC will be the Gala Dinner and Awards Evening on Tuesday. This sell-out event will host an audience of 550 people, eagerly awaiting the results of the AAC Apprenticeship Awards. The gala dinner not only celebrates the achievements within the apprenticeship sector but also offers an unparalleled networking opportunity for the attendees.
The conference will also feature a bustling exhibition hall, where more than 50 exhibitors will showcase their latest offers and products.
FE Week, as the proud media partner, will be covering the event in detail. Organised by FE Week’s publisher, EducationScape, the conference is a testament to the continued importance and evolving nature of apprenticeships in the UK’s education and workforce landscape.
The government will launch a long-awaited school teacher degree apprenticeship for non-graduates next year, it has been announced.
The four-year course, which would see apprentices achieve a degree and qualified teacher status, will be piloted with “up to” 150 trainee maths teachers from September 2025.
Apprentices would spend “around 40 per cent” of their time studying and the rest of the time in the classroom, the Department for Education said.
The government missed its secondary teacher recruitment target by 50 per cent this year.
Planning for a route that does not require applicants to already have a degree has gone on behind the scenes for years. Without such a route, schools have limited ways to spend money they pay into the apprenticeship levy.
But earlier attempts to create such a route never came to fruition, in part due to opposition from former schools minister Nick Gibb, who left government in November.
Education secretary Gillian Keegan said the teacher degree apprenticeship (TDA) would be a “game-changing opportunity for schools to nurture and retain talent from the ground up, helping apprentices to gain the knowledge and skills they need to teach future generations.
Gillian Keegan
“The teacher degree apprenticeship will open up the profession to more people, from those who want a career change to those who are looking for an earn and learn route without student debt.”
A 12-month postgraduate apprenticeship route has existed for several years but requires applicants to already hold a degree.
Government data shows 630 people achieved the qualification in 2021-22. ITT census figures show 962 applied for the course this academic year.
Route for non-graduates
The DfE said its teacher degree apprenticeship would offer a “high-quality, alternative route for people to become qualified teachers”, and would “diversity the route into teaching so schools across the country can continue to recruit the teachers they need”.
The department added the new route would “provide a new route for teaching assistants who do not have an existing degree to train to become a teacher and continue their career progression in the classroom”.
The government will double the current minimum off-the-job training requirements from 20 per cent to “around 40 per cent” for teacher degree apprentices.
The DfE said apprentices would spend “around 40 per cent of their time studying for their degree with an accredited teacher training provider, gain qualified teacher status and all tuition fees are paid for, so trainees won’t be saddled with the student debt”.
It is also not clear whether the government will expect the qualification to be offered only by universities, or whether other teacher training providers will be given degree-awarding powers.
The department said it was “working with subject experts and the trailblazer group to co-develop how universities and schools offering the TDA can ensure secondary subject specialism is comprehensive and high-quality”.
The courses also “must adhere to the ITT criteria, encompass all aspects of the ITT core content framework (CCF) and enable trainees to meet the teacher standards”.
‘Unlikely’ to solve teacher shortages
Ministers will launch recruitment to the pilot scheme in the autumn. It will see the government “working with a small number of schools and teacher training providers to fund up to 150 apprentices to work in secondary schools to teach maths”.
Training providers “will bid to partake in the pilot and trainees will be recruited from this autumn and start their training the following year”.
The teacher degree apprenticeship grant funding pilot will only include government funding for the training of one cohort.
After that, schools will have to use levy funding. The DfE said providers and schools would also be able to “develop and run” apprenticeship courses with their own funding from September 2025.
The apprenticeship has been developed by a “trailblazer group” – panels of employers that draw up the standards that underpin courses.
The group is chaired by the South Farnham Educational Trust, whose chief executive Sir Andrew Carter led the government’s review of teacher training in 2015.
Geoff Barton, general secretary of the ASCL leaders’ union, said while the apprenticeship was a “good idea in principle”, it was “unlikely that teacher degree apprenticeships will provide anywhere near the number of qualified teachers required to solve the recruitment and retention crisis”.
He added that he was “concerned about how realistic this will be in reality for many schools given the number of competing demands on them and the lack of sufficient staffing and funding in the education system”.
Another year, another construction report on future skills. And what does this one say about further education? ‘Construction and its associated professions need to work harder to engage and excite future generations to seek a career in the industry.’
Common parlance, but we must dig deeper to look at the practicalities of how this might work.
Attracting young people to apprenticeships and persuading businesses to employ them has been a conundrum stretching back over decades, certainly across the 27 years I’ve been involved in high-level skills development.
The Building the Future commission’s new report highlights areas of concern, and they’re worth repeating. First, that construction’s reputation is a barrier; The best and the brightest only turn to it as a last resort. Second, career path silos needlessly block progression; greater collaboration would help everyone. Third, getting a foothold in various professions is prohibitively costly; earn-as-you learn should be rolled out more broadly.
The report’s key recommendations for education and skills are as follows:
An audit of all educational standards (including apprenticeships) to ensure they are fit for purpose.
A long-term project to ensure flexible routes into all aspects of the built environment, with new cross-industry qualifications to facilitate greater movement of workers.
A government strategy for vocational education lasting up to two decades.
Noble intentions, but at the moment there is not a lot of stability in the educational sector, little appetite for collaboration in parliament, and anyway we ought to be focusing on finessing the basics over a shorter timescale.
Employers, particularly those of smaller companies, are often unaware of what’s involved if they want to take on an apprentice. Instead of ministers imposing solutions from above, I suggest that they consider helping colleges now to become the go-to place for finding out.
FE should be font of information for students and employers
What do I mean by this? Simply that silo learning is ingrained in the educational sector; they offer an apprenticeship in this, a diploma in that, and any employer requiring a concoction of skills wouldn’t know where to turn.
The answer is to make the FE network itself the font of information so that when they engage in a conversation about cross-skill qualifications, an employer can trust an educator’s advice. Flexibility is the keyword.
I wholeheartedly agree, for instance, with the recent observations in FE Week by Graham Hasting-Evans, chief executive of NOCN Group. He says that our skills system, designed for larger programmes such as apprenticeships and T levels, is not suitable for the dynamic and ever-changing situation of green skills and digital innovation.
As the UK heads towards net zero, there will be job opportunities in construction that we haven’t even considered yet and education needs to be fleet-of-foot to accommodate them.
So why not start by putting educators firmly at the heart of construction recruitment by persuading employers to make use of the variety of resources at a college’s disposal? A small change in attitude, and a big step for construction recruitment.
But our education system is like a jigsaw with two-thirds of the pieces already in place. It would be madness to break up what’s there and start again because the finished picture isn’t perfect. Instead, we must add pieces to make the picture clearer.
So with further education. We should be building on all the good work of those who guide young people towards fulfilling construction careers. Make colleges not just a place of learning and a hub for careers advice for young people, but a centre of advice for employers too – a knowledge and skills exchange.
Most of all, ministers must work with education leaders now rather than redirecting all their resources into sweeping audits lasting decades. These recommendations are perfectly well-intentioned, but in the end the real solutions will be incremental and ground-up. The best thing ministers can do is facilitate a way of systematizing that – for construction, and all the other sectors struggling to fill workforce gaps.
The digital landscape in education is an ever-changing entity that is being shaped by technological advancements and cultural shifts. What we think of as ‘cool tech toys’ today, like virtual reality (VR) and artificial intelligence (AI), are becoming as essential to learning as books and pencils.
In the further education classroom, the role of technology has long since become pivotal in shaping the teaching and learning experiences of educators and students. But with the number of emerging technologies and the rapid growth of artificial intelligence (AI), we have come a long way in a very short time in what feels like a whole new transformation of our work.
Over the past 12 months, I have been exploring and utilising AI in different ways in the classroom and have seamlessly incorporated it into my everyday teaching practices. Leveraging a range of tools to help me organise, plan and teach my students has not only changed the way I teach, it also underscores the immense potential AI holds for the whole sector.
Bringing simple ideas to life
At the heart of my approach is Scribble Diffusion, a powerful tool catering to my Level 1 students studying English for speakers of other languages (ESOL) and foundation courses. Through this platform, students are encouraged to sketch a drawing and provide a prompt, showcasing how powerful generative AI is and how it brings their concepts to life.
For example, the students were tasked with sharing a word to develop a narrative. This was further developed through Scribble Diffusion as a photo story. As a result, it not only boosted their confidence but also put their language and creative skills to the test, stimulating creativity and nurturing a deeper understanding of visual representation.
Fostering innovation and creativity
As a games design tutor, I have found the use of Leonardo AI helpful in fostering creativity and problem-solving skills among my Level 2 and 3 students, enhancing their ability to develop innovative and engaging game concepts. This free, token-based generative AI tool is versatile across various vocational courses, demonstrating its potential to cultivate a wide array of skills.
I have also been utilising Quizalize which has become my go-to resource for creating engaging quizzes – particularly useful for new starter/student activities or session recaps. The integration of ChatGPT within Quizalize has helped me streamline the quiz creation process, showcasing the collaborative potential between educators and AI to enhance teaching methodologies.
Streamlining processes for efficiency
Another area I have been exploring is TeacherMatic, which has rapidly become an essential tool to streamline my workload. By automating routine tasks and providing easy access to educational resources, it has allowed me to focus more on instructional activities and student interaction.
However, while it holds promise in reducing the burden on educators and has the potential to become effective if developed further, its widespread integration across educational institutions is yet to be fully realised. Gillian Keegan may be pinning her hopes on AI to reduce workload, but there is a long way to go to make this a reality.
In addition to all these tools, I have of course also invested in ChatGPT 4. Its personalised prompts feature sets it apart from the free version. Customisation will be significant in maximising AI’s effectiveness in the classroom and meeting diverse needs, but the cost implication is certainly something policy makers need to be aware of.
Soft skills are vital in our day-to-day interactions and perhaps even more so in the working world. As a result, I have recently explored an app called Body Swaps for soft skills training. This innovative tool utilises VR to simulate interviews, providing individuals with a unique opportunity to refine their interpersonal skills.
AI has revolutionised the way I work, making my teaching more personalised, efficient, and responsive, both in my day-to-day activities with students and in how I plan lessons. It has helped me facilitate seamless communication and resource sharing among my peers and students, fostering a community of continuous learning and professional development.
All of which is truly beneficial for early adopters like me. (And there’s no reason you can’t become one too very quickly, no matter how inexperienced you feel.) The challenge now is to make this revolution systemic.
A parent of one of my FE students once demanded to know why we were ‘forcing’ his son to continue studying maths and English at college alongside his vocational subject.
What I said to him then very much remains the case today: every young person needs these skills to reach their full potential. Whatever their ambition or aspiration, developing confidence in these core subjects will make a monumental difference students’ ability to achieve career and life goals.
FE colleges have a huge responsibility here, often needing to completely re-engage and re-motivate young people who feel very negatively towards continued study of maths and English. Many feel like they’ve spent years failing at school, have low confidence and little interest in lessons.
There is also the issue of timing. For students joining us in September, it’s extremely difficult to retake exams with us at the first possible opportunity in November. This is due to the complexity and the cost of re-registering them, as well as not having the time to properly assess learning needs or get the information we need from their old schools.
Some young learners will be able to return to their school to resit in November, but this is dependent on the school’s policy. The result is that most young people moving into college needing to resit their exams will have to wait a whole year, having to focus on maths and/or English study alongside their vocational programme. Maintaining interest and motivation during this period is not easy and requires huge buy-in from students and their families, as well as talented and committed tutors.
Other difficulties include not having easy access to the data we need to ascertain where students’ knowledge gaps are. We run our own diagnostics, but exam board feedback sits with the schools and unless you can get it from them, GDPR makes it challenging to obtain.
This is not good enough, and measures must be taken to address it
For all these reasons, resit success at colleges is understandably limited, which is evident in the outcomes. This year, just 16 per cent of students re-taking GCSE maths passed with at least a grade 4, and 26 per cent for English – some 5 per cent down on pre-pandemic levels.
This is not good enough, and measures must be taken to address it. At LSEC, we are starting to see real progress in our outcomes in spite of the challenges the sector faces. We have implemented a range of tactics focused on supporting students.
Central to our approach is targeted and personalised learning. We use diagnostics to see where knowledge gaps exist and focus our teaching heavily on these. Using the awarding organisation’s result analysis tool helps us identify areas learners find most challenging so we can tailor teaching to their needs.
The Covid recovery fund has also given us the opportunity to provide additional tuition and workshops, immersing learners in study and providing exceptional support.
And, importantly, we use our most experienced teachers, who are briefed and trained by our director of English and maths to ensure the highest quality of teaching and learning.
But what the sector needs is more flexibility in terms of when to enter students for resits and appreciation of the associated costs. For example, could there be an entitlement for students to resit at school if they so wish?
Alternatively, could students resit their exams at college, but remain registered at their school (or even dual-rolled)? This would take the logistical issue of resits away from schools, while maintaining accountability.
A third option would be a later re-take, in January or February. This would give colleges time to assess students’ needs and get all the necessary arrangements in place, including access to school-held data. In turn, this would facilitate more targeted teaching, the implementation of additional support where needed – and a faster road to exams.
The importance of ensuring every learner gains a qualification in maths and English is paramount and I support it unequivocally. But it’s clear outcomes need to improve, and while colleges can do a lot, they could do so much more with a little more flexibility to operate.
From bot exam markers to snooping surveillance tech, we look at some of the most eye-catching technology on sale to educators at this year’s ed tech Bett conference, as the regulatory world rushes to catch up with AI advances.
Bringing exam marking into the AI age
The makers of an AI tool which marks both handwritten and typed exam papers and provides detailed feedback, claim it will “revolutionise” how exams are marked.
Vision Marker is the brainchild of father-son duo Barry Lambert, a chief examiner who has written over 50 GCSE papers, and Dr James Lambert, a machine learning boff who previously ran an algorithmic hedge fund.
The pair are marketing their tool as a “co-pilot” for marking rather than a complete teacher-less solution. Dr Lambert claimed to be unaware of any regulations prohibiting the use of an AI tool as a sole exam marker.
However, Ofqual said this is “not allowed”, although “awarding organisations may decide that AI can support the marking process”.
The Lamberts claim their tool is capable of co-marking all 420 million questions submitted each summer for key stage two and GCSE maths and English papers.
James and Barry Lambert
Vision Marker is currently being used in 25 schools to co-mark such practice papers, and the Lamberts are working with exam boards as well as some multi academy trusts and higher education institutions around using their services in the future. However, they won’t reveal which ones.
AQA’s chief executive Colin Hughes said in November that his organisation was interested in the potential for AI to mark exams, describing it as being “very easy” to have “machines marking human markers”. But “public confidence” was stopping them from doing so.
Other AI-powered marking tools coming onto the market include Blees AI, based in Canada and London, Graide, a University of Birmingham spinout with a new platform for marking essays and reports for universities, and KEATH.ai, a platform developed by University of Surrey researchers.
But Dr Lambert claims Vision Marker is distinctive because it can mark handwritten exams, even noting where words are scribbled out, and in the quality of its feedback, which can come with “varying levels of encouragement”.
Dr Lambert believes this feedback could prove invaluable in showing college students retaking their maths and English GCSEs where they are going wrong. “The time pressures mean feedback is never given at exam level. But detailed feedback is essential for student development.”
While manual marking takes weeks to complete, which Dr Lambert claims “delays result to students and hinders their outcomes”, Vision Marker could deliver exam results “in a couple of hours out to the entire nation”.
He claims their tool has proven itself to be “more accurate than [human] markers”, who are “prone to error making in these highly repetitive tasks”.
Teachers use exam marking to top up their wages each summer, with AQA paying between £500 and £1,000 per exam. Some may be alarmed at the prospect of being replaced by AI. But Dr Lambert claims they are “paid below minimum wage for what they do” and that their tool “turns markers into moderators” as they “use the [learner] feedback to agree or disagree with our system.”
He believes this means their technology will not be subject to the “black box effect” currently concerning the central banking market, in which it can be hard to understand how a particular AI model arrived at its conclusion.
“It’s the regulator’s dream rather than their nightmare because we have a fully auditable process of how and why marks are awarded.”
Halo Smart Sensor
Surveillance sensors
Schools and colleges are using surveillance equipment to crack down on vaping, bullying and rowdiness in hidden areas, such as toilet blocks.
Companies are selling sensors to schools and colleges that can detect not just nicotine and THC, but also listen out for keywords and “noise incidents”.
Triton’s 3D sense pro and HALO Smart Sensors, made by the US company IPVideo (owned by Motorola Solutions), both actively listen for pre-programmed words through a machine learning algorithm. The sensor triggers an alert sent to staff members when they are heard.
The 3D Sense Pro sensor has 10 built-in keywords (such as ‘help me’ and ‘stop it’) it detects, and leaders can also choose ten “customisable” keywords it can listen out for. One company selling the 3D Sense Pro, Emergency Protection, described on its website how keywords and phrases were “constantly added through OTA [over-the-air] updates”. Similarly, Halo smart sensors come pre-loaded with five keyword phrases and educators can request to include others.
After the AI learns different pronunciations of new keywords, the software is updated so these words can be detected by all Halo sensors in schools and colleges nationwide, said Jon Glover, a manager at Halo sensor seller Millgate.
Kay Firth-Butterfield, a lawyer specialising in AI, said parents and young people should be contacted and asked for their consent first before this technology is rolled out.
But a sales representative for Schoolwatch, a UK seller of the 3D Sense Pro, said users did not need to get permission from parents to use the sensors, because they were not storing or collecting any personal information. The devices can integrate with CCTV too.
When activated by a vaping sensor, the cameras can capture every student leaving the bathroom.
Schoolwatch’s website describes the algorithm as “actively listening” to pupils.
The Halo 3C-PC version can even count the number of people in a room.
Madeleine Stone, senior advocacy officer for Big Brother Watch, said that “secretly monitoring bathrooms is a gross violation of privacy and would make students and parents deeply uncomfortable.
“No [education provider] should consider spying on private conversations and doing so is highly likely to be unlawful. This misguided surveillance poses a clear safeguarding risk and should be allowed nowhere near UK schools.”
FE Week put the spying concern to Schoolwatch’s managing director Andrew Jenkins. He said they had had “many conversations” at Bett about this issue, with “the main worry” being whether verbal exchanges were live monitored or recorded.
“The answer is no … when triggered, staff will receive an alert via SMS, push notification, and email. Nothing is saved, nothing is recorded, and nothing can be reviewed.”
Halo Smart Sensor screen showing its capabilities
A Triton spokesperson said: “The aim is to provide an additional layer of security against threats like bullying or sexual assault in these areas, reinforcing a safe environment. It’s important to communicate to students and educators that the system is designed to enhance safety, not to monitor everyday conversations.”
The 3D sense pro model, which includes the keyword and noise detector functions, are the most expensive (£999) and least popular sensor model that Schoolwatch sells. It has sold nine of these to schools, which Jenkins said are “focussed on stopping vaping not audio detection” while Millgate has sold 30 to 40 Halo Sensors to schools and colleges.
The number of young people using vapes has tripled in the last three years, with concern growing over the use of vapes laced with THC. Last year, East Surrey College was handed a ‘requires improvement’ rating over “poor behaviour” which included students vaping in the building.
A student at one college last year wrote on an online forum, the Student Room, how his college toilet vaping had set off a fire alarm and caused everyone to be evacuated. They said that on their level two construction course, vaping had “basically become the cultural norm”.
Meanwhile, on social media, students describe ways to outsmart the sensors by blowing smoke away from them and covering them in plastic wrap.
But some sensors use AI which recognises when it is being compromised and acts on it in hostile ways. IPVideo’s website says Halo sensors’ speaker and light can be programmed to “blink or shriek” when it is being tampered with.
A representative for Millgate said because the “AI technology” gets “used to its surroundings”, the sensor would send an alert if a student “tried to spray deodorant on it” to “mask” their vaping.
Halo sensors can send alerts when noise gets above a specific volume, and detect gunshots and explosions.
IPVideo’s website suggests educators can install them in locker room, classrooms and dorm rooms as well as bathrooms.
St Joseph’s College in Stoke-on-Trent placed Halo Sensors in two toilet blocks in September. After deputy headteacher Charlotte Slattery said they became “very active in the first few weeks”, it installed five others elsewhere. The school were “more interested” in the vaping alert than the sensor’s keyword and noise detection features, although they use those too.
A recent report in the LA Times found that in the US, the sensors are not always effective.
Michael Allman, a board member at California’s San Dieguito Union High School District, said that “in a way”, a pilot programme had been “too successful as the sensors went off so frequently, administrators felt it was useless to review security footage each time”.
At the Coppell Independent School District in Texas, sensors are part of a prevention strategy in which students can receive $50 for reporting vaping by peers. “They were turning each other in right and left,” said Jennifer Villines, the district’s director of student and staff services.
AI robot tutor
Murray Morrison, founder of Tassomai
The learning platform Tassomai claims it’s new virtual tutor, Mai, can do almost anything that a human tutor does, but for a fraction of the cost.
Its founder, Murray Morrison, believes that one day soon, AI like his will do away with the need for tutors altogether, while levelling the education playing field in the process.
Mai uses a trained version of OpenAI’s GPT3.5 to chat to learners, in the same way that an on-demand human tutor would guide them with their homework.
Since January, Mai has been made available to all the 600 secondary schools in England that use Tassomai’s assessment platform.
Other companies in the formative assessment space include Oxford-based Educake which provides homework and revision, and the Canadian software company Showbie’s classroom assessment tool, Seneca.
All Mai’s conversations are recorded and stored by Tassomai.
Morrison admits there have been “lots of hiccups” in teaching Mai how to tutor, as large language models are “not as clever as you want them to be”.
“The art comes in training it to do the right thing…it’s certainly not just a plug in and play process.”
Last month, the delivery firm DPD had to disable part of its AI online chatbot after a customer was able to make it swear and write a haiku about how useless the company is.
Mai has been programmed to keep conversations “relevant and appropriate” to students’ Tassomai quizzes, using a moderation system whereby spamming, persistent inappropriate comments or questions from users are flagged. Those users have their access limited or blocked.
When asked by a learner recently if Mai had any “cheat codes”, the bot responded: “Haha. I wish I had cheat codes for learning, but unfortunately, there aren’t any shortcuts when it comes to gaining knowledge.”
And there are other ethical quandaries that have had to be considered. One school with a conservative Christian ethos insisted upon Mai not being able to teach some aspects of biology.
Morrison describes such instances as causing a “real dilemma” for companies like his.
“What if we were asked to write content for the Florida School Board, and they don’t want us to say that evolution is true? That’s a whole other conversation.”
There is also the issue of “half-truths or untruths” in the current GCSE curriculum which Mai is trained to guide learners on.
Morrison sees what is being taught by one exam board about “human-caused climate change” as “hedging its bets”.
Morrison believes AI is rapidly becoming more sophisticated. It is “not beyond the reach of AI” to be able to replace tutors altogether within the next two years. “When tutoring is as expensive and inconvenient as it is, there’s an opening there.”
Concurrent Job: Various non-executive director roles
Interesting fact: A few years ago, Ruby participated in the Milton Keynes’ version of Strictly Come Dancing. After four months of intensive dance training with a professional partner, Ruby went on to win the competition and raise £10,000 for charity.
Dan Beale
Director of Partnerships, FEA
Start date: January 2024
Previous Job: HMI Further Education and Skills, Ofsted
Interesting fact: Dan was previously a national standard swimmer and today volunteers at a local swimming club helping young swimmers to develop their skills and confidence in the water
Shaun Hope
Principal & CEO, Bishop Auckland College Group
Start date: February 2024
Previous Job: Vice Principal – Curriculum and Standards, Hartlepool College of Further Education
Interesting fact: A former professional footballer, Shaun spent three seasons at Coventry City from 1999 to 2002, playing against Premier League and England regulars including Joe Cole, Jermain Defoe and current Middlesbrough FC head coach Michael Carrick
