In schools we’re often caught in the pursuit of quantifying the unquantifiable. As teachers, we strive to measure aspects of student life that inherently resist simple metrics – wellbeing, effort, collaboration, character etc. But the challenge isn’t just in the measurement; it’s in our approach.

Ed-tech utilisation and spending are growing significantly in absolute terms and as a proportion of overall school budgets. This is happening alongside rising user expectations, increasing use of unauthorised “shadow IT”, and powerful education mega-trends that are driving increased reliance on technology. Navigating these changes is particularly challenging when selecting and deploying the core systems school staff rely on to keep each school running – their School Management Systems (SMS)1 and Learning Management Systems (LMS). These systems in particular require wholesale change across many areas of school activity, impacting users across the whole school community. Selecting and deploying the right core operating system is therefore one of the most challenging decisions facing school leadership teams today.

The most important thing in schools is to ask questions about significant, unresolved issues. Students need to identify problems in the real world, come up with questions that point towards solutions, and gather, organise, and analyse information.

When students are agents in their learning, that is, when they play an active role in deciding what and how they will learn, they tend to show greater motivation to learn and are more likely to define objectives for their learning. These students are also more likely to have “learned how to learn” – an invaluable skill that they can and will use throughout
 their lives.