1. There's a lot of negative noise around EdTech right now — tight budgets, skepticism about AI, questions about whether technology is delivering on its promises. You're out talking to schools, companies, and policymakers across multiple countries. What's the picture actually look like from where you're standing, and how can the sector use data and evidence to respond to that narrative more thoughtfully?

‍

The narrative around EdTech certainly is challenging right now, it's fair to say. I think EdTech has been used as an overarching umbrella to reflect a sentiment around everything from the advent of AI chatbots and tools to social media to the impact of simply a child having a device in their hand or a screen on their eyes for an extended period of time. Without really pausing to reflect the vast nuance that exists within the educational technology landscape. The truth is for quite a few years now the narrative has been around evidence-informed EdTech, making really sure that we are clear on the why, why we're introducing technology and the ways that we can measure impact. Sometimes that's not academic; it's about workload, well-being, accessibility, and far more.

‍

If we're honest about the EdTech landscape within a traditional school district or multi-academy trust, then over half of that technology sits outside the classroom. It's everything from our access control and cashless catering to our student information systems, management of our resources, reporting of concerns and behaviour logging, and much more. None of that has a direct impact on learners in their classroom. We need to be clear that EdTech is a much wider term than the curriculum-specific tools that are often discussed.

‍

Secondly, we're looking now to make sure that we're really clear on how we can evidence that impact, making sure that we're not substituting, as we would think in the SAMR model, but we're actually looking at the ways that we are augmenting and adding value when we utilise technology within the classroom. There's plenty of really good evidence around that. I don't think any of that dismisses parental concern about making sure children are using technology when it's appropriate for appropriate tasks and not being used as a way to offload thinking and/or reduce workload when it's not appropriate. Just be really clear: our concerns about phones in schools or children having access to social media are not the same as educationally purposeful technology being used to support teaching and learning.

‍

2. You've seen how schools and EdTech companies work together across the UK, the US, and the Middle East. Where are you seeing that relationship work well, where the partnership is genuine and both sides are getting real value? What makes those examples different from the rest?

‍

This is a really broad one. I've always been an advocate that co-production is king when it comes to delivering effective educational technology. Now more than ever the need to be really clear on the challenge and problem we're trying to mitigate before we start developing this solution has never been more important. The best products now are not the ones with the most features. They're the ones that are platform agnostic and have the ability to interconnect with existing ecosystems. Designing with that flexibility and interoperability is really important. That co-production goes further if we look at broader data acquisition and collection and by that I mean ring-fenced, secured, anonymized data. We can actually get much better insights from larger lakes of data than from small isolated bits of data.

‍

We can make sure the nuance of the tools is that they really align with the needs of the schools and probably the one that we forget most of all is that this isn't a transaction. An educational technology company working with a school is the start of a relationship and should involve significant amounts of training and support to ensure the school gets maximum value for the product. In doing so it will capture and generate feedback that will allow the product to evolve and improve over time. Thinking of things in terms of relationships rather than transactions is at the heart, I think, of this question.

‍

3. AI literacy is starting to move from a talking point to something measurable, with frameworks coming from PISA, governments, and industry. Where are you seeing schools get ahead of this in ways that could be a model for others?

‍

There are lots of frameworks coming along the journey. Of course, if we think ahead in terms of the OECD and PISA and MAIL (which stands for Media and AI Literacy) coming in 2029, there will be greater national awareness when it comes to AI literacy.

‍

In truth though, schools are already recognising, much like the broader conversation around digital citizenship, that digital literacy around AI is a fundamental. It's no different in concepts to the way we talk about other technology, search engine, social media, in terms of being clear about:

‍

• how we consider our questioning
• how we consider looking for and mitigating bias
• how we reflect on the authenticity and accuracy of the information we gather
• that we are mindful of what we share
• and that absolutely we understand the process where AI can be a supporting tool in our work and one that doesn't automatically result in cognitive offloading but might actually be a really useful research partner

Alongside that, for the obvious reasons, our priority in many schools that are moving the dial more swiftly is to ensure there's protection for children in avoiding anthropomorphizing AI chatbots and developing relationships or advice with them, which would be entirely inappropriate and unhelpful.

‍

Finally we also have to be mindful that there are government initiatives, particularly around AI tools that now can "sexify" imagery and other activities that can lead to challenges with peer-on-peer abuse and obvious implications. There is a safeguarding measure that sits alongside the more focused and positive strand we're talking about.

‍

4. You've chaired a SEND Board for six years and your book asks directly whether the education system is truly inclusive. Where are you seeing technology make a genuine difference for students with additional needs, and what should EdTech companies and publishers be thinking about that they're currently not?

‍

There is an irony here with this question, isn't there? There is huge pushback on the role of technology within our schools and yet one of the biggest tools we have in the toolkit for mitigating accessibility and inclusivity issues in our classrooms is to use technology appropriately. Everything from screen readers to reading pens to all sorts of tools that will allow us to make our technology or our curriculum resources more accessible to our learners. A long way to go firstly because I believe the best way to be truly inclusive is to make sure that all children in the class are using the same tools, not just those children that have a particular need. That's the true measure of inclusivity and making children feel part of that journey.

‍

What we have still yet to learn is that the best products, not the ones that offer the most features, are the tools that are the most accessible and easy to use. They're the ones that are the most flexible in terms of where they can be used so we have consistency and accessibility of learning. Where we start to think about the broader picture, which is sadly that our curriculum and our classrooms are not particularly focused around true inclusivity. There's a reason why 25% of children are not in mainstream education and sadly that also then feeds into curriculum and whether high-stakes testing is also the most fair and effective way of capturing the level of understanding that our children have within the classroom too.

‍

What does that all mean when we're developing new technology? Again, co-production is king. We should be looking to make sure that the tools are accessible to all learners, are simple and consistent. We think about the language, the contrast, the UX of our products as well as making sure we do lots of work with the ultimate recipients to develop and refine our solutions before we put them live.

‍

5. Procurement in education has a reputation for being difficult for everyone involved. But there must be places where it's working better. What does good EdTech procurement look like when it's done right, and what can the rest of the sector learn from those examples?

‍

I wish there was a simple answer for this. I think probably the word that always springs to mind when we think about procurement is transparency. There's transparency in terms of commercial terms and, within that, avoiding making schools make long-term commitments for technology and giving them the option to go shorter term and give them that flexibility if they wish. Certainly, there's transparency within the pricing and the commercial side of things.

‍

I think alongside that procurement there is also transparency in terms of the supporting data. We need to do our data protection impact assessment. We need to be really mindful of data sovereignty, privacy, and all the policies that wrap around that. If we have AI, we need to have transparency around that. Certainly, if we're thinking in the coming months and years, the EU AI Act and others will require greater visibility of technology and so on.

‍

Most of the time EdTech vendors have the ability to present all the information that a school might need for procurement up front. Here's the information you need for your DPIA. Here's where we host our data. Here's how we use it. Here's where we share it (I really hope you don't share it, thank you very much). Here's our transparent pricing that will be consistent for you over the next X years.

‍

6. You've spent over twenty years in governance and you talk to school leaders constantly. What's giving you genuine optimism about where education is heading, and what's one thing the EdTech sector could do right now to accelerate that?

‍

I think my confidence comes from the fact that many of our school leaders deliver exceptional journeys for our learners in spite of the well-documented barriers in terms of capacity, funding, resource, and an inflexible curriculum. If we can celebrate that progress and success in spite of those barriers, it gives me optimism that if we get gradual change and flexibility within our education system and perhaps more funding within the mainstream settings, there is huge potential.

‍

It's really important to remember we don't get a choice here. The workplace has moved on. The landscape has shifted. We do need our curriculum and what we teach our learners to reflect the demands of the workplace, often referred to as LMI (Labour Market Information). With that regard it is really, really clear to most folks who are studying the journey that skills and demand are on the up and finite knowledge/information is slightly less on the down because it's so readily accessible.

‍

Now I want to really stress this because I believe you must have the foundational knowledge to provide you with context and it's that context and knowledge that allows you to develop your skills. They are symbiotic. Certainly, in the world of AI, Literacy and Oracy are the fundamental tools you'll need to engage with those technologies and develop them.

‍

I think what it really shows me is we have an awful lot of people in the system who want to move forward. We have almost all the people in this sector who want to do the best for our learners and the only challenge for us is a very, very difficult challenge to pivot quickly in a space where we really want to move with evidence-informed first. That challenge between moving at pace and making sure we make the right research-informed decisions is really difficult and perhaps one that's unique to the education space.

‍

Al Kingsley has spent three decades asking awkward questions because the comfortable ones rarely get to what actually matters for learners.

‍

What he names here is a tension the sector will have to sit with: the world is moving faster than evidence-informed education can safely follow. That is a real constraint, not a failing. The question is whether the sector uses it as a reason for caution or as a reason for greater precision about which problems actually need solving, and who gets to be part of solving them.

‍

1. There's a lot of negative noise around EdTech right now — tight budgets, skepticism about AI, questions about whether technology is delivering on its promises. You're out talking to schools, companies, and policymakers across multiple countries. What's the picture actually look like from where you're standing, and how can the sector use data and evidence to respond to that narrative more thoughtfully?

‍

The narrative around EdTech certainly is challenging right now, it's fair to say. I think EdTech has been used as an overarching umbrella to reflect a sentiment around everything from the advent of AI chatbots and tools to social media to the impact of simply a child having a device in their hand or a screen on their eyes for an extended period of time. Without really pausing to reflect the vast nuance that exists within the educational technology landscape. The truth is for quite a few years now the narrative has been around evidence-informed EdTech, making really sure that we are clear on the why, why we're introducing technology and the ways that we can measure impact. Sometimes that's not academic; it's about workload, well-being, accessibility, and far more.

‍

If we're honest about the EdTech landscape within a traditional school district or multi-academy trust, then over half of that technology sits outside the classroom. It's everything from our access control and cashless catering to our student information systems, management of our resources, reporting of concerns and behaviour logging, and much more. None of that has a direct impact on learners in their classroom. We need to be clear that EdTech is a much wider term than the curriculum-specific tools that are often discussed.

‍

Secondly, we're looking now to make sure that we're really clear on how we can evidence that impact, making sure that we're not substituting, as we would think in the SAMR model, but we're actually looking at the ways that we are augmenting and adding value when we utilise technology within the classroom. There's plenty of really good evidence around that. I don't think any of that dismisses parental concern about making sure children are using technology when it's appropriate for appropriate tasks and not being used as a way to offload thinking and/or reduce workload when it's not appropriate. Just be really clear: our concerns about phones in schools or children having access to social media are not the same as educationally purposeful technology being used to support teaching and learning.

‍

2. You've seen how schools and EdTech companies work together across the UK, the US, and the Middle East. Where are you seeing that relationship work well, where the partnership is genuine and both sides are getting real value? What makes those examples different from the rest?

‍

This is a really broad one. I've always been an advocate that co-production is king when it comes to delivering effective educational technology. Now more than ever the need to be really clear on the challenge and problem we're trying to mitigate before we start developing this solution has never been more important. The best products now are not the ones with the most features. They're the ones that are platform agnostic and have the ability to interconnect with existing ecosystems. Designing with that flexibility and interoperability is really important. That co-production goes further if we look at broader data acquisition and collection and by that I mean ring-fenced, secured, anonymized data. We can actually get much better insights from larger lakes of data than from small isolated bits of data.

‍

We can make sure the nuance of the tools is that they really align with the needs of the schools and probably the one that we forget most of all is that this isn't a transaction. An educational technology company working with a school is the start of a relationship and should involve significant amounts of training and support to ensure the school gets maximum value for the product. In doing so it will capture and generate feedback that will allow the product to evolve and improve over time. Thinking of things in terms of relationships rather than transactions is at the heart, I think, of this question.

‍

3. AI literacy is starting to move from a talking point to something measurable, with frameworks coming from PISA, governments, and industry. Where are you seeing schools get ahead of this in ways that could be a model for others?

‍

There are lots of frameworks coming along the journey. Of course, if we think ahead in terms of the OECD and PISA and MAIL (which stands for Media and AI Literacy) coming in 2029, there will be greater national awareness when it comes to AI literacy.

‍

In truth though, schools are already recognising, much like the broader conversation around digital citizenship, that digital literacy around AI is a fundamental. It's no different in concepts to the way we talk about other technology, search engine, social media, in terms of being clear about:

‍

• how we consider our questioning
• how we consider looking for and mitigating bias
• how we reflect on the authenticity and accuracy of the information we gather
• that we are mindful of what we share
• and that absolutely we understand the process where AI can be a supporting tool in our work and one that doesn't automatically result in cognitive offloading but might actually be a really useful research partner

Alongside that, for the obvious reasons, our priority in many schools that are moving the dial more swiftly is to ensure there's protection for children in avoiding anthropomorphizing AI chatbots and developing relationships or advice with them, which would be entirely inappropriate and unhelpful.

‍

Finally we also have to be mindful that there are government initiatives, particularly around AI tools that now can "sexify" imagery and other activities that can lead to challenges with peer-on-peer abuse and obvious implications. There is a safeguarding measure that sits alongside the more focused and positive strand we're talking about.

‍

4. You've chaired a SEND Board for six years and your book asks directly whether the education system is truly inclusive. Where are you seeing technology make a genuine difference for students with additional needs, and what should EdTech companies and publishers be thinking about that they're currently not?

‍

There is an irony here with this question, isn't there? There is huge pushback on the role of technology within our schools and yet one of the biggest tools we have in the toolkit for mitigating accessibility and inclusivity issues in our classrooms is to use technology appropriately. Everything from screen readers to reading pens to all sorts of tools that will allow us to make our technology or our curriculum resources more accessible to our learners. A long way to go firstly because I believe the best way to be truly inclusive is to make sure that all children in the class are using the same tools, not just those children that have a particular need. That's the true measure of inclusivity and making children feel part of that journey.

‍

What we have still yet to learn is that the best products, not the ones that offer the most features, are the tools that are the most accessible and easy to use. They're the ones that are the most flexible in terms of where they can be used so we have consistency and accessibility of learning. Where we start to think about the broader picture, which is sadly that our curriculum and our classrooms are not particularly focused around true inclusivity. There's a reason why 25% of children are not in mainstream education and sadly that also then feeds into curriculum and whether high-stakes testing is also the most fair and effective way of capturing the level of understanding that our children have within the classroom too.

‍

What does that all mean when we're developing new technology? Again, co-production is king. We should be looking to make sure that the tools are accessible to all learners, are simple and consistent. We think about the language, the contrast, the UX of our products as well as making sure we do lots of work with the ultimate recipients to develop and refine our solutions before we put them live.

‍

5. Procurement in education has a reputation for being difficult for everyone involved. But there must be places where it's working better. What does good EdTech procurement look like when it's done right, and what can the rest of the sector learn from those examples?

‍

I wish there was a simple answer for this. I think probably the word that always springs to mind when we think about procurement is transparency. There's transparency in terms of commercial terms and, within that, avoiding making schools make long-term commitments for technology and giving them the option to go shorter term and give them that flexibility if they wish. Certainly, there's transparency within the pricing and the commercial side of things.

‍

I think alongside that procurement there is also transparency in terms of the supporting data. We need to do our data protection impact assessment. We need to be really mindful of data sovereignty, privacy, and all the policies that wrap around that. If we have AI, we need to have transparency around that. Certainly, if we're thinking in the coming months and years, the EU AI Act and others will require greater visibility of technology and so on.

‍

Most of the time EdTech vendors have the ability to present all the information that a school might need for procurement up front. Here's the information you need for your DPIA. Here's where we host our data. Here's how we use it. Here's where we share it (I really hope you don't share it, thank you very much). Here's our transparent pricing that will be consistent for you over the next X years.

‍

6. You've spent over twenty years in governance and you talk to school leaders constantly. What's giving you genuine optimism about where education is heading, and what's one thing the EdTech sector could do right now to accelerate that?

‍

I think my confidence comes from the fact that many of our school leaders deliver exceptional journeys for our learners in spite of the well-documented barriers in terms of capacity, funding, resource, and an inflexible curriculum. If we can celebrate that progress and success in spite of those barriers, it gives me optimism that if we get gradual change and flexibility within our education system and perhaps more funding within the mainstream settings, there is huge potential.

‍

It's really important to remember we don't get a choice here. The workplace has moved on. The landscape has shifted. We do need our curriculum and what we teach our learners to reflect the demands of the workplace, often referred to as LMI (Labour Market Information). With that regard it is really, really clear to most folks who are studying the journey that skills and demand are on the up and finite knowledge/information is slightly less on the down because it's so readily accessible.

‍

Now I want to really stress this because I believe you must have the foundational knowledge to provide you with context and it's that context and knowledge that allows you to develop your skills. They are symbiotic. Certainly, in the world of AI, Literacy and Oracy are the fundamental tools you'll need to engage with those technologies and develop them.

‍

I think what it really shows me is we have an awful lot of people in the system who want to move forward. We have almost all the people in this sector who want to do the best for our learners and the only challenge for us is a very, very difficult challenge to pivot quickly in a space where we really want to move with evidence-informed first. That challenge between moving at pace and making sure we make the right research-informed decisions is really difficult and perhaps one that's unique to the education space.

‍