At the start of this month, the government’s levelling up White Paper was released - and within it lay the suitably vague promise of a UK national academy, among many other things. 

This was positioned as a new digital education service that “will support pupils from all backgrounds and areas of the UK to succeed at the very highest levels”.

But what might this actually mean? And will it make any difference for the children and young people it aims to help?

The good

There is much to commend in the principle of the National Academy. Firstly, it recognises that high-quality teaching is fundamental to narrowing the attainment gap and to helping all students to achieve their potential, regardless of their background.

Secondly, it is to be “developed jointly with schools and experts”. If consultation and engagement with the sector are at the heart of the proposals to ensure a coherent solution, then there is real potential.

There is evidence, too, that shows how helpful an online academy may be in providing high-quality prepared lessons that can be utilised directly by pupils as well as being leveraged by teachers for use with their classes, in the way that Oak National Academy has done so effectively.

Our research with teachers found the use of pre-prepared resources and lessons can substantially reduce workload, with primary teachers, in particular, being comfortable making use of these.

Instructional videos also had benefits in terms of flexibility for students to revisit and rewatch, with the unexpected benefit of being useful for teachers themselves to watch and consider the approaches taken to explanation, for example.

There is also a huge opportunity in enabling access to a wider curriculum than may be possible in an individual school, particularly smaller schools; this sort of innovative approach was trialled by school trusts like United Learning more than five years ago.

But to be successful on a wide scale requires school buy-in and a shift in ways of working.

The promise that “different methods of teaching and delivery of subjects will be trialled, compared, refined and improved with student and teacher feedback as well as rigorous evaluation to determine its effectiveness at driving improvement” is also welcome. It suggests that there will be a genuine and thorough evaluation that does not seek merely to prove success but rather to inform future development, which will be necessary to ensure that the spend is worthwhile.

The bad

However, there are a number of barriers to what is proposed, not least the issue that a “national” academy, serving all areas across the UK, would need to take into account very different curricula and existing digital learning setups across the devolved nations; the implication of what might be perceived as interference in education in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have already been criticised.

There is a risk of narrowing the concept of what excellent teaching is - there is no doubt that clear presentation and explanation are vital parts of expertise in teaching, but so, too, is the ability to build relationships, to be responsive to one’s pupils, to gauge learning, provide feedback and plan next steps accordingly.

That, by its nature, requires something beyond that which might be implied by a National Academy, even one employing the most effective of teachers.

It is potentially problematic, too, to highlight and venerate a limited number of teachers in a way that might be taken to imply a failing in the rest of the workforce - a teaching profession which has and continues to work immensely hard and with great skill to support our children and young people.

Policy that has been focused on supporting the development of the teaching workforce as a whole - for example, the Early Career Framework and the new NPQ suite - seems to have the potential for a much greater impact than an attempt to helicopter in the “best teachers” via technology.

Finally, it needs to be acknowledged that simply providing a free online academy - no matter how good - will not, on its own, make the difference that the government hopes to.

As we have seen during the pandemic, barriers to engagement with this kind of online learning include not just the obvious ones such as access to devices, but also a quiet space to learn, and - crucially - the motivation and self-regulation to do so.

The Open University, referenced in the White Paper, is entirely opt-in and was established to widen access to higher education by removing barriers in terms of location and in terms of entry requirements; but what it does not do, and what any National Academy would surely need to do if it is to “support pupils from all backgrounds and areas of the UK to succeed at the very highest levels”, is ensure that pupils are supported to access and make use of the learning - not just be able to opt-in if they wish and are able to. 

Otherwise, we risk exacerbating existing gaps in achievement.

The unknown

The reality is that there is so much that is not yet known about the concept that it is hard to truly make a judgement on what its potential could be.

For example, the premise of “allowing students to acquire additional advanced knowledge and skills on a timetable that works for them” implies flexible, pre-recorded lessons that can be accessed at any time; however it is unclear whether these would be totally self-paced lessons, or whether - as with the Open University - children would have access to tutors, assessment and more.

It’s also not entirely clear whether the vision is to provide learning in core subjects, to supplement existing learning, or whether it is about enrichment and offering a wider range of subjects.

The latter is perhaps more likely, given the promise of pupils “being academically stretched beyond the curriculum”.

Finally, it remains to be seen whether the proposal has at its heart the goal of continuing the excellent work done by Oak National Academy during the pandemic, or whether something completely new will be established - and if the latter, what form this would take.

The implication of lines, such as “The UK National Academy will be free and made available online to support the work of schools up and down the country”, provide some positive indication that the vision is something that is designed to augment and support schools, not offer an alternative to; this is surely the only way it can have a real impact.

However, we currently know relatively little about the most effective approaches to blended or hybrid teaching which combine face-to-face and online methods in a school setting.

Rigorous research will thus be needed to trial and test the most effective approaches so that the resources provided by the National Academy can be designed and employed accordingly.

And it is, ultimately, not just a case of what the National Academy itself is, but also how it is implemented, and how schools are encouraged, enabled and incentivised to engage with this kind of online solution long-term - rather than as a short-term solution in a global pandemic - that will be crucial to its success or otherwise.

As with any consideration of the future of teaching, any “levelling up” in education needs to have teacher insights and teacher expertise at its heart.

Dame Alison Peacock is CEO of the Chartered College of Teaching and Cat Scutt is director of education and research at the Chartered College of Teaching