It’s pretty unusual for a new secretary of state to talk so fulsomely about the role of technology in education in their very first speech. Unusual, but extremely welcome. Typically, ministers will only talk about technology if they are headlining at the annual Bett show, and one always has the sense that it’s not a topic that they feel very comfortable with, nor set any great store by.

And yet, technology really does have a critical role to play in education, and it’s a role that has not been fully exploited to date in the UK.  

When I took over as chief executive of Academies Enterprise Trust (AET), just over 12 months ago, the organisation was not in a good place. There was a huge job to be done to turn the organisation around. We put in place a radical programme to reform and renew the trust, focusing on providing genuine value to every academy in our network.  

Specifically, this was delivered through a turnaround plan - approved by the Department for Education - which covered all aspects of AET’s operations, from education and finance through to governance. These changes paved the way for the financial notice to improve to be lifted, and a fresh start for the organisation under an entirely new board of trustees and new high-calibre executive team.

And whilst, truth be told, there was a huge amount that needed to change about AET, one thing that the organisation did have going for it, and which continues to sit at the heart of our approach, is an appreciation of how technology can genuinely enable and drive powerful change.

With the fundamentals of how to run a trust effectively now in place, that understanding and appreciation of technology can really begin to take flight. As a result, we are now accelerating the implementation of our approach and executing with greater precision and impact.

As the largest multi-academy trust in the country, AET leads the way for use of technology in UK schools, through our partnership with Google, and its G Suite for Education. Prior to using G Suite, across our 63 academies, we had silo after silo of users, computers and servers. These were hugely expensive to administer and maintain. G Suite has meant that we are able to collaborate across our academies, provide the latest technology, whilst at the same time keeping costs down.

Do we really need ICT labs any more?

Students use Gmail to communicate with each other when working on projects together, whilst teachers use it to allocate tasks and provide feedback on homework. With Google Drive, students and staff can securely access documents online from wherever they are, and on any device, whether on their phone or a home computer.

Across our network of schools, we have invested in 4,500 Chromebooks, and look set to increase this by a further 50 per cent over the next couple of years.

With this level of access to technology, we are seriously reconsidering the need for dedicated ICT labs and instead are thinking of replacing them with in-class access. As well as securing significant cost savings by way of maintenance and space, this move would also reflect the need for technology to become even more integrated into a range of lessons and not just a subject in its own right.

We see this to great effect in Maltings Academy in Essex, where students are tasked with writing a 500-word story across all subject areas. Students write their story in a Google Doc, and use Google Sites, Google Forms and Google Drawings to add depth and richness to their work with surveys and illustrations. Students work in pairs when writing their stories, editing one another’s documents and making suggestions. Through the shared access, they can see where changes are being made and collaborate on particular sections of the project.

As our new secretary of state made clear, technology can also help to tackle the workload challenge facing our teachers. Feedback has been transformed through use of Drive and Classroom. Instead of teachers taking piles and piles of books home and marking them, they now input their comments straight into students’ documents, so that students can instantly see where changes are needed and amend their work during lesson time.

The benefits can also be seen through cross-academy working, too. Google’s social networking service, Google+ is also embedded in the G Suite. Through this, we have created a secure online space where teachers from across the country can share inspirational teaching resources for maths, English, science, MFL, history and geography. Resources include schemes of learning, assessment materials, lessons materials and leadership schools. It is through tools like this that we help unite our whole community under “One AET”.

Being able to analyse data at a click - whether that is at a headline level or drilling down into pupil-level data - has been another significant benefit. Sharing this data with our academies, including comparative analysis, has been a very welcome move that is having a positive impact on our pupils’ learning.

And finally, cost. With finances ever-tightening, the cost savings we are projecting are significant and not to be sniffed at - through economies of scale, licensing, power-saving, server hardware and maintenance, these are savings that any MAT needs to give serious consideration to.

AET is the leading light amongst MATs when it comes to technology, and we readily and regularly share what we have learned with our peers. As a sector, we collectively need to raise our game - failure to seize the opportunities that technology provides means that not only do we miss out as MATs, but more importantly our pupils do. Our doors are always open to any MAT that wants to find out more. My team and I are committed to growing that reputation further, using technology as a tool to drive accelerated school improvement, and in so doing, earn AET’s place at the top table when it comes to performance and a reputation for equipping our young people with the skills that they need to thrive throughout their lives.

It’s fantastic news that our new secretary of state recognises the nascent power in technology to unleash all of our potential - MATs, academies, teachers and pupils. Let’s follow Damian Hinds’ lead and make sure that this subject doesn’t just get discussed once a year at the Bett show.

Julian Drinkall is the chief executive of Academies Enterprise Trust

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