The number of Oak National Academy lessons being accessed by pupils dropped by more than two million last year, but overall teacher use of the site is increasing sharply.
Oak has published an evaluation report today that shows an increase in the number of teachers using it for lesson planning and delivery, and a small reduction in the proportion accessing it for “emergencies”.
Here are seven key findings from the latest evaluation report of the arm’s-length body, carried out by ImpactEd.
1. Number of lessons accessed by pupils dropped
The report shows that pupils took part in 7.1 million lessons in 2023-24, down from 9.6 million in 2022-23.
Oak said that it has shifted from being a pandemic response to developing resources for in-class use, so the main driver of pupil usage for lessons is emergency cover when they cannot get into school.
A spokesperson added that, when there is a national emergency, Oak often sees peaks in pupil usage.
The 2022-23 academic year included a series of national teacher strikes over pay and conditions.
2. Big increase in teacher use
Today’s report says that, in the six months from February to July 2024, Oak saw a 115 per cent increase in use compared with the same period last year.
The most recent figure for the six months up to the end of November shows a 158 per cent increase in use compared with 2023.
In 2022-23, 1.13 million resources were downloaded from the Oak site. Using the same measure to count downloads, this increased to 2.8 million in 2023-24, a spokesperson said.
3. Most Oak users say it saves time, but nearly one in four disagree
Nearly three-quarters of users (73 per cent) reported that using Oak had saved them time and 45 per cent reported that this saved time had led to a decrease in workload.
However, the report also shows that around one in five teachers (19 per cent) said using Oak had had no impact on workload and another 7 per cent said that using Oak had increased their workload.
4. Reduction in ‘emergency’ use
One of the report’s key findings is that the use of Oak resources is diversifying over time, with an increasing use of its lesson planning and delivery resources.
It says this change seems to be driven by very new users who are using the resources for lesson planning and delivery much more than for other activities.
The report shows that using Oak for lesson planning and delivery was the main form of use for 40 per cent of respondents in 2024 - compared with 33 per cent in 2023.
At the same time, the proportion using Oak for “emergency” activities (cover lessons and work for absent pupils) was down from 42 per cent in 2023 to 40 per cent in 2024.
5. Two-thirds used Oak to change their curriculum
As part of the evaluation, Oak users were asked about the most typical way in which the platform’s resources had impacted their school’s curriculum.
Two-thirds of Oak users said they had used it to change their curriculum, with 39 per cent using it to add or swap topics, 22 per cent using it to change the sequence of the curriculum and another 6 per cent saying they were using Oak as their main curriculum sequence.
A third of users reported that Oak had not impacted their curriculum at all.
6. Plugging gaps in specialist teachers
Teachers who took part in focus group discussions said that Oak had been used to support teachers covering lessons, often due to problems recruiting specialist teachers.
The impact report says that focus group participants felt that while the sector continues to face recruitment challenges, the availability of Oak resources meant they could deliver “high-quality lessons and cover key content in line with the school’s curriculum and exam board expectations”.
7. Quarter of non-users say it doesn’t align with school curriculum
The most frequently given reasons for school staff not using Oak resources were that they were seen as being suitable for emergency use only or that the school already had lots of other resources available, the report finds.
Around a quarter of “non-users” selected these two reasons, which was in line with the 2022-23 evaluation.
However, today’s report notes that there was a significant change in the proportion of teachers who said they did not use Oak because “the offered curriculum is not aligned to our curriculum”, which has risen from 4 per cent to 24 per cent.
The report adds that “this assessment of Oak resources is likely to have been based on knowledge of Oak’s old content made during the pandemic, much of which started to be replaced in the recent 2023-24 academic year”.
Oak became an arm’s-length body in September 2022.
There is currently ongoing legal action against this decision being pursued by three organisations seeking a judicial review.
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