Former prime minister Tony Blair’s think tank is calling for the creation of a unique, digitalised record for every pupil in a new report suggesting technology should transform how the school system works.
The Tony Blair Institute said a Digital Learning ID for every pupil could contain information such as test results, attendance records, week-by-week assessments, marked homework and records of non-academic achievement.
It suggests that this data could be used to give leaders and regulators a shared understanding of how a school is performing compared to similar settings and provide a new way of inspecting schools.
Its new report says parents, schools and inspectors would be able to access anonymised, aggregated ID data, overseen by an independent data watchdog, to enable analysis of trends and real-time shifts in performance.
While the report provides no costings for the creation of a new system or watchdog, it suggests it would reduce teachers’ workloads and free up their time to teach.
One of the report’s authors, Alexander Iosad, senior policy adviser at the Tony Blair Institute, said a digital learner ID could also help to create a personalised education for every child.
He added: “We can also intervene earlier and be more targeted with interventions in underperforming schools.
“It would allow robust recommendations on improvements to be made and progress to be monitored using accurate, benchmarked data.
“Leaders and regulators could have a shared understanding of how a school is performing compared to similar settings, jointly decide on specific steps for improvement and schools could be transparently assessed on their implementation.”
The report also calls for schools in England to be given the freedom and funding to provide services, including lessons in subjects where they have particular expertise, to other schools anywhere in the country.
And it suggests technology could be harnessed to give parents and pupils the right to request online classes delivered by other schools elsewhere in the country, which would increase “the incentives for schools to improve performance”.
Help teachers share workloads
It says: “Technology and artificial intelligence can provide new ways of organising the classroom and working days, supporting marking, lesson planning and coordination.
“The introduction of team teaching, including through changes to the career-progression framework, would help teachers share workloads and improve professional-development opportunities.”
The report says that by using a single portal, children and parents would have access to a learner profile that would paint a full picture of the pupil’s abilities, and would help educators develop a deeper understanding of each pupil and target their learning accordingly.
The report also calls for an overhaul of Ofsted’s approach to school inspections, and adds: “This must be radically reformed and upgraded to make much better use of the accurate real-time data that the digital learner ID would provide.”
It suggests Ofsted be renamed as the Office for Accountability, Improvement and Development in Education, made independent from the Department for Education and staffed with a “digitally literate workforce”.
The report says: “A new approach must rest on a much deeper analysis and more thorough investigation of a school’s performance, based on a complete picture that develops over time instead of relying on snapshot inspections and broad-brush judgements.
“The guesswork of a flying visit can be replaced with a live view of emerging challenges as well as lasting strengths. This would allow robust recommendations on improvements to be made and progress to be monitored using accurate, benchmarked data.”
Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, described the proposals as “interesting”.
He said: “It is important that we look at how technology can provide new ways of learning for pupils, support teachers in their vital work and rethink the current assessment system.
“However, we do need to think carefully about what is practical, deliverable and of most benefit at scale across an education system with nine million pupils.
“We would like to see the government develop an ambitious and forward-thinking strategy on the use of technology in the classroom rather than the piecemeal approach that it has taken so far.”
