Small but Mighty, pt. 2

This week I visited Woodsetts Primary School, a small institution in Rotherham on the outskirts of Sheffield, (where on my journey I learned that Robin Hood is a real story and Sherwood Forest is a real place). Deprivation rates are lower here than the schools I have visited in Middlesbrough, but their size brings its own challenges. With only one class per year group, pupils with diverse needs (such as learning or physical disabilities) are integrated into mainstream classes - resources stretch only so far, with a single iPad cart circulating the school.

What struck me as I moved from classroom to classroom was the sheer excitement that met the word AI. Teachers eagerly sat me down to show me the assignments they had been running with pupils and the resources they had generated to complement their own expertise. They described it as revolutionary, for their pupils' engagement, for their own workload and wellbeing, and above all for adaptive learning. One year 6 pupil with special educational needs is currently working at a year 1 level. With the help of an AI tool, her teacher tailored a reading text and assignment to her level, so she can accomplish the same task as her classmates without feeling excluded. Using transcription tools, they are also able to support pupils with memory difficulties to communicate their ideas and stories without the slow struggle of writing every word down. 

Interconnected Issues

Not everything I heard was hopeful. I met the school's pastoral lead, who oversees mental health, family relationships and safety, whose observations deeply concerned me. Many parents stand at the school gates at pick-up time entirely absorbed in their phones, not noticing their child running up to them, missing that moment of connection. Babies sit in strollers with a phone in front of them before they can even speak, because it is the easier way to manage them. I am slowly but surely realizing how interconnected these issues are. You cannot address a child's use of AI or social media without engaging and educating their parents on the risks. It is enormously difficult to shift a child's habits, their interest in education or their resilience if their family does not see why it matters, or if the behaviour modelled at home points the other way. Everything starts with the family and returns to the family when you look at how digital technology intersects with disadvantage.

Common Threads 

My final workshop presentation for the team at SHINE is coming around quickly - much to my disbelief at being in my second-last week already. Preparing for this is now at the forefront of my mind. Wrapping up my last school visits this week, countless common threads have emerged. The teachers I speak to may think their insights are small, ordinary day to day observations, but when they answer, held in my mind are the 25 other teachers and 70 other children I have spent time with across this region. Their small local observations turn out to be threads in a much larger, shared pattern across communities facing disadvantage in the North East. What one person tells me in one city echoes almost exactly what someone said in another. Their thoughts are not just observations, but phenomena - this is exactly what SHINE and I aimed to bring to light this summer.

The challenge in front of me now is how do I pull all of it together? How do I take five weeks of deep, organic conversation, of days spent in schools and communities watching their challenges, struggles and excitement play out, and turn it into something actionable? Week 6 should provoke thought and genuinely engages the team at SHINE, one that invites them to think critically about how these insights might shape their direction as an innovation funder and how they consider the communities they serve in future. It is a real challenge, but one I am genuinely excited to take on. More on how it all comes together after Week 6. Stay tuned.