This year has been another tumultuous one for school leaders. After adapting to hybrid and remote learning, a new challenge has caused disruption across the school community: staffing shortages. The resulting workplace pressure has been felt by educators in all roles – from teachers to IT administrators to school leaders. Amidst increasing workloads and declining support, teachers see education technology as a lifeline – a critical tool to help them address day-to-day stresses, alleviate their workload and focus more attention on their pupils.
Teachers are united behind edtech, but do school leaders equally appreciate the value of edtech?
To find out, we gathered insights from over 350 teachers, leaders, and IT managers in the UK and Ireland to explore the role technology currently plays in today’s schools – and discover educators’ opinions around edtech.
Driving growth despite continued disruption
The majority of educators (61%) said that they find their school leadership teams to be supportive and effective. They reported feeling more heard and valued at a strategic level, and appreciate how school leaders have embraced tech and implemented new systems to tackle staff shortages and ease workloads.
Edtech has firm approval by school leadership teams – and it’s been given a vote of confidence by teachers and students, too. Tech has been used to improve lesson planning and delivery, increase teacher productivity and student engagement, and improve the quality of teaching educators are able to deliver. It’s played a significant role this year in driving schools’ continued growth and boosting enthusiasm for various subjects across the curriculum.
Not only does edtech create engaging and interactive lessons that help children achieve academic success, it’s also an effective tool to support social-emotional learning (SEL). In our latest State of Technology in Education Report, the majority of educators (57%) agreed that technology is a good tool for supporting students’ social-emotional needs.
Technology lets me quickly and relatively accurately understand students’ mental state.
Headteacher, local authority secondary, London
Social-emotional learning is still a top priority for schools, but there is some conflict around whether SEL should take precedence over attainment. Some schools have made a conscious effort to implement new SEL strategies, while others haven’t implemented any measures to support students’ social-emotional needs this year.
Overall, the education landscape is in favour of edtech – but some school leaders are decidedly more positive and proactive than others.
Be the first to find out more! Sign up here to receive this year’s full The State of Technology in Education Report as soon as it’s released.
