Former British Prime Minister and now chair of the global Education Commission, Gordon Brown, has called the learning crisis the ‘civil rights struggle of our time’. World leaders are rightly calling on every sector to join the fight — to use all the tools and resources at our disposal to tackle this effectively. To win this struggle would prevent another generation from being deprived of basic abilities and reduce many drivers of instability and conflict.

Globally there is a shortage of about 69 million teachers and the teachers who are working in low or middle income countries are frequently under supported. Often they teach in rural, remote areas; many of the classrooms have poor learning materials and many teachers feel abandoned and can struggle to understand for themselves the content that they are teaching.

These are all very significant challenges, but not insurmountable. There is a global effort underway to tackle this, centred around UN Sustainable Development Goal 4 for 2030. On current trajectories the SDG4 target will be missed, but progress will be made towards it.

A social enterprise called Bridge International Academies, or Bridge, is focused on helping to achieve this UN goal of quality education for all in Africa and Asia. We serve communities living in extreme poverty and have helped to educate three quarters of a million children over the last ten years at nursery and primary level. Bridge is significantly improving learning outcomes by putting teaching best practice straight into the hands of local teachers around the world, using technology and in-person teacher training and coaching. The vast majority of the work Bridge does is with government teachers in government schools, and some of the work is in our own community schools and nurseries.

A Bridge teacher in class at Bridge International Academies.

After government teachers have been through an intensive up-skilling and training scheme, they are ready to use hand-held tablets that give them access to very high quality lesson guides based on their local curriculum. They are trained to use best practice teaching techniques. In addition, we support them with regular in-person coaching inside the classroom every one or two weeks. In this way, both technology and continuous professional development help these teachers to deliver more child-centred lessons that result in higher learning outcomes for children.

Our approach is to treat learning as a science as we implement best practice across all the schools we run or support. We are focused on how children learn, tweaking, adapting and iterating lessons and teacher training in the light of data and evidence, to make sure children learn as much as possible.

A government school classroom in Nigeria supported by Bridge training and technology.

By collecting information at scale on what lessons work best, and how children learn, local academics in-country work to improve lessons for all children. The approach means that not only can a few schools be served in a few areas but that tens of thousands of schools and millions of children can benefit anywhere in the world.

The use of technology to deliver quality education is bearing fruit in children’s lives. The results have been very encouraging. Kenyan pupils who sat their primary school leavers’ exam have surpassed their peers in other schools for the four consecutive years. In Uganda children have outperformed the national average in the two consecutive years they have sat the national exam. Children’s learning gains in Liberia, where we support government schools, showed pupils learning at twice the speed of their immediate peers. In Nigeria, a DFID report showed equity of high attainment at Bridge schools for children from all types of socio-economic backgrounds. Children in Bridge supported government schools are learning far more than previously. In India we are running community schools in the southeast region in partnership with the local government.

Social enterprises doing this sort of work is an idea supported by the majority of the UK public, and it’s also now part of the official UK Aid strategy for education. From the poorest regions of India to the low-income communities of Nairobi and even areas affected by the terrorist group al-Shabaab, well-supported teachers are thriving and making an impact.

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Microsoft Teams is a communications platform that combines file storage in the cloud with a suite of different apps all in one place. Being part of the Office 365 family, Teams can be set up for free as part of a school-based licence, which in turn makes it accessible for pupils and staff to collaborate online.

A screenshot of the Teams app in use in the classroom.

Share files

One its the biggest benefits is the ability to share files and assignments from a central storage base. Instead of having resources in a variety of different places, Teams can pull it all together, assisting in keeping content streamlined and organised. This means that pupils can locate key information quickly, whether that be in school or at home.

Marking rubric

The assignments tab is particularly useful for when teachers issue a new task or project, as a marking rubric containing success criteria can be attached alongside points for completion and submission dates. Within the same class, different sets of pupils can be assigned different tasks which supports differentiation in the classroom. This can be achieved all through one tab which makes it easier to administer and manage. 

Celebrate pupil achievements

The praise tab enables teachers to celebrate pupil achievements through digital badges and comments. This is an effective way of promoting inclusivity in the classroom by recognising individuals for their progress or effort. Pupils can keep track of which badges they have been awarded through the year and the reasons behind attaining each one. This is then shared on the class channel, helping to recognise individual successes among peers.

The praise tab allows teachers to celebrate individual pupil successes during lessons.

Learning can be transparent

Due to Teams being a digital hub for teachers and pupils, learning can be transparent for all. It engages pupils in new ways by giving teachers creativity to deliver content through text, video, voice, stickers and animated GIFs. This appeals to the 21st century learner as pupils can interact in a digitally social way, transforming the learning experience as dynamic, collaborative and fluid. With Teams, individual needs in a class can be addressed with the capacity to tailor content and resources to different groups. This allows progress to be maximised whilst encouraging productivity to get things done.   

Learning journey

Teachers can have more control over the learning journey that is taking place when using Teams. Being able to modify, change and filter posts and messages, this reinforces the need for establishing a safe and productive classroom environment all of which is achieved through Teams. The quietest of voices can be heard when encouraging pupils to interact through this platform as the social networking type interface makes it a familiar and appealing layout for pupils. 

Develop digital literacy skills

By using Teams, teachers can offer learning experiences that enable pupils to take ownership and develop digital literacy skills as they communicate and collaborate with peers. Differentiation and individual learning needs can be met when teachers develop assignments for either group or independent projects. This can be strengthened further when paired with other apps such as OneNote Classbook or Microsoft Forms. There are also opportunities for personalised learning as the platform can be set up to offer online intervention sessions which has the potential to support pupils who are finding concepts in class difficult to master. This subsequently prepares pupils for the future workplace in that they are using industry standard tools and practices to solve problems. 

Flipped learning

Lastly, Teams encourages flipped learning in a seamless and rich way. By integrating video services such as YouTube or Stream, pupils can be set out of class learning experiences all from the click of a tab. In addition to this, OneNote can be implemented for collaborative note-taking to gain multiple perspectives on topics, or to assist pupils in order to catch up following an absence. Regardless of subject, Microsoft Teams could be a cost saving solution to creating an inclusive digital classroom.

Though I’ve been teaching for over a decade in lots of different groups and guises, I too am starting a new role, taking over the Drama department (a department of one) to lead the subject for the next year. I’m not new to teaching like the NQTs, I feel I have my own style and plenty of experience. I know my subject well and the exams as well as you can. The school is not new, as I’ve worked here a year already, but what worries me is that I’m not the old drama teacher. See, everyone loved old Sir! He was funny and friendly and knew his stuff. He did fun lessons and achieved top results! The classroom feels like his, in a nice way, it’s filled with twenty five years of teaching. He’s even left me a kettle and a fridge in the little office.

So how can I make sure I am still myself, in a role that was once someone else’s? How does an NQT take the best from their mentor but not replicate them?

Being brave enough to be ourselves through:

‘But Miss used to do it like this!’

‘We usually sit in a different place!’

‘That’s not what Sir said!’ 

The teacher before me was undoubtedly successful and popular, I do not resent that. In fact it makes my job easier in that they have built a strong following and raised the stature of our often diluted subject. If anything, it is not a begrudging feeling, it is nervousness – how can I fill those shoes? I’ve spent a few weeks in summer agonising over lessons, picking through the old schemes, my own schemes, writing new schemes, talking to other people about their schemes, speaking to staff and students about existing routines and the usual this and that. Trawling twitter and reading plays. After a while I was all in a spin; too many comparisons. Some of this was useful, but after two weeks of the new term I realised, as I told the NQTs, you can’t do it all ‘new’ in the first term. 

The only innovation I needed was to trust myself. I’ll keep a few old things, use plenty of my own things and try a couple of new things. That’s it. It’s only been two weeks, but I’ve learnt that the only approval I need is from myself, and to treat this role like any other. Don’t try to be something that I’m not and enjoy my teaching. Enjoy the successes and learn from the mistakes as I would anytime, anywhere. 

Innovation is often mistaken for making everything new – innovate yourself, by sometimes being your old self!