The first Tees Digital Exchange brought headteachers, trust leaders, researchers and teaching staff together at Middlesbrough’s Riverside Stadium on Friday 9 October to talk about how AI is changing education across the Tees Valley.
Atomix Educational Trust ran the event with the Association of Education Advisers (AoEA) and the Institute of AI Education. Rather than a conference where delegates pick up a few ideas and then tackle the challenges on their own, the day was the start of a shared conversation about how organisations can work together in the best interests of students.
Dr Nichole Munro, CEO of Atomix Educational Trust, said: “This is the beginning of a conversation about what we might collectively build together in the Tees Valley.”
She said AI is not something on the horizon but is “here and part of our everyday life” in schools and beyond. It brings real opportunities and serious questions: whether it can improve teaching and learning and reduce staff workload, how to prepare young people for a labour market where AI is commonplace, how to protect young people, academic integrity and data, and how to use it to reduce inequality rather than deepen it.
“None of those questions can be answered by one school, one college, one trust or one business, and we should not strive for answers alone,” she said. “There’s a reason that we have called this the Tees Digital Exchange. It’s because it’s not something that belongs to one institution.”
Nichole pointed to the region’s “extraordinary assets”, from its schools and colleges to Teesside University, a growing digital sector and experienced education leaders, and to the aim of building a “regional hub of digital excellence”.
“We’d like to see a teacher experimenting with AI in one school sharing what they’ve learned across the region, researchers working alongside teachers and businesses helping educational institutions understand how the world of work is changing,” she said.
What delegates heard
Dr Beth Lane and Narinder Gill of the Institute of AI Education explained how the institute began and gathered delegates’ views on how they would like AI to work in their schools and colleges. They will use these in their research and share what they find with delegates and the wider Tees Valley education community.
Les Walton CBE, Executive Chair of AoEA, spoke about building fair education systems that connect with, listen to and learn from the people in them.
Al Kingsley MBE, Chair of the Institute of AI Education Advisory Board, talked about what schools and trusts should ask before choosing AI tools. “When it comes to introducing any digital technology, we should be asking, ‘why are we doing it?’ Then once we know why we are doing it, how we will measure it,” he said.
Dr Mansoor Soomro of Teesside University, author of The Generalist Advantage, showed why people with broad skills and varied experience are well placed to shape the future of work in the age of AI.
What happens next
Details of the next Tees Digital Exchange will follow soon. To get involved, contact Noel Dennis, Director of Community and Partnerships, at noel.dennis@atomix.ac.uk.