ICT matters {CASE STUDY}
EDTECH: an enabler for transformation We speak to MARK OSBORNE, director of ICT and communications at Northern Education Trust, about the safeguarding technology that won the trust a BETT award, and how technology has supported senior leaders to transform the trust’s outcomes Tell us a bit about your trust, and your role there. We’re a large multi-academy trust made up of 21 academies - 11 secondaries and 10 primaries. The academies are located quite widely across the north of England; we’ve got academies that stretch from Bolton, across through Halifax and Keighley, across to Barnsley and then up through Stockton, Redcar, Cleveland and some in Newcastle and all the way up to Blyth and Northumberland. We currently have 13,000 students and almost 2,000 members of staff, meaning we are one of the largest multiacademy trust in the north of England. I’m director of ICT and communications, so I’m responsible for IT and educational technology across the trust. Why do you think it’s important to use technology in education? We have tried to empower both students and teachers to take full advantage of the opportunities offered by technology, from improving safeguarding to being an enabler of transformation. Ultimately, it’s to improve outcomes for the children and young people in
40
Summer 2021
our trust. I think all too often in the past IT has been seen as a barrier; we very much see it as a tool to improve things. You mentioned using technology to improve safeguarding. What did this entail? We implemented a trust-wide digital monitoring system to help safeguard our students online. We were one of the earliest adopters of a technology called Smoothwall Monitor, and have partnered closely with Smoothwall to develop the system to ensure all of the children in our trust stay safe online. We have a lot of accountability and responsibility when it comes to online safeguarding. We are very keen, and always go above being compliant with children’s safety in education so, for us, it’s been really successful and it’s been a huge change for the trust. The implementation of the system resulted in us winning a BETT award. How did you implement the system? I guess one of the advantages for us is that we’re quite a large, successful, multi-academy trust which means we have sufficient resource centrally to be able to implement a trust-wide solution that
