Cutting-edge tech at Bett

Bett 2023 was a hub for innovation, showcasing the latest education technology and hosting packed conference theatres led by inspiring figures and leading education professionals

Bett brought together over 30,000 educators, policy makers, EdTechs and industry changemakers from 123 countries to view the latest education technology and hear from inspirational speakers.

Connect @ Bett – the event’s meetings programme – also launched at incredible scale, hosting 7,000 meetings for 2,500 individuals from 1,500 organisations.

The Education Secretary Gillian Keegan used the event to launch a new set of technology standards for schools and colleges, to ensure schools have a safe, secure and reliable foundation in place before they use more powerful technology. The standards cover cloud technology, servers, storage, filtering and monitoring.

The education secretary also used Bett to launch the Department for Education’s official statement on the opportunities and risks that come with AI in education, and spoke of how artificial intelligence has the power to transform teachers’ day-to-day lives.

Gillian Keegan said: “AI will have the power to transform a teacher’s day-today work. We’ve seen people using it to write lesson plans, and some interesting experiments around marking too.

“Can it do those things now, to the standard we need? No. Should the time it saves ever come at the cost of the quality produced by a skilled teacher? Absolutely not.

“But could we get to a point where the tasks that really drain teachers’ time are significantly reduced? I think we will.

Getting to that point is a journey we in this room are going to have to go on together – and just as we’ve responded to other innovations like the calculator, we’ll use it to deliver better outcomes for students.

The education secretary also spoke of how the DfE will launch a new digital service to help senior leaders with their technology planning. The tool will benchmark their technology against digital standards, suggest areas of improvement and provide actionable steps and resources to implement these recommendations. The service will be piloted with schools in Blackpool and Portsmouth in September 2023 before being rolled out across the country.

Inspiration speakers

There were a number of inspiration speakers at this year’s Bett show. Dragon’s Den star Steven Bartlett was interviewed by BBC presenter Amol Rajan about his journey from education to becoming an accomplished entrepreneur, as well as his work inspiring a new generation of entrepreneurs and creators from a BAME background, often from disadvantaged schools and communities.

Ex-prima ballerina and former Strictly Come Dancing Judge Dame Darcey Bussell DBE discussed how the arts E