Century – The AI Platform for School Improvement

Please see the details of a new AI (artificial intelligence) platform that we wish to trial at our school.

The product/company is called Century AI at www.century.tech/ or you can view a demo at YouTube channel

The key benefit is that it aims to reduce teacher time spent on routine tasks such as marking, freeing them up to devote more energy to teaching tailored to the needs of individual boys.  In simple terms, it achieves this in two ways –

  • Through use of AI and algorithms, the software analyses where pupils may have deficiencies or weaknesses in their learning of a particular subject, so leading the teacher to areas where he should concentrate
  • Undertakes straightforward or simple marking, freeing up the teacher’s time spent on this task (obviously this would not include more qualitative marking tasks such as reading essays)

Heads Up

From Eton, Westminster and St Paul’s to Wycombe Abbey, Withington and Winchester, Heads Up tells the inside story of the men and women running 32 of England’s leading independent schools – and the problems they face.

Heads Up uncovers the secret world of this impressive, powerful group as they battle to create the right conditions for academic success, happy children and happy staff. They tell a story of demanding governors, treacherous staff, nightmare parents, financial difficulties and the relentless pressure to achieve.

How are heads hired and fired? How do they lead? Who competes for the best pupils in selling the brand and in league tables? When confronting staff and governors, who wins? At the centre of every school are children and their problems: bullying, cyberbullying, drugs, eating disorders and family breakdown. How do they manage problem children and which powerful parents litigate? Heads Up delivers the answers.

‘Dominic Carman’s overview of what has happened in education over the past five decades is lucid and useful.’
Ralph Townsend, headmaster of Winchester

‘Heads Up is the best account of school leadership I’ve ever come across. I was fascinated by this well-rounded, punchy and realistic account of what our lives are like, doing the best job in the world. This is an inspirational and frank account of independent headship: anyone aspiring to be a head should read it, all current heads should read it, and all our colleagues should too.’
Felicity Lusk, head of Abingdon

‘I have read Heads Up with real pleasure. It provides a generous and thought-provoking insight into the different approaches and shared values of headmasters today, as well as some fascinating history.’
Gary Savage, head of Alleyn’s

‘This is a fascinating and unique book, often punchy, at times outrageous, and always difficult to put down. Somehow, Dominic Carman has spirited out of a set of leading heads’ views and opinions which they probably would never acknowledge in public, as well as the occasional traditional view. The approaches are in many cases entirely contradictory, yet the effects on schools are clearly very comparable. No head – or governor — should be without this book; and for many parents it will be an eye-opening and extraordinary read.’
Tim Hands, master Magdalen College School, HMC chairman 2013-2014

‘Everyone likes a little bit of insight into how other people/schools do things, and for this reason I like this book very much…an honest, interesting and informative collection of opinions and ideas that provides a wealth of insights, whether you are an aspiring head, a newcomer or at the top of your game.’
SecEd

‘Relationships with parents, governors, staff and children (yep, they get a look in) are explored in soundbites, gobbets and vignettes, and this makes for a pleasing, easy journey.’
Insight

Available from Amazon.com

An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Education

Tony Little is The Head Master of Eton. One of the most progressive and imaginative people in British education today he has hitherto kept a low profile. This book, published to coincide with his retirement, sets out his educational fundamentals.

There is a crisis in the British education system. Year on year GCSE and A Level pupils post better exam results, with more students achieving top grades. Yet business leaders and employers complain bitterly that our schools are not producing people fit for purpose. Far from being locked in an ivory tower, a bastion of privilege, Mr Little has used his time as a teacher and headmaster to get to grips with fundamental questions concerning education. He wants to produce people fit to work in the modern world. How do children absorb information? What kind of people does society need? What is education for? Not only is the author one of the great reforming headmasters of our time but he has planted Academies in the East end of London, founded a state boarding school near Windsor and yet is a passionate advocate of single sex schools.

This book is not a text book for colleges of education – it is a book to enlighten the teaching profession and just as much for anxious parents. The book is simply arranged under topics such as authority, expectations, progress, self-confidence, sex, crises and creativity.

Tony Little thinks it is time to ask some fundamental questions, and to make brave decisions about how we make our schools and our schoolchildren fit for purpose.

Available from Amazon.com