Bett 2026 felt a bit different this year: the “standard” path of education is shifting faster than the system can keep up.
Our Education sector team – Heather James (Client Director), Rheanna (Delivery Director), and Matt (Technical Director) – hit the ground running for their first Bett, and the message they brought back was clear: data and technology are only as good as the culture they support.
Here’s a look at their key observations from the week.
The end of the “linear” career
Professor Hannah Fry and Amol Rajan opened with a sharp discussion on how AI is messing with social mobility. For decades, the script was simple: go to school, get a degree, and you’re set for life. That’s essentially dead.
We’re now on what they called an upskilling hamster wheel. Because AI moves the goalposts so quickly, the traditional “linear” career path is being replaced by a model of constant, lifelong retraining. It’s a daunting shift, but it also means the ability to learn is becoming a more valuable currency than any specific piece of past knowledge.
DfE’s new mantra: Safe and purposeful
In the “Getting Real Results” session, Kath Moulds from the DfE, discussed principles that should guide any future projects: Safe, Purposeful, and Supporting Learning. The DfE isn’t just watching from the sidelines; they are pushing for radical data transparency to empower schools.
Key government initiatives discussed included:
- National Digital Skills Pathway: A new approach to help staff navigate AI without it feeling like an added burden.
- £23 Million EdTech Testbed Pilot: Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson announced this expanded four-year programme to trial AI and EdTech tools in 1,000+ schools. It aims to gather genuine evidence on tools that reduce workload and personalize learning, particularly for SEND pupils.
- Generative AI Product Safety Standards: A first-of-its-kind global framework developed with major tech firms to set detailed safety standards for AI in education.
Radical transparency in attendance
The most practical session of the week came from Caroline Kempner and the team at Fulwood Academy. They’ve leaned into “radical transparency” with their data, and the results are hard to argue with.
The big “aha” moment? They stopped focusing exclusively on the most extreme cases of absence. Instead, they looked at the 85% attendance band. By spotting patterns early in this middle group (like the sharp attendance “cliff-edge” between Year 7 and Year 8) they were able to intervene before students checked out entirely.
The impact at Fulwood was massive. In 12 months (2022-2023):
- Ofsted: Rating went from Requires Improvement (previously Inadequate) to Good.
- Suspensions: They dropped from 622 days lost to suspension to just 31.5.
- Local Partnerships: Postcode-level data was used to partner with local hubs, including libraries, meeting students where they actually are.
- Engagement: They created a school-wide “Attendance Tool Kit” that turned data into something every teacher could use daily for effective decisions.
The “whole school” shift
Whether it was Annamarie Hassall MBE (CEO of NASEN) talking about SEND policy reform or the attendance workshops, the buzzword of the week was “whole school.” The takeaway is that these aren’t just tech or data problems, they’re cultural ones. There’s a sobering theme regarding AI’s impact on young people’s ability to focus, highlighting that digital literacy must be balanced with human-led teaching. If the environment isn’t inclusive or the data isn’t transparently shared across the whole staff, the best AI tool in the world won’t fix the underlying issues.
Summary
Ultimately, Bett 2026 was a call for intentionality. As AI reshapes the career landscape, schools are being forced to pivot from static learning to dynamic, lifelong upskilling. Success stories like Fulwood Academy prove that the most effective way to manage this change isn’t through complex software, but through radical data transparency and a unified, whole-school approach to student wellbeing and digital communities.
