Since I trained to become a teacher in 2004, the digital landscape of our schools has transformed almost beyond recognition.
What once lived in a ‘teacher planner’ – attendance marks, test scores, effort and homework grades – now sits scattered across countless digital platforms.
Teachers and data managers spend valuable time manually extracting and stitching these systems together, a process both inefficient and often lacking in insight.
When I moved into the central team of a large multi academy trust, I saw both the promise and the inequity of this reality.
Some trusts had invested in the skills or individuals needed to build custom dashboards and automated data flows.
This created new insight, but it also created fragility: too much depended on a single “data wizard.” Meanwhile, colleagues in other trusts were still struggling to extract basic datasets from third party platforms.
That contrast stayed with me. And when I joined United Learning in 2023, it became the catalyst to build something different, something fairer.
A new approach
At around the same time, I had been speaking with Matt Woodruff about everything wrong with the way data infrastructure works in education.
Together, we sketched an alternative: an architecture that could be standardised, resilient and shared.
By September 2023, Matt was already prototyping it and I had a blank sheet of paper at United Learning.
We took a calculated risk, deploying this new multi academy trust data architecture — designed by Matt and tested with Dixons and Greenwood Academy Trusts — directly into our Microsoft environment.
Twelve months on, United Learning now has an agile, continually growing data lake and, more importantly, a confident and collaborative team. No single person holds the keys. No single point of failure keeps me up at night.
From prototype to sector-led movement
As United Learning progressed on this journey, something else was happening. More trusts across the country were reaching out with the same frustrations and the same aspirations.
Today, more than 30 trusts are working with us. They can “plug in” data from a growing number of ed tech tools and access customisable dashboards to generate insight quickly.
This recognition – that access to strong data infrastructure should not depend on chance, resource or the presence of a single expert – is why we have decided to establish OEAI as a sector led, non-profit initiative.
Artificial intelligence is reshaping every sector. In education, its potential is enormous. But so too is the responsibility to use it wisely.
The real question for school trusts is whether we will shape that influence together, with ethical clarity and sector wide alignment.
Proof through practice
Moving beyond fragmented systems isn’t just a theory. It’s happening now.
Beckfoot, Mercian and Kite Academy Trusts are uncovering insights previously out of reach by combining datasets that once lived in silos.
Shireland Collegiate Academy Trust has streamlined dashboards, reduced duplication and sharpened strategic focus.
Dixons Academy Trust’s early work enabled Inspiration Trust to accelerate their development of a tool which now predicts pupil absence daily.
Greenwood and Bourne Trusts are using AI to explore new questions in safeguarding and SEND.
And at United Learning, we have rebuilt our entire data architecture around OEAI, proving the model works at significant scale.
These examples make a simple argument: openness accelerates improvement. What one trust pioneers can be strengthened, shared and scaled by many.
The ethical imperative of openness
Open data models and algorithms do not just bring technical benefits, they introduce transparency and accountability into decisions that affect children.
They create the conditions in which innovation can flourish responsibly, reducing the power of closed systems that can hide risks or perpetuate inequity.
Over the past three years, the trusts involved in OEAI have demonstrated what is possible when expertise and infrastructure are not hoarded but pooled.
The technology works, proven by our collective progress.
What is needed now is coordinated action. If we commit to openness and collaboration, we can build ethical, secure and low-cost approaches to AI without deepening fragmentation or dependence on closed off commercial systems.
Policymakers, funders, ed tech partners and school leaders each have a role in shifting towards a collaborative ecosystem where standards and innovation are sector led.
When schools choose openness they multiply, not divide, their capacity to innovate and to secure fairer outcomes for young people.
Our aim is clear: to strengthen the collaborative infrastructure, bring together leaders across sectors and ensure that the standards governing AI in education are set by schools and not by commercial interests.
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