CENTURY featured in The Observer

CENTURY was recently featured in The Observer’s article, Question: who is marking your GCSE? Answer: an AI examiner, that looked at how artificial intelligence is transforming the UK’s education system.

Written by Rachel Sylvester, the article explores proposals for adaptive assessments that students can take when ready, rather than sitting traditional exams on a fixed date. It also highlights the growing role of AI in marking, lesson planning and personalised learning.

As part of its look at real-world examples, the article features the Liverpool City Region’s pilot with CENTURY. Sylvester writes:

“Steve Rotheram, mayor of the Liverpool city region, has struck a deal with the educational tech firm Century to introduce its AI teaching platform into schools as part of efforts to reduce inequality. The system identifies a pupil’s areas of strength and weakness, then creates questions specific to each child.

 

In a pilot last year, 4,000 students showed an average improvement of 10% in their scores. Teachers each saved more than nine hours on marking and lesson planning over the three-month period. Headteachers found particular benefits for children with special educational needs.”

The Liverpool pilot involved more than 40 schools and gave both teachers and students access to CENTURY’s AI-powered platform. Students completed over 80,000 micro-lessons and answered more than one million questions, with CENTURY’s adaptive pathways helping each learner focus on the areas they needed most. Teachers used CENTURY’s insights to target support where it was needed and save valuable time for planning and direct teaching.

CENTURY’s Chairman Lord Jim Knight, who was formerly schools minister, was also quoted in the article arguing for the need to rebalance education for the future needs of the workforce:

“I do worry at times that the government’s drunk too much Silicon Valley Kool-Aid, and we’ve got to be careful of that, but there are huge numbers of disengaged kids and huge numbers of teachers leaving the profession,” said Lord Knight. “This technology is capable of helping us with the problems that we’ve got, as well as creating opportunities to do things that are currently inconceivable.”