Milton Road Primary School tell CENTURY how they engage with parents about the AI-powered platform

Jasmine Smith, Year 3 Teacher and Senior Leader at Milton Road Primary School, tells us about how she embedded CENTURY’s AI-powered teaching and learning platform in her school, as well as how she engaged parents along the way

How do you use CENTURY?

We try to make sure that some things are set for each class, but some children complete what we’ve set, and then they want more. In this case they’ll use their Recommended Path to access more content. We make sure that something’s always set that follows what we’re doing in the curriculum. They find the badges very motivational, and they like to collect them all, and so they’ll often spend more time than perhaps we’ve requested, which is really positive.

What approach do you take to using CENTURY as a homework platform?

We try to be very flexible with this. We explain that homework can be very tricky and that some parents want more and some parents find it really hard to fit in. And we say, one of the key advantages of CENTURY is the flexibility and the fact it can fit with busy home lives.

We show them that actually, you might have a really busy week and you might not get that much done. Whereas other weeks it might be pouring down with rain and you really want something to occupy your child, and they might do far more. Certainly I would say you can see that in our data, that there’s peaks and troughs, and that makes sense with the way the children use it. We try to tell parents there’s not a set amount that you must complete each week, but also really emphasise the impact it has, and say, the more the better. We try to say little and often and keep it flexible. And I think that’s another reason we’ve had quite a lot of positive reception from parents, because they haven’t felt too much pressure. They’ve felt that they’ve got the ownership of doing it at their own pace.

How would you describe how CENTURY works?

I would say that CENTURY uses artificial intelligence to tailor itself to individual students and that as your child progresses through the work that’s been set on CENTURY, their performance gives input to CENTURY in terms of your child’s understanding. From that, CENTURY understands how best to adapt to support your child. If there’s an area that that child’s finding challenging, then CENTURY can support them with that area. Alternatively if there is an area that a child’s finding easy and they need that extra level of challenge, then CENTURY will provide a stretch or challenge to really develop that understanding further in greater depth.

To hear directly from Jasmine, watch the video below:

How do you use CENTURY’s diagnostics?

I tend to use diagnostics at the beginning of a new topic, certainly in maths. If we’re just starting, say multiplication and division or just starting our addition and subtraction unit, the diagnostic might be the first thing I set so that I can already see that data. This means that when I’m lesson planning, I already have that knowledge of where their strengths are, where their weaknesses are, where maybe some gaps are from previous years and that can then inform my lesson planning. But sometimes we do it later on in the unit if it’s a topic that we know they haven’t covered previously. For example, in Key Stage One, if it’s a brand new topic to them, we set the diagnostic to check understanding after we’ve taught that topic. In this way, we can see if they have understood the key concepts, which can then inform our formative assessments.

How do you use CENTURY’s data?

I make sure I use it in a way that is useful. I wouldn’t just do it just for the sake of it. I use it when I think it will be meaningful.

To learn more about how to embed CENTURY in your primary school, click here. Book a demo here. If you are an existing customer and want to learn more about embedding Jasmine’s approach in your school, speak to your Account Manager or email support@century.tech.