Revolutionising Learning: AI Takes Centre Stage in Liverpool

Posted on 9th October 2024

Posted by Will Hall

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes

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Mayor Steve Rotheram, Kate Peaston and Priya Lakhani stand together smiling

In April 2024, I had the opportunity to meet Mayor Steve Rotheram as he was planning his re-election campaign. What struck me was his understanding of technology and its potential to improve education in Liverpool, a key focus in his upcoming manifesto. As someone who has spent years in education and worked on developing CENTURY’s content and partnership model, I was excited to see how we could help address some of the challenges facing Liverpool’s schools.

After our initial conversations, it became clear that the Mayor was committed to finding technical solutions that worked for the city’s schools, but he wanted to ensure that the buy-in came from the schools themselves and was informed by impact. His approach aligned perfectly with how CENTURY supports schools, ensuring that everyone—from teachers to students—sees the benefits of the platform. We decided the best way to demonstrate CENTURY’s impact was to show it in action, so we invited the Mayor to visit Runnymede St. Edward’s Catholic Primary School in Liverpool. It was inspiring to see how engaged both the teachers and students were with the platform, and I’m grateful to Headteacher Kate Peaston for hosting us and making it such a special day.

The visit clearly made an impression on the Mayor, and soon after, we began planning a pilot programme to bring CENTURY to every primary school in Liverpool and demonstrate the impact on a regional scale. The Mayor’s invitation to schools generated a huge response—at one point, we were worried we wouldn’t have enough space for everyone at the launch event! It was incredible to see so many schools interested, representing more than 28,000 students and 1,300 teachers. It really highlighted the scale of the project and how many lives could be positively impacted.

Headteacher Kate Peaston opened proceedings after a beautiful rendition of ‘Let It Be’ by the incredible Liverpool Cathedral Choristers. Kate spoke about the challenges her school faces and how CENTURY helps provide personalised learning for each student. The BBC’s Today programme attended the event to better understand how traditional machine learning is utilised by schools and interviewed students and teachers at the school to learn about their experiences.

BBC journalist Nick Garnett asked whether AI could replace teachers. In response, our CEO Priya said, “teaching is a profession. It’s an art and a science… At CENTURY we will robustly and vigorously defend the teaching profession and the skill it requires.”

The students then took to the stage to share how much they enjoy using CENTURY, which was a real highlight of the day. Hearing their excitement reinforced just how powerful this technology can be. It also gave me pause for reflection on how much time, work and expertise has gone into developing CENTURY and why we do what we do. 

Mayor Rotheram also spoke at the event, emphasising how important it is to use data and technology to improve outcomes across the city. He was passionate about making sure every child in Liverpool has access to the same opportunities and highlighted how this pilot with CENTURY could be a key step in achieving that.

Priya Lakhani, our founder CEO, shared the journey of CENTURY over the past eleven years, explaining how our proprietary artificial intelligence has been designed to provide truly personalised learning for students of all abilities and showed user graphs which demonstrate the links between user behaviour and content. A powerful visualisation of the enormous amounts of data that are required to ensure every student receives a unique and constantly adapting pathway to mastery.

As the pilot begins, I couldn’t be more excited about the possibilities. Seeing so many schools eager to take part and knowing how much this can benefit both students and teachers, I’m confident we’re on the verge of something transformative. 

One of the Headteachers at the event summed it up perfectly: 

“Love it. Let’s go!”

 

This story was covered by BBC News, Liverpool, you can read the full article here.

Click here to find out more about CENTURY for primary schools.