INTELLIGENT CLASSROOMS
The connected classroom starts with the connected school
echoing with: “AI for this, AI-powered that.” We are seeing a surge of tools designed specifically for the front line: personalised tutors for students, automated lesson planning for teachers, and the rapid evolution of digital pedagogy. Some of this is genuinely exciting. It’s easy to imagine a ‘connected classroom’ where learning is more responsive, where support is more personalised, and where teachers spend less time on admin. But as educators, we need to pause and look at the bigger picture.
W
hen it comes to the classroom, connecting devices is one thing – but connecting data needs to take priority. Tim Handley – certified Google AI practitioner, developer of Edu Intelligence’s education specific AI, and former teacher, data lead and primary headteacher – shares his views.
Walk into any staff room or education conference right now, and the conversation is dominated by one topic: AI. At BETT 2026, the halls were
February 2026
While we race to put AI into the hands of learners, the strategic intelligence of our schools still often remains trapped in the comparative dark ages. We are trying to build a futuristic, connected classroom on top of disconnected, analogue foundations. If the data that underpins our decision-making is fragmented, our ability to truly support that classroom – and improve outcomes for the children within it – is fundamentally compromised.
The high cost of fragmented truths The reality for most teachers and school leaders is that they are not suffering from a lack of data. They are drowning in it. But this data is not “connected” in any meaningful sense. It sits in rigid silos: attendance figures in the MIS, progress data in a separate assessment
platform, behaviour logs in a specialist tracker, and stakeholder feedback sits in yet another system.
Then there is the vital context – the “why” – buried in unstructured documents, improvement plans, and pastoral notes. And, of course, there are the spreadsheets. The endless, disconnected spreadsheets that we use to bridge the gaps between these systems.
This fragmentation has a direct impact on the classroom. When we can’t see the full picture, it’s easier to misread what’s happening for a child. A behaviour incident becomes “poor choices” rather than a signal – perhaps linked to a pattern of lateness, a change at home, a learning need, or an unmet pastoral need recorded elsewhere. We respond to symptoms, not causes, because the story is scattered across different systems and files.
From data processors to school leaders The problem manifests in two key ways: lost time and missed connections.
Let’s deal with the time first. In many schools and trusts, the connected classroom is supported by a leadership team that spends hours every week acting as manual data processors. CSV exports. Manual cross-referencing. Multiple dashboards that tell you what happened
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