Our impact on teachers and pupils in 2023/24

The 2023/2024 school year was an eventful one for us at Oak National Academy.

• We started to release new teaching resources specifically designed for classroom use.
• We completed teaching resources across five subjects so now teachers visiting our site can now download fully adaptable slides, worksheets, and quizzes for over 6,000 new lessons in Maths, English, Science, History, and Geography.
• Other launches in 2023/24 included a new curriculum visualiser tool and an AI-powered Quiz Designer which generates questions along with high-quality distractors for multiple-choice quizzes.
• All of Oak’s curricula and teaching resources became available on a standard Open Government Licence (OGL) which allows teachers, schools and other educational organisations to build and adapt content to suit pupils' needs.

Although our complete set of curriculum resources has not yet been released, we continuously evaluate our progress toward achieving our intended impact, much like a good cook tasting their food while cooking. This year, for the fourth time, we have partnered with ImpactEd to carry out an independent evaluation of our impact on teachers, the broader education sector and pupils.

They surveyed 1,004 teachers and conducted qualitative research with both teachers and pupils. Although a comprehensive evaluation report cannot be fully captured in a blog post, we aim to summarise the key findings in five points below.

• Oak users reported working almost five hours fewer per week than non-users. 73% reported that using Oak had saved time with 45% reporting this saved time had led to a decrease in workload and 28% saying this saved time had been repurposed for other useful activities such as supporting pupils in class.
• Two-thirds of Oak users said they had used Oak to change their curriculum, with 39% adding or swapping topics, 22% changing the sequence of the curriculum, and 6% using Oak as their main curriculum.
• 71% of users said they had applied an Oak idea or model to their own teaching, with lesson structure and quiz questions the most frequently used.
• Pupils participated in 7.2 million lessons, with a notable spike when Storm Ciarán caused over 100 school closures, highlighting the importance of continued access to learning.
• Teachers were positive about the benefits of using Oak resources with pupils with SEND and EAL.

1. A shift towards classroom use

Our initial resources were created to address challenges from school closures during the pandemic. Therefore, they were primarily used for emergencies, such as setting work for absent students. We have been observing a gradual shift in how users use Oak, moving towards curriculum planning, lesson planning, and classroom delivery.

For example, among users who started using Oak in the 2023/24 school year, 60% reported using Oak for lesson planning compared to 45% of users who started using it during the pandemic. A total of 192,760 teachers, over 1 in 3, used Oak resources, which was a 115% increase on the same period in the previous year, and teachers downloaded a total of 714,189 resources.

An English specialist mentioned that initially, they had found resources suitable for home learning, but not for classroom use. However, with the availability of new resources, they have been using them more frequently. They work in a deprived area where pupil motivation is low, and they found that pupils really engaged with the Oak resources.

2. Positive impact on teacher workload

Our lessons provide a variety of resources for teachers, saving them time compared to creating materials from scratch or searching online for hours. ImpactEd found that users had a more positive workload than non-users: they reported working almost five hours fewer per week than non-users (an average of 40.9 hours compared to 45.7 hours) and this difference increased with more frequent use of Oak. 73% of Oak users said that using Oak had had a positive impact on their workload, with 45% saying it had decreased their workload and 28% that it had allowed them to repurpose their time for other useful activities benefitting their pupils.

For those who said using Oak had decreased their workload, the median time saving per week was 4 hours. They were also more likely than non-users to feel positive about their future in teaching: 16% anticipated they would no longer be working in education in two years’ time compared to 25% of non-users.

A Deputy Head of a primary school responsible for curriculum design explained how using Oak at her school had helped to ease the burden of teachers designing their own curriculum.

3. Enhanced lesson quality and curricula

We also wanted to understand how Oak’s curricula might impact schools’ existing curricula. Two-thirds of Oak users said they had used Oak to change their curriculum, with 39% adding or swapping topics, 22% changing the sequence of the curriculum, and 6% using Oak as their main curriculum. Overall, around half of the users thought that Oak’s curriculum and teaching resources increased their confidence in curriculum design and improved their school’s curriculum.

We also found that our resources were often used as a starting point for planning, with users adapting materials to meet the specific needs of their schools and pupils. 71% of users said that they applied an Oak idea or model to their own teaching. Mirroring the Oak lesson structure or incorporating our quiz questions were the most frequently mentioned cases.

An ECT student explained that the structure and simplicity of the Oak lesson plan made it easy for their students to grasp the content.

4. Supporting pupils with additional needs

Beyond the broader impact on lesson quality, interviewed teachers were also very positive about the benefits of using Oak resources with pupils who have SEND and EAL. They mentioned that the lessons' visual nature, repetition, and broken-down, manageable structure made them accessible for these pupils.

In a focus group, Year 5 teachers mentioned that they felt the resources were also particularly impactful for their pupils with SEND.

5. Reliable emergency fallback option

Pupils have taken 7.2 million lessons this school year, with a peak observed on November 2nd, 2023. This is when Storm Ciarán hit some regions in the South of England, and more than 100 schools had to close. On that day, 2.5 times more lessons were taken than on the average school day. We also heard about individual cases when access to Oak ensured continued access to learning.

A Science specialist talked about two GCSE pupils who were excluded from school and, as a result, could miss out on practical science learning. Although he felt Oak resources could not substitute for in-person learning, he explained that the Oak videos and content really helped them avoid missing important learning opportunities and consolidate their learning while they were excluded.

What’s next?

The 2024/25 school year has already been quite eventful, just a few months in. We have launched a new AI-powered lesson planning tool called Aila and we are in the process of creating new teaching resources for ten additional subjects. These resources will be released gradually throughout the school year. We will also remain committed to measuring our impact to understand our progress toward the intended improvements in the education system.

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