It’s estimated that over 20% of the global population is neurodivergent, but traditional classrooms often exclude these students by prioritising norms designed for neurotypical learners. These environments create significant challenges, forcing neurodivergent students to expend energy masking their differences rather than focusing on learning. This research tackles these barriers head-on, reshaping how we think about inclusion and engagement for all.

“A learning space where everyone feels safe, happy, and part of the community”—that’s the vision of Matt Harrison, lead researcher at the University of Melbourne and co-founder of the University of Melbourne Neurodiversity Project. Identifying a significant gap in education, Harrison’s collaboration with SMART set out to amplify the voices of neurodivergent students.

“Our extensive literature review found that only a very small number of studies actually included the voices of neurodivergent students. By engaging directly with these learners, we gathered authentic insights into strategies and tech tools that make a real difference,” said Harrison. This groundbreaking, student-centred approach delivers unparalleled data to empower educators with evidence-based solutions for fostering inclusive classrooms.

The research identified 36 actionable recommendations tailored for education leaders and teachers. These insights provide a roadmap for implementing technology and designing inclusive spaces that support diverse student needs. From specific tech tools to enhancements of existing classroom practices, the findings offer practical, scalable steps that educators can use immediately to increase inclusion and engagement.

Among the actionable steps emerging from this research are:

• Transforming Engagement: Adopt specific EdTech tools that affirm student voices, identities, and self-identified needs.
• Empowering Student Voice: Involve students as collaborators in choosing and implementing tools and other classroom options.
• Child-Centred Practices: Shift away from traditional behaviour-based approaches and focus on each student’s strengths and needs.

This research highlights technology’s transformative role in creating equitable learning environments in classrooms around the world. “These recommendations offer educators and education leaders a clear pathway to designing classrooms that prioritise inclusivity,” said Jeff Lowe, SMART Technologies Executive Vice President. “By listening to the voices of neurodivergent students and understanding their needs, we can ensure our technology considers those needs, creates meaningful change and success for all students.”

For SMART, inclusion has always been a priority. This collaboration not only validates the positive impact of its current products but also drives future innovations designed to meet the needs of all learners. By incorporating neurodivergent perspectives into future product design and development, SMART is setting a new standard for inclusive technology that supports every student’s success.

SMART is showcasing this groundbreaking research and technology to support neurodiverse learners for the first time at Bett 2025 in London. Educators and school leaders are invited to visit SMART’s block party launch event at Stand SP20 at 11:00 am on day one of Bett to take a session with Tisha Poncio to explore the findings and experience the technology, including an informative session. Plus, join Katie Novak and Anthony McGeeney at the SEND Village for a deep dive into the recommendations for ensuring neurodivergent student success. To explore the full findings and begin implementing these strategies in your school or classroom, access the research report here.

The winner, 17-year-old Ahmad Adebowale from Liverpool Maths School has created a prototype named Skewdle that offers a gamified approach to learn how to identify misinformation in online media and instead engage with genuine high-quality news content.

“We set our learners the world’s most interesting and important problems each month, and Andrew raised the bar with this one. It was fascinating to see the AI-powered ideas that learners came up with: from applications which gamified the process of reading news articles from different viewpoints, to web browser plug-ins to help identify disinformation, to the winning entry, ‘Skewdle’, which looks like a Wordle-for-media-literacy skills in the making!” said Dr James Kuht MBE, CEO and co-founder of Inversity.

“Misinformation is an existential problem with dangerous consequences that we have a collective responsibility to fight, and it’s top of the agenda for both the Financial Times and Inversity to tackle. There were many excellent responses to the challenge. Skewdle was particularly impressive due to its technical maturity, user-friendly design and interactive features. Ahmed had also conducted important market research to put his invention in the right context of what users need,” said Andrew Jack, Global Education Editor, Financial Times.

Inversity was launched by Dr James Kuht MBE in September 2023. Kuht served as a Doctor in the Royal Air Force before transitioning to pioneer AI applications at No.10 Downing Street and becoming the first-ever Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of a specialist military unit. Realising AI’s potential to solve real-world problems, James Kuht founded Inversity to provide knowledge workers and students across the UK with engaging, practical AI education that goes beyond textbook theory.

As the university has grown in recent years so has the number of devices being used across campuses, considerably adding to the IT team’s workload as the time spent on managing the ageing and disparate device estate grew. Coventry University Group looked for a more efficient solution.

Steve Rogers, CTO at Coventry University Group, explains: “Over the years, we had accumulated laptops and desktops from multiple vendors, with no standardised approach to device procurement or management. Our complex device universe was time-consuming to manage and costly to operate – and users had to hold onto their devices for up to seven years before we had the budget to replace them.”

Simplifying the group’s approach to devices

With further expansion expected in the coming years, it was vital that the group ensured its students, faculty and staff had reliable access to the tools needed for their work and studies. However, procurement decisions were often made on a departmental basis, leading to a situation where 188 distinct models from a range of manufacturers were in operation, with many being used beyond their suggested lifespan.

The challenges of managing these devices went further than the number of models. Users were located across the globe in both domestic and international locations, but the IT team needed to manually set devices up before they could be given to their new owners.

To simplify its approach to device procurement and management, Coventry University Group turned to Lenovo and its managed service provider partner CDW. Lenovo introduced the Group to Lenovo TruScale Device as a Service (DaaS), a consumption model that provides an extensive range of digital workplace solutions with flexible payment options, allowing organisations to easily scale and manage their IT estates.

Given the challenges faced in rolling out new devices, it was also vital to Rogers and his team that any new model came with more support options that would help free up time spent on manual processes. Rogers commented: “Lenovo and CDW were one of the only vendors we found that could integrate with Microsoft Intune. That integration is a key benefit for us, as it means our IT team doesn’t need to touch the machines at all – everything ships directly to the end user.”

High quality devices backed by robust support

Through Lenovo TruScale DaaS, Lenovo and CDW equipped Coventry University Group’s users with a suite of modern hardware and the ability to refresh laptops and notebooks in a highly cost-effective way. Devices provided include Lenovo ThinkPad T14s, X13 2-in-1, and X1 2-in-1 laptops, which are now all available at a single, predictable monthly price.

“Of all the DaaS options we considered, the Lenovo and CDW proposal gave us the best balance of price and performance,” recalls Rogers. “Lenovo and CDW also have a global distribution network, which enables us to deliver ready-to-go devices directly to our users anywhere in the world.”

The devices themselves are higher performing than those used previously, giving users a better experience and requiring less support from the IT team. All devices will be replaced after four years in service, minimising any reductions in performance and management time for older laptops.

“Lenovo TruScale Device as a Service offered Coventry University Group comprehensive solutions, optimising IT management and enhancing productivity,” comments Abdul Hakim, Executive Director, Digital Workplace Solutions at Lenovo. “The Group experienced reduced operational costs through flexible device deployment and lifecycle management. Additionally, they benefited from increased efficiency and scalability, tailored to their evolving business needs.”

As well as quality devices and a flexible pricing model, Coventry University Group also now benefits from Lenovo Premier Support. Previous approaches made it harder for users to access technical support when needed. Now, they have a single point of contact for all support requests, backed by 24/7/365 direct access to Lenovo engineers.

New faculty devices are now pre-configured by Lenovo and CDW, and then delivered directly to users’ preferred locations, where they are enrolled automatically on first use. “With Lenovo TruScale DaaS, our team has slashed the time spent on provisioning and managing devices,” confirms Rogers. “We’re saving approximately 40 hours a week with TruScale DaaS, which is time we can reinvest in supporting our staff, students, and faculty around the world.”

Support for sustainability goals

Another driver for change was the desire to advance Coventry University Group’s sustainability goals, with its commitment to net zero emissions by 2030 for scope 1 and 2, with a 30% reduction for scope 3. Working with Lenovo, to date, the Group has been able to offset 223 tons of carbon emissions through Lenovo CO₂ Offset Services, which estimates CO₂ emissions across the average lifecycle of the customer device(s), and helps offset them by purchasing credits to support verified United Nations Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), Climate Action Reserve, and Gold Standard® climate action projects aimed to help reduce CO atmosphere. Plans are also underway to leverage Lenovo Asset Recovery Services, which will allow devices to be recycled, supporting a circular economy and unlocking additional cost savings.

Taking DaaS across the organisation

Working with Lenovo means Coventry University Group can take a more strategic and sustainable approach to its hardware. It has been able to move from a more traditional procurement model to one that provides high quality devices, transparent and predictable pricing and support in reaching emissions targets.

Inspired by the time saved in provisioning new devices and ease of support, the Group is now considering expanding its use of Lenovo TruScale DaaS for its on-campus workstation environment. “TruScale DaaS is the ideal fit for our organization,” concludes Rogers.

The survey of 1,000 students and 500 educators at UK universities found that educators think that students are using AI to complete around two-fifths (43%) of their studies on average. Whereas students say they are only using AI to complete almost a quarter (24%) of their tasks on average. In fact, just over 1 in 5 (21%) university students surveyed say that they don’t use AI at all in their studies.

When it comes to specific uses for AI, students appear to be using it to enhance their learning and prepare for exams. They are using AI most for research (56%), exam revision (43%) and writing content like essays and assignments (39%).

Although they may not be using it as much as their educators think, more than half (52%) of university students surveyed say that their grades have improved since using AI, with 8% saying that they have improved substantially.

AI is having positive impacts on higher education, and educators are more likely to feel this
The majority of university educators (85%) and students (67%) think that AI is having a positive impact on higher education. Personalised learning (51%), increased productivity and efficiency (47%) and better support (45%) are the top benefits of AI usage according to students and educators surveyed.

Educators appear to be more positive overall about AI’s impact on higher education. Just over a fifth (21%) don’t think AI is having, or could have, a negative impact on higher education – seven times the proportion of students who said the same (3%). Continuing this trend, less than half (44%) of students think AI has improved the quality of higher education, while 72% of educators believe the same.

Lack of AI policy threatens academic integrity

Despite the overall positive sentiment around the impact of AI on higher education, less than half (48%) of educators say their university has a policy in place to manage it, while almost two-thirds (62%) say higher education is unprepared to handle AI usage. Without AI regulation in place, 68% of students and 74% of educators believe that the technology will undermine the credibility of university degrees.

More than half (54%) of students surveyed say that the rise in AI usage makes passing exams easier than it used to be, while a greater proportion (70%) of educators feel the same way. With this in mind, over half (53%) of educators and 43% of students think that using AI to help with university work should be considered cheating.

As many as 1 in 10 students surveyed admit to submitting AI-generated work without disclosing it. And while over a third (38%) of educators say they’ve received more AI-generated assignments and essays in the past six months, only 42% feel confident in detecting it.

Skills needed to maximise benefits of AI

It’s not just students who are using AI for their work, almost half (48%) of university educators surveyed often use the technology, with just over 1 in 5 (21%) using AI all the time. Educators use it most for tasks like drafting correspondence to students (46%), setting work for students (45%) and planning lectures or tutorials (45%).

Despite this, less than 2 in 5 (37%) educators think their peers have the right skills to use AI to their advantage.
A third (33%) of students believe using AI in their studies is helping or would help to prepare them to use it in their future work. However, almost a quarter (23%) would use AI in their studies more if they had a better understanding of the technology.

With only 42% of educators saying their universities have incorporated AI literacy into their curriculum, there is some way to go to ensure students are well-equipped to use the technology effectively.

Marni Baker Stein, Chief Content Officer at Coursera, commented: “This research shows AI is already delivering tangible benefits in higher education, from improved student grades to enhanced educator productivity. However, there is a notable gap between educators’ perceptions and actual student AI usage. This overestimation could lead to restrictive policies being put in place. Instead, universities should focus on developing comprehensive AI literacy programmes. Clear guidelines and proper training will not only protect academic integrity but also ensure graduates enter the workforce with the skills to leverage AI effectively in their careers.”

The 8B parameter Llama 3 model, released in April by Facebook-owned Meta, has been extensively tuned using 550,000 minutes of transcribed explanations from over 300 fully qualified UK teachers, who deliver tutoring on behalf of the online tuition company, TLC LIVE.

TLC LIVE were one of the first UK providers of online tutoring and continue to drive innovation within the tutoring space, with AI being the next step.

The model powers ‘Manda’, TLC LIVE’s AI tutor. ‘Manda’ is named after Manda Barnes, co-founder and director of TLC LIVE. It is currently undergoing testing with students.

‘Manda’ will tutor children studying the UK national curriculum wherever they are in the world and is priced at £10 a month per student (£100 for the year if they sign up for an annual account). Parents can sign up for access at tlclive.ai.

Simon Barnes, co-founder and CEO says: “We’ve always been passionate about supporting children with tutoring delivered by actual teachers – we know, and research shows, this is the best option.

“An AI will obviously never be able to replicate what a real-life teacher can deliver, and our existing work with schools across the UK will continue as usual with the same fully qualified teachers.

“But we saw an opportunity to offer high quality but relatively low-cost AI tutoring, using national curriculum approved methodologies, and decided we should build Manda to at least give parents a new option, amongst all the other AI tutors that have quickly sprung up over the last 18 months.

“We employ over 200 fully qualified UK teachers on a part time basis – they have tutored over 51,000 students and delivered almost 900,000 sessions. We removed all personal data from these session transcripts and used the explanations from our teachers to train the model.”

Josh Blackburn, COO at TLC LIVE notes: “Coincidentally we finished training Manda on the same day the government announced they were working on an AI to help teachers mark homework and produce lesson content. Education is a great use case for the tech, as there’s so much existing content available to train on.”

Manda generates text and code only and has a knowledge cut off date of March 2023. It is updated on an ongoing basis by TLC LIVE’s internal academic team, which continually improves its ability to explain questions to students. All student chats with the AI tutor are checked against a blacklist of prohibited terms and phrases and protected in an encrypted database.

Llama 3 was pretrained on over 15 trillion tokens of data from publicly available sources. Neither the pretraining nor the fine-tuning datasets include Meta user data and the model uses Llama Guard at a system level to protect users.

Barnes concludes: “Any AI can ‘tutor’, but Manda’s the first AI in the world to be trained by fully qualified UK teachers and we’re really proud of this!”

The new initiative represents a significant leap in educational methods. No other school or college has delivered a programme that entirely replaces traditional teaching for the core curriculum in the classroom with AI-driven adaptive learning platforms. The programme offers an alternative for students who find classroom learning settings either too challenging – or not challenging enough – while also serving those who struggle with the isolation of home-based learning.

Students learn at their own pace, allowing higher achieving students to remain challenged, while students who need more time to master their learning no longer need to worry about keeping up with the class. Learning coaches, who undergo a rigorous multi-stage recruitment process involving in-person assessment days, cognitive tests spanning verbal reasoning and emotional intelligence, support the students and will focus on their motivations, progression, and holistic wellbeing.

The programme is distinct in its emphasis on developing the whole person, equipping students not only with academic knowledge but also with the life skills necessary for personal and professional success. This is through a unique and ambitious co-curriculum, which focuses on students’ broader development in areas such as active citizenship, critical thinking, digital literacy, artistic expression, public speaking, self-awareness and entrepreneurship.

The Sabrewing programme draws its name from the remarkable Sabrewing hummingbirds. Hummingbirds are celebrated for their exceptional agility, resilience and adaptability. They also excel in navigating their environments independently and tend to fly solo even over great distances. The intention is to develop the same independence, self-reliance, resilience and adaptability in the students, as they progress on their own personalised learning journeys.

The first intake of students will begin in September 2024, with the enrolment process now ready. The initial target is to have 20 students supported by three coaches. Prospective students and their families are encouraged to visit the David Game College website at www.davidgamecollege.com/ai for more information and to register their interest.

John Dalton, Co-Principal of David Game College, commented: “While the notion of classrooms without teachers might seem radical, our aim is to enhance learning, not replace teachers. This model allows students who thrive in non-traditional settings to excel through a personalised and highly supported educational journey.”

“Education should be as innovative as the technology that shapes our world,” declared David Game, Founder and Co-Principal of David Game College. “Our aim is to advance the way education is delivered by offering a tailored educational experience that continually adapts to the needs of each student.”

Rudolf Eliott Lockhart, Chief Executive, Independent Schools Association, added: “The Sabrewing programme is fascinating. Using AI to drive an adaptive learning approach has the potential to be a real game-changer and at David Game College they are looking to underpin this innovative approach with serious educational expertise. I am really excited to see this project develop and to see what the pupils can achieve.”

Launched last year, TeachMateAI offers a suite of over 115 AI-powered tools that support teachers with everything from streamlining lesson planning and report writing to creating powerpoint presentations instantly. Already used by over 200,000 teachers, TeachMateAI saves educators on average over 10 hours a week, allowing them to redirect that time back into teaching, or just take a well-deserved break.

To support its rapid growth, hedgehog lab will work with TeachMateAI to design and build a bespoke new platform, with a focus on improving scalability and new tool integration, as well as optimising the user experience. The new TeachMateAI platform is expected to launch early 2025.

“TeachMateAI is showing the world how AI can play a hugely positive role in the future of education and is already benefiting thousands of teachers and children,” said Sarat Pediredla, CEO at hedgehog lab. “But the product is still only scratching the surface in terms of its potential. We’re so excited to be partnering with TeachMateAI to deliver a truly enterprise level solution that will take this revolutionary idea to the next level”.

Before embarking on the full platform redesign and rebuild, hedgehog lab will conduct an initial discovery and research phase, involving a UX/technical audit and interviews with multiple customers to identify the best possible implementation of the solution and its tools.

“Since launching early last year, we’ve seen incredible growth for our platform,” said Ian Cunningham, CTO at TeachMateAI. “The sheer number of tools that are integrated within the platform makes us unique in the education tech market. However, because of our rapid growth, we have quickly reached the limits of what we’re able to achieve supported by our current platform. hedgehog lab is the perfect partner to help deliver the highly scalable solution we need to realise the next phase of TeachMateAI’s growth.”

According to a survey conducted by the National Education Union, almost 50% of teachers in England believe their workload is unmanageable, with some reporting that they had turned to antidepressants to cope. Another survey from the National Education Union found 44% of teachers were planning to quit within five years because of unmanageable workloads.

Alongside its work with teachers and schools, TeachMateAI is advising the government on ways that it can leverage AI to tackle pain points in the education system.

The interactive digital insights day was designed by the leading ESG specialist, Ahead Partnership, and seeks to reach young women who lack awareness or connections to the tech sector. By introducing them to the sector’s growing wealth of roles and opportunities, it aims not only to foster their personal development, but to help employers build a diverse pipeline of talent for the future.

The day gave 153 young women from 11 schools across Leeds access to an impressive catalogue of events, including panel sessions, workshops and networking with role models and industry leaders.

The immediate impact of the event is clear in its feedback: only 59% of pupils understood the meaning of the ‘digital sector’ on arrival, growing to 90% by the end of the session; an impressive 94% of pupils felt aware of the key skills, qualifications and entry routes involved in the digital sector by the end of the event, rising considerably from just 67% at the start of the day.

Ahead Partnership delivered this year’s event with the support of several long-standing partners and employers, including Leeds City Council, Netcompany, and multi-billion pound organisation, Sulzer. Representatives from the organisations had the unique opportunity to network and share personal insights with the next generation of young, female talent, encouraging them to consider a future in technology and innovation.

Executive President of Sulzer, Dr Suzanne Thoma, said: “The skills gap in tech is growing, so it’s essential that we engage with young people early and showcase the opportunities that are available to them.

“This is particularly important for young women; with only 24% of the UK tech industry workers being female, the need for change is clear. As longstanding champions for diversity and inclusion, we are very proud to have teamed up with Ahead Partnership to help spearhead that change.

“It was fantastic to see the young women who took part in each of the activities today grow in confidence across the day, and I hope that it will leave a lasting impact on each of them as they consider the multitude of opportunities available to them in future.”

Girl Tech is the flagship event in Ahead Partnership’s Growing Talent Digital Leeds programme. Led and funded by some of the city’s top employers, the award-winning initiative harnesses the combined resources of key employers and partners to inspire and encourage young people aged 10-18 years to pursue a career in digital; address specific skills gaps in the industry and create an inclusive, diverse and skilled talent pipeline.

The number of students living in the UK who disclosed a mental health condition to their university increased five-fold from the academic year 2010/11 to 2020/21, while 57% of respondents in a 2022 Student Minds mental health charity survey self-reported a mental health issue. This VR experience could offer a transformational solution to combat this growing problem.

The VR content, which has been developed by Phase Space Ltd working with St George’s, University of London, uses proven hypnosis-based stress management techniques, including breathing and visualisation, reimagined for VR. It harnesses the power of VR to supercharge the process of relaxation and uses breathtaking graphics that focus the headset wearer’s attention to achieve a deep state of calm within minutes. 

One hundred St George’s healthcare students were recruited to the trial between October and November 2023. They were randomly assigned to view the VR content – focused on dealing with exam stress – either using a Phase Space headset or as a 2D video on their smartphone. Both groups completed a seven-minute VR session every day for five days.

Before and after each session, participants were asked to report how calm, stressed, and anxious they felt on a scale of 0 to 10. Students in the VR headset group showed greater improvements in all measures immediately after the sessions compared to the control (smartphone) group. In the headset group, their feeling of calm increased with a score of 5.6 before the trial to 7.5 after the sessions, stress decreased from a score of 5.0 to 3.2 and anxiety decreased from 4.4 to 3.0.

Using standardised scales typically used in psychiatry, the students also reported their levels of happiness, calmness, stress, sadness, anxiety, wellbeing and depression at the start of the trial and at a follow-up session two weeks later.

After two weeks, levels of student wellbeing increased and levels of perceived stress decreased in the VR headset group. There were no changes between the pre-intervention and follow-up period in the control group.

In response to open-ended questions, 89% of students (42 out of 47) using the VR headset reported that they experienced a therapeutic effect on their emotional wellbeing from the technology. Other themes to emerge from the qualitative feedback were that they felt more calm, confident and ‘recharged’.

Students in the VR headset group felt more ‘immersed’ and there were no reports of cybersickness.

Following the positive feedback, the Student Union at St George’s will offer its students regular sessions to use the VR headsets to manage stress in the run-up to exams from late April.

The work at St George’s, University of London is led by Dr Aileen O’Brien, Reader in Psychiatry and Consultant Psychiatrist. She said: “The mental health of students has never been more of a concern. We have received incredibly positive feedback from students, so we are delighted to be taking this revolutionary project further.  

“St George’s students played a fundamental role in developing the anxiety-reduction modules used for the study. Ultimately, we hope it will pave the way for VR to be added to the repertoire of student support offered by St George’s, University of London and across the higher education sector for the first time.” 

Becky Kemp Arnold, medical student at St George’s, University of London said: “The VR is a really effective way for me to feel calmer and curb my anxiety. This tool offers an immersive and intentional experience of relaxation, which feels revolutionary in helping to manage the great amount of stress we feel as students. I really hope VR becomes embedded into the student support options at my university.”

Zillah Watson, Co-founder and Chief Executive of Phase Space, said: “We know that there is great potential in this new approach to address the student mental health crisis, and we are thrilled to see the benefits being reported by students.

“Phase Space remains committed to pioneering evidence-based solutions that make a lasting impact on the mental health and wellbeing of young people, and this research with St George’s, University of London is a significant step forward. Our pilots with NHS staff, in workplaces and in schools are already demonstrating the wider potential of the VR content we developed with St George’s.”

The trial and content creation were funded by UKRI Innovate UK as part of the Mindset programme to expand the scale of the VR technology with the aim to embed this in universities across the UK.