With over 1,200 teachers, leaders and educators (including seven education ministers) from 91 countries in attendance, the World Schools Summit in Abu Dhabi was a truly global affair.

Tes was there to soak it all up and take in the trends and talking points from the two-day event.

Here are some of the highlights from the mix of talks, conversations and debates heard - from the ever-present tension over the challenges and opportunities presented by artificial intelligence (AI), tips on driving high performance in schools and why sometimes helping pupils “fail” may set them up for life better than endless success.

1. Is AI replacing teachers or aiding them?

There was no doubting that the impact of AI on education was a core theme at the conference.

For instance, a deliberately provocative debate titled “This house believes AI will replace teachers” was well-attended, with the initial motion backed by, well, no one.

But Tomas Duckling, head of Dubai College, threw his weight behind the argument and centred much of it on the idea that, at present, we are still too simplistic in our thinking about where AI is now compared with where it will go.

“It’s not about ChatGPT teaching teachers,” he explained. “You have to imagine a different world. It’s a screen with a humanoid on it, but that’s artificial and reacting to you, watching you, responding to every interaction.”

Pupils (or indeed adults) would not “necessarily know that person wasn’t real”, but that would not matter - what was key was that the AI would be a “complete and utter expert” in what it does, and therefore a fantastic educator.

He also cited the role of AI in assessment as a major area of strength compared with humans, where errors are common.

Duckling said: “Some of the major exam boards have declared that they will only do human marking. I think they’re wrong. I think very soon, assessment can be made much clearer externally by the use of AI to help us in consistency [and] obtaining a higher success rate.”

He added that AI may be the saviour of education in many ways, as presently, Unesco suggests we need 44 million more teachers by 2030 - and so we’d need non-human help: “[AI] is not just inevitable but necessary as well,” Duckling said.

His view was, of course, challenged. Olivier Oullier, visiting professor of practice and human computer interaction at Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence, argued that while AI clearly had a role, the humanity of teachers would be central.

“One thing that is very important these days is that most of the AI tools that we purchase are lacking - and it’s one thing humans can do, which is a mapping of a world, a representation, a memory, contextualisation,” he said.

“As long as AI systems cannot contextualise, it will be very hard for them to replace the teacher. As long as the AI system doesn’t understand that the kid is not feeling well because the parents divorced, then the role of humans will remain essential.”

Oullier conceded, though, that there is no doubt AI in numerous forms will enter education, and that it will be vital for humans to know how to use it to gain benefits from it.

“Human-machine interactions are going to be the key. Who is going to lead the dance might depend on the task, but it has to be that dance,” he added.

Meanwhile, in another talk, Ben Gomes, chief technologist for learning and sustainability at Google, also said he did not think AI would replace educators - but it could free up more time for helping pupils think about “deeper concepts”.

He gave the example of his own background in computer science to say that while you need to learn specific ways of doing things, the deeper learning comes from understanding concepts like “modularity, abstraction, layers”, and that is where the role of educators remained central.

“I think the challenge as an educator is, how do you use the time you’re saving [with AI] to spend more time on the deeper concepts,” he added.

2. Great SEND support everywhere, but how do we share it?

Former principal at Swiss Cottage School and Tes Schools Awards judge Vijita Patel, who now works as executive director for special educational needs at the Qatar Foundation, outlined how her new role means she is aware of how much great support for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) is happening across all areas of the education world.

“I think it is really important to acknowledge that there is best practice in every single system. We don’t need to go to experts outside of our context as well,” she said. “There’s so much creativity and risk-taking in classrooms.”

However, she added that, at present, the sector lacks ways to ensure this best practice is surfaced and shared, as too often schools and teachers lack the capacity to do this.

“A lot of the best practice is often sitting in our schools, unable to be scaled, and it’s unable to be scaled because the job is hard, it’s demanding. We have no time. That’s the reality,” Patel explained.

One suggestion for wider reform was made by David Barth, chief executive of Perkins School for the Blind, who said it was incumbent on anyone engaging with schools or policymakers to raise the profile of learners with SEND at every opportunity.

“Are you an activist when you’re in the meeting, when you’re meeting with an investor, when you’re meeting with policymakers? Are you saying, ‘I’m not sure this includes this 15 per cent of the population?’” he said.

“That’s the secret, people using their voice as activists to say, ‘I get where you’re going with whatever this policy is, but I want you to know you’ve excluded 17 per cent of my class, my school.’ I think that’s a very easy place to start.”

3. Opportunities to fail

How should schools prepare pupils for the future? Great grades and deep learning, of course, but also learning to fail and being “uncomfortable”, according to Rebecca Coulter, principal at Dubai British School Jumeirah Park.

“I do feel the biggest skill [pupils need], and one we’re seeing a wobble with our young children, is resilience,” she said.

The need for pupils to have “grit and determination” when they enter the wider world is important, but many do not always get it due to their affluent lifestyle.

She said that schools need to build in opportunities for children to “not do so well - to not get 10 out of 10 on a test or be placed highest”, and then not bow to “parental pressure” when that happens.

“It’s about giving them meaningful experiences that allow them to feel a little bit uncomfortable,” she added.

4. Want great outcomes? It’s all about teachers

How can schools drive high performance? It’s a question that all education systems face in their desire for great outcomes for pupils.

Gemma Thornley, principal of the Arbor School in the United Arab Emirates, a past winner of a World’s Best School Prize, discussed this in a panel at the event and was clear she believes there is no deep secret to doing this - it’s about hiring and retaining great teachers.

“The one thing that is universal with high performance in schools is the people, the teachers,” she said.

This, therefore, should be at the front of mind for all leaders about how to “bring the very best teachers” into a school and then how to “keep them there”.

Easier said than done, of course, but her key suggestion was that you have to give staff “autonomy and ownership in the classroom” so they feel “empowered to be able to take risks to drive high performance”.

She said if you do this, you then get teachers who are also highly engaged and feel they have a place in school and feel “listened to and heard by leadership”, which in turn means they engage with pupils to do the same, creating a virtuous cycle.

5. Authentic celebration of staff

Linked to this theme, Will Campbell, founding head of the Franklin School in the US and also a past winner of a World’s Best School Prize, said leaders at schools needed to be authentic in how they celebrate the success and achievements of staff.

“One thing I think we lose sight of when looking at high-performing teams is authentic identification of success. So it’s not going up and saying, ‘Great job team’ or ‘great work last week’,” he said.

“It’s actually saying the person’s name. It’s identifying what they were successful at. It’s acknowledging the impact they had on the team and actually being genuinely authentic through all of those processes.”

Campbell also suggested school leaders needed to be brave enough to recognise that you don’t need to meet every week just because it’s in the calendar.

“There’s no point meeting for meeting’s sake if there isn’t something actionable that can come from it. Too many teams have this cyclical meeting that’s in the calendar, and they’re not willing to push it back or move it because they’re worried about losing it.”

He added that if you are willing to let these go when required, you can free up time for staff - a commodity that is always worth having more of.

6. UK budget to drive more growth?

With projections of 100 more private schools needed in the UAE by 2033 to keep pace with population growth, there was a clear sense of energy among those in the region already.

As such, recent news like Queen Elizabeth’s School becoming the first state school to open a campus in the region, or St Paul’s Girls School also planning a campus for 2028, was of no surprise to anyone - and the likelihood is more will be announced soon, too.

What’s more, on several occasions amid discussion with delegates, the forthcoming UK Budget and its potential to cause more wealthy UK citizens to leave for the region was also brought up - the politics, morals and ethics of which are for you to decide on.

If it does have that impact, though, expect that 100 schools figure to be revised up - and more UK school groups to follow both the independent and state counterparts already on their way.

7. Education for all

On the flip side to this, while much of the summit was looking at cutting-edge areas of education and the growth of medium- and high-end private schools, there was also a strong focus on the reality that many children around the world still do not have access to education, or are still engaged in rote learning in classes of over 40 pupils.

Efforts to tackle this are underway, though, with several initiatives showcased at the conference, such as Imagine Worldwide, which discussed its Tablet-Based Foundational Learning Programme.

This sees pupils in Malawi, Tanzania and Sierra Leone provided with a tablet that is solar powered and requires no internet connectivity to be able to access a raft of learning resources in numerous local languages, with strong outcomes. The organisation’s work saw it win the Global EdTech Prize in the Non-Profit category, handed out at the event.

Perhaps the most powerful reminder that education has to be for all came from Angeline Murimirwa, chief executive officer of the Campaign for Female Education (Camfed).

She recounted how, when she was a child, she used to have “very small handwriting” in her exercise book because she was “afraid that if I wrote too big handwriting and my exercise book finished early, where would I get the next one?”

She said, too, that she did not play at breaktime because she worried that if her dress got dirty, she didn’t know “where we would get the soap to wash it again”.

Despite this, she studied hard and got good grades, which should have seen her attend secondary school - but due to levies required to pay to attend in Zimbabwe, she knew she would not be able to go.

”[When I got my grades] I started weeping and people thought, ‘Oh, she’s so happy’, but I was crying because I had done everything that I could as a child to get [these grades], but I knew it was the end of the road,” Murimirwa explained.

However, Camfed stepped in with a scholarship so she could attend school - and she eventually became the leader of the organisation that made her education possible - a path she says more pupils still need to walk to break the cycle of poverty that exists in so many nations.

“When we talk about education, it’s not just personal, it’s generational. I hope my life holds hope for a lot of people, because I had the chance to show that it’s possible…education is our hope,” she added.

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