There is no shortage of commentary around how artificial intelligence will reimagine almost every aspect of life.
The education sector is no exception, with AI touted as being on the cusp of completely revolutionising everything from teaching to back-office administration.
At Inspired Education, an international school group of 120 schools across six continents, we have been investing heavily in this area to develop a suite of tools for our teachers, pupils and parents, based on our own proprietary platform - the Inspired Global Study Platform.
The platform went live in the UK in 2023 and is now implemented in schools in New Zealand, Australia, Brazil, South Africa, Italy, Portugal, Switzerland and Spain, placing these institutions at the forefront of the edtech revolution in their territories.
Solving parent problems
While the primary focus is on academics, such as accessing learning materials and teacher feedback, we have also built a number of tools to facilitate communications and engagement with other areas - including a Parent Helper tool that is having a hugely positive impact.
We created this in 2024 after looking at data from an annual survey we run that found one of the biggest frustrations parents have is with school interaction, the volume of communications they receive every week and trying to access key information easily.
Schools, too, no doubt know that helping parents with requests can take up a lot of time and so a tool that can do this would be a real help.
As such, the Parent Helper tool allows parents to ask the AI any question they may have and get a detailed answer based on their child’s information, immediately.
This can be everything from tracking their academic milestones and accessing actionable feedback so they can support their learning effectively, to knowing what tomorrow’s school lunch is, if they have paid for an upcoming trip or booking a music lesson.
More than a chatbot
The Parent Helper tool works like a chatbot, however, what sets it apart is its ability to extract detailed information intelligently about a child, making it a lot smarter than a typical chatbot.
For example, if a parent asks about how their child is doing in science, it will provide details about homework, assessments, their progress and recommendations about how to improve.
Parents can also have real conversations about the details of their child’s academic progress, providing a 360-degree view of how they are doing across all subjects, something I have not seen developed anywhere else.
Time-saving and stress-busting
Overall, the way in which the tool can relieve parents’ mental load and stress is game-changing - and for staff, too. Of course, should a parent wish to speak to a teacher about a particular issue, they can do that in the usual way face-to-face, via email or phone.
Since we introduced the tool, the number of questions and emails sent to teachers and school staff has dramatically reduced, as parents are now regularly using Parent Helper to retrieve information they would previously have sent an email about.
This benefits the teachers and the administration teams hugely by reducing the time they spend responding to queries.
We also know from our annual survey that parents are eager to get responses to queries from teachers and school staff, particularly if relating to homework or revision. With Parent Helper, they receive a response straight away.
Research shows time and again that when parents are involved in their child’s education, it hugely impacts the progress they make. It is therefore our objective to motivate parents to get as involved in their child’s academic progress as possible.
Overall, while much of the AI revolution in education has been seen through the lens of how it could help save teachers time, it is clear there are numerous other areas where it can play a key role - including ensuring parents have a smooth and simple way in which to engage with schools.
Torben Lundberg is chief information officer at Inspired Education
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