Andrew Mulholland, chief marketing officer at Groupcall, discusses how schools can elevate effective edtech use and teacher workload to the top of the leadership agenda:

When it came to SATs, Natalie Carry, deputy headteacher at St Edward’s Primary School in Birmingham, had a real problem. “We were finding it difficult to find questions for the pupils to answer,” explains Natalie, “and we were using booklets but these can only be used once.”

Around this time of year, my commitment to my professional resolutions begin to wane. Deadlines, demands and life in general clouds my path to the professional improvement I seek. While my desire and intent are strong, my actions (or behaviors) often fall short or don’t even get off the ground. I find this is most often the case when try to do it all by ourselves, which is the case for many educators. Some colleagues have described it as feeling like they are working in a “silo” - ISOLATED!

Want to make a change for schools? Perhaps you are a teacher with a great idea, or maybe you are a small edtech business already trying to disrupt the face of education. Until 28th February, we’re calling on edu-aspiring disruptors to take part in the Cool Initiatives Education Challenge. This competition is all about finding technologies that can help address real-world education challenges. Cash prizes of up to £10,000 are on offer for the most interesting and innovative ideas, products and services aimed at schools and schools-age learners.

When we asked our Twitter followers whom we ought to interview, ​Jean-Louis Dutaut threw his and Lucy Rycroft-Smith’s hat into the ring. Self-deprecatingly referring to this suggestion as “shameless self-promotion”, it quickly became evident that their project - Flip The System UK - was something our readers should know about.

We know that teachers are leaving our profession in record numbers, and I have heard of schools where more teachers are leaving than staying. We also know that not enough young people are choosing to become teachers themselves. Teacher training places are going unfilled, and there simply aren’t enough teachers to educate our children of the future. As the population grows, there seems to be little effort to make any changes to recruit and retain quality teachers. Year-on-year, teachers are voting with their feet and leaving the profession.