The claim that AI could end civilisation now sits at the top of every conversation. A sociologist mapped how panics of this kind unfold half a century ago. Following his map does not tell us whether the fear is right. But it can guide us while we find out.

Most schools assume AI will lift their weakest teachers. AI and teacher expertise work the other way round: the better the teacher, the more the tool adds. Which means availability widens the gap across a staff body, and that most AI training is aimed at the wrong thing.

AI has arrived in statutory safeguarding guidance. Compliance with KCSIE 2026 is the floor; your digital strategy is the ceiling, and only you can set it.

With no firm evidence that AI helps children learn or that it harms them, a classroom ban cannot be the evidence-led choice it claims to be. The honest response is to experiment carefully, with the professional judgement schools rely on every other day.

Technology rarely changes one big thing. It changes plenty of small ones, spread across how your staff already work, which is why leading AI well comes down to better thinking, not just better policies.

The decision about AI in your school has already been made, by the pupils, who are years into using it while leadership teams debate the principle. The question still on the table is yours: who stays responsible for the thinking once AI arrives? A fifteen-minute briefing for heads, trust leaders and senior teams. Free to download.

Teaching is the finding ISI raises most often, and almost never the one that fails a school. After going through 395 of this academic year’s routine inspection reports, here is what they reveal about teaching and learning, and what it means before your next inspection.

Every school I know puts teaching and learning first, then cuts the training that would improve it without a second thought. This article explores why we do that, and what the real cost of it is.

A guide for leaders on adopting technology across a school, built around the principle that technology should serve pedagogy. Includes a framework for adoption.

A guide to building a school digital strategy that starts with teaching and learning rather than technology. Six ideas, each with a discussion prompt.

A reference setting out seven types of classroom question, each with example prompts, to reveal what a student understands.

A framework for assessing whether technology has improved teaching and learning, with prompts and a 1–5 rating across five areas.

A one-page strategy setting out six principles for introducing AI in a school, starting with the learning rather than the tool.

A self-assessment for reviewing the quality, coherence and impact of a school’s digital strategy across six areas, with a 1–5 rating scale.

A checklist of nine evidence-informed teaching habits, from priming the learning to building independence.

A reflection tool describing ten patterns of toxic leadership and how each shows up in a team. Framed for honest self-reflection rather than diagnosing others.

A one-page summary of six findings from cognitive science and what each means for classroom teaching.

A framework for using AI in teaching, organised around four elements that stay human: Spark, Think, Act and Reflect.

An aide-mémoire for one-to-one meetings, with prompts for before, during and after.

Question prompts for working through a difficult situation, moving from what happened through reflection and accountability to next steps. Written for leaders, and equally suited to pastoral and academic conversations.

This learning walk/lesson observation form is meant to deliver a snapshot, not a judgement. A tool for dialogue, not a grading sheet, to capture a moment of practice and open a professional conversation.

The full fifty-page report plus a half-day on-site strategy session for SLT and governance. Customised pre-read, working agenda, attendee workbooks, and written follow-up brief included. For schools and trusts treating their next inspection as a strategic moment.

The full sixty-page report plus a sixty-minute video briefing with José Picardo, tailored to your school's context. Discuss the findings that matter most to your school, your inspection cycle, and your current priorities. For Heads, deputies, and governing bodies wanting interpretation alongside analysis.

The headline findings from Azimuth's independent analysis of every routine ISI inspection report from May 2025 to April 2026. The patterns ISI praises, the patterns ISI penalises, and the asymmetries between them. For heads, deputies, and governing bodies preparing for inspection or sharpening strategy. This summary report is free, and the full report is available for purchase separately.

The complete analysis of every routine ISI inspection report from the 2025-26 cycle. 395 reports, read, tagged, and counted bullet by bullet. Fifty pages of findings, pedagogical patterns, compliance audit, and discussion prompts for SLT and governance. For senior leaders preparing for inspection or sharpening strategy.

Most school digital strategies fail before the first tool is procured. The reason is rarely technical. It is almost always a failure to meet two simpler demands: clarity and coherence. Two qualities decide whether a digital strategy is worth having, and most digital strategies have neither. The first is clarity. Clarity about the why. What is this school for? What does it value?

Expert teaching is much more complex than it first appears. This is obvious to anyone who has done it, but the Dunning-Krugery that sometimes comes from those whose most recent classroom experience involves sitting a detention or lobbing a paper ball at the bin while the teacher wasn't looking is astounding. “AI is coming for teachers first” they say. Like most of us, I noticed how complex it is first as a teacher.

The leaders who deliver results are not always the leaders worth keeping. Why schools keep promoting the wrong people, and how to select differently.

A head I once worked with led an oversubscribed independent girls’ school in suburban Surrey. By every available measure she was a successful head. Results were strong. Parents were satisfied. Inspection outcomes were good. She had a reputation for bluntness, for plain speaking, and for expectations of her staff that bordered on the unreasonable. She was trusted from above to deliver results.

There is a Spanish proverb I grew up with: en casa del herrero, cuchillo de palo. In the blacksmith's house, a wooden knife. The village blacksmith spends his days forging fine steel for everyone else, and eats his own dinner with a crude wooden blade. As a teacher, I often felt I was letting my own children down because  the expertise I poured into other people's children too rarely made it home for my own.

Angine de Poitrine is a band from Saguenay, Quebec, that has recently taken the internet by storm, and I must admit I am mildly obsessed with their music and general existence, which I find both mesmerising and refreshing in equal measure. They are two musicians, Khn and Klek de Poitrine, who perform under papier-mâché masks with improbable elongated noses, dressed head to toe in black-and-white polka dots.

In almost every school I visit, there is a teacher whose classroom is the epitome of good practice: great delivery, students engaged, genuinely curious, asking questions that catch you off guard. Yet that same teacher might nevertheless be horrified when asked to update a spreadsheet or navigate the MIS in search of data. For years, we have treated this as a gap to be filled.

Many conversations about digital strategy in schools begin with the same questions: "what are the most innovative schools doing?" and "how do we do it too?" This seems reasonable. Benchmarking against successful implementations feels prudent, reassuring, and appropriately humble. But Rory Sutherland, the behavioural economist and advertising guru, has a counterintuitive suggestion: rather than study what your competitors do well, he argues, study what they do badly.

My son is sixteen. He is sitting his GCSE examinations this summer, though everything that follows applies equally to anyone staring down the barrel of A levels. And, like most students I have known at that age (including the one I was myself) he is not always entirely convinced that the adults around him know anything worth listening to when it comes to exams.