Tech for wellbeing: how can cloud technology support your school?

As schools continue to return to ‘normal’, how can technology support staff and students through this transition?

The latest drive for technological development in UK schools, as alluded to in the most recent schools white paper, calls for technology to be used as a tool to ‘support innovation’. However, as schools continue to revert to pre-pandemic practices, perhaps technology can also be used as a tool to support staff and student wellbeing.

Academic support 

One vital aspect of school wellness you must consider is academic wellbeing. Some of the factors that affect academic wellbeing are performance, stress and achievement; a lack of performance can cause stress when the student is not achieving as they would like. Additionally, a poor academic performance can have an effect on the teacher and the school itself. To encourage academic wellbeing, you can start by implementing measures to close the learning gap. 

The gap between what a student should know, and what they actually know, can cause stress for the student, teacher and, eventually, school leaders. To alleviate this, cloud technology can encourage active learning, a technique which helps students to engage with their studies through curriculum-based activities and discussions which develop better comprehension. Cloud technology can also provide essential data and analytics for the school to identify the areas of the curriculum where students need support, and areas where they are excelling. By utilising cloud software to collect data, schools can facilitate active learning in the classroom and provide academic support for students to close the learning gap. 

Supporting wellbeing

Promoting wellbeing in your school isn’t only about academic wellbeing; mental and emotional wellbeing are also important. How can you use cloud technology to support your students and staff in this wellbeing aspect?

Students

In a report by Young Minds, 80% of students said the pandemic had made their mental health worse. Cloud technology can act in tandem with the growing availability of devices available since the COVID-19 pandemic to support students’ wellbeing and address growing student mental health challenges.

Integrating devices into the learning environment can boost student engagement. Students who previously would have been less inclined to engage in lessons can benefit from online learning environments, gamification of the learning experience and participate in class discussions via digital channels. They can also support student wellbeing with online health check-ins and one-to-one support services. 

Staff

According to the 2022 NASUWT Teacher Wellbeing Survey 90% of teachers admitted to having experienced higher levels of work-related stress in the last 12 months. Integrating cloud technology will enable you to work towards supporting the teachers in your school in the areas where there is the most urgent need. Approximately 49% of teachers reported that technology made them more efficient at planning and delivering lessons; including online resources and content on school cloud servers can reduce teacher workload and, therefore, minimise the risk of burnout for your staff. 

Cloud technology can be applied across a range of functions for schools. As UK schools continue to contend with the after-effects of the pandemic alongside the growing global energy and cost of living crisis, supporting staff and student academic and mental wellbeing is more important than ever.