Training & Support
Two years ago, GL Education joined the Renaissance family to create a global leader in education technology. The two organisations came together with a single purpose: to provide every school leader, teacher and student with the tools and insight they need to unlock progress and accelerate learning.
We were able to put together GL’s suite of assessments with Renaissance’s best-in-class teaching and learning tools. The result? A complementary set of products and services to support educators around what we have termed the “learning loop”: assessing for need, adapting teaching to meet those needs and, by accelerating learning, delivering measurable success at scale.
It's a winning combination that not only delivers better integration of datasets but, our customers tell us, gives them a more complete view of every student’s data and more opportunities for targeted teacher interventions.
A step change in teaching and learning
However, putting two great product sets side by side isn’t the end of the story. Integrating data from GL assessments with Renaissance teaching and learning tools has enabled us to offer leaders, teachers and students an altogether more powerful experience: Renaissance Next.
With Renaissance Next school leaders can see which initiatives are making a difference, which are less effective and where they should focus resources if they want to have the greatest impact. By combining insights and data from our tools and assessments, leaders will be able to see exactly how interventions are influencing outcomes – across schools, trusts and entire regions – and demonstrate the impact to governors, boards and parents alike.
With Renaissance Next teachers won’t have to spend hours trawling through data to see which students need what interventions. Renaissance Next provides teachers with streamlined and actionable recommendations derived from data all in one place – allowing them to make informed decisions faster. Our assessment insights and AI-driven tools will give teachers the information they need for key groups of students and what measures will help them progress. Whether it’s targeted reading support, personalised maths challenges, or strategies for building working memory, Renaissance Next will help teachers act quickly and confidently.
With Renaissance Next students will be able to better understand how they are doing, where they need to go and how to get there. By combining assessment insights with AI-powered learning suggestions, we’ll help students set meaningful goals, track their progress and take greater responsibility for their learning.
Renaissance Next is available in US curriculum schools in the coming academic year and will be rolled out across schools covering English and other curricula afterwards.
Innovation based on proven foundations
Together, GL Education and Renaissance are creating something new: an integrated suite of products that use the latest developments in AI.
And we are in a unique position to do so – because our record on innovation and progress is only matched by our reputation for integrity and dependability. Our suite of assessments is the broadest and most reliable in the market, trusted by thousands of schools worldwide for accurate, consistent data year after year.
Every advance and new product we launch is based on the insights gleaned from assessments and teaching tools that have demonstrably advanced learning over decades. Unlike some other ed tech providers, we’re not trialling untested products on young people but harnessing data from multiple proven and trusted sources to provide an immediate and positive impact on student outcomes.
Investing in technology
But our commitment to invest for the future goes beyond Renaissance Next. We’ve launched a new user interface in Testwise to give customers a smoother, more intuitive experience. This will be the springboard for a new reporting and analytics environment – design-led, data-first and tailored to the needs of trusts and school groups.
While our assessment suite continues to evolve:
- Progress Test Series on tablets – launching later this year, with careful attention to maintaining the same best-in-class validity and reliability, enabling year-on-year comparisons
- Updates to Exact– to ensure the continued validity of our vital exam access screener
- Modernisation of Recall – our working memory assessment has been moved to Testwise, providing a unified testing experience and unlocking the powerful reporting capabilities of the platform. The key role that working memory plays in a range of SEND needs means we are particularly excited to make Recall available in a more usable format
A responsible approach to AI
AI is opening exciting possibilities, but our approach is cautious and rigorous. Privacy, security and transparency are non-negotiable. Every AI-powered innovation from Renaissance will keep a “human in the loop” to ensure your data is safe, our actions are transparent and that any AI capabilities are beneficial rather than burdensome.
That said, we envisage AI will unlock deeper insights in Renaissance Next as well as our core reporting suite. For example, we will use it to identify areas where students might require additional assistance or to be stretched in Freckle. We’ll also use AI to assist with assessment item creation and content development – always with a human as the final decision-maker.
A wrap-around approach to customer support
We know that post-testing support is crucial. That’s why we’ve developed on-demand training videos and our Data Spotlight series to help dig into the detail behind your data, and expanded our popular data consultations to include longer, premium sessions for more in-depth analysis.
And for new Accelerated Reader customers, there are top tips and live support sessions to help them get up and running.
With ongoing investment in technology, a responsible approach to AI, a relentless focus on school leader and teacher priorities and unrivalled customer support, we’re building the tools that will help you make the difference – now and in the years to come.
Crispin Chatterton is Director of Education at Renaissance.
