Ferdinand Doepel
Deputy Head Academic and Innovation
02 October 2026
Over the last few years, and perhaps increasingly so over the last few months, there seems to be a growing number of voices overly focused on fiscal outcomes. At the same time, demands have gone into overdrive for schools to focus on preparing students for the future and the working world, almost as if at the expense of all other purposes.
Of course, schools must ensure students leave equipped to deal with the challenges they will face in the future. However, given how quickly technology is developing at the moment, it would be a brave soul who confidently predicts what the future will hold, let alone tries to pinpoint exactly which jobs will or won’t be affected by AI and other technologies.
PISA and PIAAC
The recent PISA results seem to have added fuel to the fire. PISA measures 15-year-olds’ ability to use their reading, science and maths skills in real life. These scores have been falling for nearly two decades now, starting in 2009. Many observers blame the rise of social media and the screen time that comes with it (Haidt 2024). The pandemic is also likely to have played a part. Newspapers are naturally having a field day with these results, with the Economist questioning whether “…teenagers are growing dimmer?” and the FT talking about how the “‘digital distraction’ harms students.” What seems to be getting far less attention, however, is that the OECD conducts similar studies to assess adults’ competencies (PIAAC). This research shows that adult literacy and numeracy have also declined almost universally over the last ten years.
Attention
How should society respond? How should schools respond? While I can’t claim to have the answer to the first question, I do want to make a strong case for why I believe our approach at WHS is the right one for the second. In one word – attention. We need to build the girls’ ability to pay attention and stick with something for longer than they are used to. Longer than the doomscrolling on social media encourages them to, as it flicks their attention from one thing to the next.
Dewey wrote that there is no greater enemy to effective thinking than divided or fragmented thinking or interest. Seligman and Duckworth have shown through extensive research that young people’s ability to stay focused on a difficult task without giving up predicted their performance on school tests twice as well as their IQ did. We want the girls to get good at being fully present. In fact, the habit of being present is a hallmark of greatness. Elite performers, whatever their field, are overwhelmingly driven by intrinsic motivation, a sort of ‘mastery motivation’. They want to get better for the sake of it, and don’t show an ‘ego orientation’ (a focus on outperforming others), which can, and tends to, lead to burnout.
EdTech
This is why we take a dual approach to EdTech (more on AI next). We are limiting the use of EdTech in the classroom, ensuring that no more than a quarter to a third of girls’ education is digital. This reduction in screentime gives the girls the ideal environment to build their attention and develop the ability to focus deeply. Because the frontal cortex is still developing in adolescents, this is nearly impossible without guardrails in place. In fact, as the PIAAC research showed, even we adults, with a fully developed frontal cortex, are struggling to resist the pull of screens, and as a result our attention spans have dropped over the last decade.
AI is not EdTech
AI demands a different approach altogether. While EdTech has so far failed to deliver on its promise, AI is certainly making its presence felt and is unlikely to leave the stage anytime soon, if ever. We need to accept uncertainty as a given in this area and give the girls opportunities to build their resilience to cope with it. Even so, although we are only seeing the first signs of AI’s potential in education, two areas seem to be emerging as strong candidates: personalised learning and simulated learning.
While we continue to closely monitor the developments in this area, we have rolled out our own approach to AI at WHS. We take a step-by-step approach, which starts with AI Awareness in the Lower School (Y7-8), moves through AI Literacy in the Middle School, and ends with AI Fluency in Sixth Form (see our AI at WHS Guide below). We want our girls to be good at solving hard problems together, and AI, as it stands, can help with this. Yes, it is far more powerful than a calculator, and has the potential to be more than a tool, but the two do share some similarities. Students need to be able to answer questions both with and without calculators, and we will take a similar approach to AI. This is why we are preparing the girls for a world with AI, while at the same time making sure we don’t let foundational skills become rusty through neglect.
We recently held a Robotics workshop and an AI session with our Year 13s, entitled Hired to Question. We welcome industry experts and are keen to ensure we are open to the latest developments in technology.
Purpose
Let me return to my first point: the drive towards fiscal outcomes and preparing for the future. The economist R. H. Tawney didn’t see the goal of education as giving people new skills to find work. He wanted to help people interpret their past, understand how the world was changing, and make sense of their own place in it. In short, it was about creating better citizens and helping them find their place in the world with a sense of purpose and dignity. Let’s ensure we continue to pursue education for its own sake, rather than simply seeing it as a means to an end. This, of course, fits neatly with our aim at WHS, for every girl to leave us prepared to shape the society in which she lives and works.
Further Reading:
Csikszentmihalyi, M. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (1990)
Dewey, J. How We Think (1910, revised 1933)
Duckworth, A. Grit (2016)
The Financial Times – Reading scores plummet as ‘digital distraction’ harms students (2026)
Gratton, L. & Scott, A. The 100 Year Life (2017)
Haidt, J. The Anxious Generation (2024)
Marriott, J. The New Dark Ages (2026)
Mollick, E. Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI (2024)
Seligman, M. Flourish (2011)
Susskind, S. What Should My Children Do? (2026)
The Economist – Are Teenagers Growing Dimmer (2026)
Wolf, M. Reader, Come Home (2018)
