The butcher’s paper test for your faculty’s tech

A four-step audit to run before your 2027 planning, from our Beyond the Bell panel with QSPA.

Next year’s technology decisions get made in Term 4 with licences for renewal coming up and budgets closing. It’s easy to roll everything over without asking what each platform is for. At Beyond the Bell, our evening with the Queensland Secondary Principals’ Association (QSPA), Executive Principal Dr Tony McCormack set the bar for any classroom tool.

“The purpose is the most important thing. Whatever tool we put in the hands of kids and teachers needs to be purposeful in driving the learning forward. It can’t just be the bright and shiny new toy.”
Dr Tony McCormack, Executive Principal, Woodcrest State College

If butcher’s paper and a pen do the job better, he said, that’s what you use. You can apply that test to everything your faculty uses before the end of term.

1. List every tool and the job it does

Start with a full inventory of what your teachers use with students. Include everything: the learning management system, video and practice platforms, any AI tools teachers have picked up and the quiz tool someone signed up for in earlier terms.

For each one, write down the job it does in one sentence. The job will differ from school to school. Atomi co-founder Rob Barakat’s examples included supporting students who are away from class and saving teacher time to focus on higher order skills. “Homework” is too vague. “Students practise last lesson’s content and the teacher sees who needs help” is a job you can test.

If teachers describe the same platform differently, note it. That’s a finding too.

2. Check each job against what moves outcomes

Dr Julie Arnold, a researcher at Queensland University of Technology, summed up what the evidence says improves student outcomes.

“It really boils down to how students and teachers interact around […] the purpose of the learning, what they come to know together about what quality looks like, how they generate evidence together, and also what opportunities for students to receive and respond to feedback. […] When they work together, we know that student learning improves.”
Dr Julie Arnold, Researcher, Queensland University of Technology

That gives you four questions to ask of each platform:

• Does it make the purpose of the learning clearer to students?
• Does it show students what quality looks like?
• Does it create evidence of learning that teachers and students can act on?
• Does it give students the chance to receive and respond to feedback?

The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) makes the same case in its guidance on digital technology. It recommends working out how a technology will improve teaching and learning before you bring it in, and names where technology helps most: stronger assessment and feedback, better explanations and modelling and practice that counts for more.

If something on your list strengthens none of Julie’s four interactions, it isn’t earning its place, however popular it is.

3. Ask your students

Teachers can tell you how each one fits their lessons. Students can tell you how it fits their learning. Julie’s closing advice on the night was to ask both.

“I would also talk to students. I would want to ask students how are you using this tool in class but also at home and are we getting the balance right here? […] Are we doing enough interacting in the classroom? […] Are we handwriting enough for you? They’ll be very honest about that.”
Dr Julie Arnold, Researcher, Queensland University of Technology

A short survey or a conversation with a few classes is enough. If students say a platform has pushed out the discussion or writing they need, take it seriously. RAND’s 2026 summary of the edtech evidence backs this up: the benefits come when students are actively engaged.

4. Cut what doubles up

By now you’ll probably see overlap: two providers doing one job, or one doing something butcher’s paper could do. Rob traced a lot of this back to COVID, when schools took on dozens of platforms across year levels and subjects, often under pressure. Now, he said, they’re asking:

“What are the ones [platforms] that make sense for us in our context? Can we do more with less? Can we do more with fewer platforms?”
Rob Barakat, Co-founder, Atomi

Keep whichever does each job best and retire the rest. Fewer platforms also make consistent practice across classes easier.

Bring your teachers with you

An audit only works if teachers trust the result. Share what you found and why each one is staying or going. Then give teachers room to try any replacements before Term 1. The EEF’s 2024 guide to implementation treats change as a process that unfolds over time, so give replacements time to settle before you judge them.

Run it before your 2027 planning

The butcher’s paper test fits into the last weeks of term. Run it before licences renew, and every tool your faculty starts 2027 with will have a reason to be there.

Which platform in your faculty would be hardest to justify?

Bring your list to a demo. We’ll show you which of those jobs Atomi can take on. Book a demo →