Bett Show – 2025 highlights, edtech trends & visitor tips
Bett Show 2025 is on the horizon! Here’s what to expect and why you should be there…
- by Teachwire
Bett Show, short for the British Educational Training and Technology Show, is one of the world’s leading events in the field of education technology (edtech).
It’s an annual trade show and conference that brings together educators, edtech companies, policymakers and education professionals from around the globe to showcase the latest innovations, share best practice and discuss the future of education technology.
How to attend Bett Show
When is Bett Show?
It takes place between 22nd-24th January 2025. The theme is “Learning today, leading tomorrow”.
Where is Bett Show?
It’s held at ExCel London.
Is Bett Show free?
Yes! Educators and individuals from schools can register for free tickets.
Bett Show 2025 features
Bett Show previews
While we await more news about Bett Show 2025, catch up with the Bett Show 2024 previews we ran in Teach Primary magazine and Teach Secondary magazine. Read the full magazines online for free.
Student-centered sessions
Bett’s Big Assembly, in partnership with Tech She Can, invites students to explore gaming tech and career opportunities alongside inspiring educators.
The Design4SDGs Challenge and Kids Judge Bett empower students to share ideas and recognise standout tech products, while the Esports Tournaments let school teams showcase their skills in Rocket League matches.
Special speakers
There’s a fantastic programme of talks to enjoy at Bett 2025. Keynote speakers include AI trailblazers Dan Fitzpatrick and Professor Rose Luckin, poets Michael Rosen and Christian Foley, and British racing driver Nicolas Hamilton.
Solution providers
Over 500 companies are exhibiting at Bett 2025, including big names such as Google, Dell and Microsoft.
View the full Bett 2025 Agenda.
Previous Bett Show highlights
Jump to a year:
2024
Teachwire writers Callum Fauser, Elaine Bennett and Lydia Grove reported live from Bett Show 2024. Here are some of our highlights…
Two-minute marking
Who? SchoolOnline.ai
Why we love it: We spoke to Jonathan at SchoolOnline.ai about how OlexAI can help you deliver rich and accurate feedback across extended writing tasks in under two minutes. That’s for a class of 30, by the way!
Motion sensor music
Who? The Soundbeam Project Ltd
Why we love it: This is a music-making package with a difference. Soundbeam lets students with limited mobility produce music via the movement of hands and limbs. Having plied their trade for some 30 years, Soundbeam is a known quantity among special school staff and SENCos at this point.
On show at Bett was the latest iteration of its hardware. It’s faster, smoother and slicker than before, while still retaining all the stability and approachability that users have come to expect. The motion sensors connect to a self-contained computer unit, and you’re off.
There’s no fiddling with device drivers or complicated software configurations. Simply set it up where it’s required and switch it on. Your students can be making richly layered, pleasantly textured music via physical movements (which can be as fine or as big as you need them to be) in no time.
Inclusive technology
Who? Texthelp
Why we love it: Texthelp creates technology that helps make education more inclusive for everyone. Here, Hayley talks us through two specific features that are particularly useful for pupils with dyslexia – text-to-speech and screen masking.
Foldable LED screen
Who? ViewSonic
Why we love it: Okay, so it’s almost comically extravagant, and far beyond the kind of thing you could justify equipping your reception area with. But seriously, just look at it. A 135-inch, 1080p LED display screen that can be folded up and packed away inside a fully integrated (albeit still rather large and very heavy) wheeled flight case.
When fully unfolded, those hinged seams appear to seamlessly vanish as if by magic. It’s available right now, and already being iterated upon – with additional handles apparently being promised for the newer version…
There were also some more conventional educational offerings to be found on ViewSonic’s stand. This included an optical touchscreen whiteboard that can be made to behave just like the chalkboards of old. That’s down to letting you erase markings with your forearm, should you wish.
You can also turn any messily scrawled words or simple diagrams into a series of distinct characters. You can then individually drag, drop and rearrange these as needed.
Easy log-in options
Who? MyLogin
Why we love it: Maximise lesson time and student engagement with lightning-fast login. MyLogin means no more complex passwords. Here, Elly Page explains how students can log in via emoji passwords and magic badges for hassle-free learning.
Informed teaching decisions
Who? Magma Math
Why we love it: Watch Ludwig from Magma Math demonstrate how to use its maths software to help you make live, informed teaching decisions. Once pupils have submitted their answers, you can display all their answers anonymously on the board, then have discussions about the ways they solved the problem. You can even play back a student answering the question so everyone can see what they did right or wrong.
Instant planning
Who? Padlet
Why we love it: Junyu Wei demonstrates how you can use Padlet to plan lessons fast. Enter a keyword then generate learning objectives, materials and resources, instruction, assessment, closure and homework in just a minute or two.
A new STEAM solution
Who? Globisens
Why we love it: The wireless Xploris device, which hits the UK market in May 2024, allows children to integrate science, engineering and art in immersive activities supported by inviting and easy-to-use software. Teachers can take advantage of a suite of lesson plans. Watch as the device alters the speed of an animation depending on the temperature of a glass of water!
Lively learning
Who? Active Floor
Why we love it: A visiting class were having great fun playing ‘basketball’ when we arrived at the stand. You’ll need to invest in one of Active Floor’s projectors* and a software subscription to get started, but once you’re in you can access and adapt over 10,000 games – many designed by fellow teachers. A nice option is that you can save your games to the hardware even if your subscription lapses. *Prices start at £3,390.
Impressive 3D AR
Who? Innovative Technology Products
Why we love it: zSpace is an augmented reality learning solution that really works. Comprising a laptop with a 3D screen, a clever motion-controlled stylus set up and dedicated software, the zSpace package lets you ‘pick up’ objects displayed on screen and ‘pull them out’ so that they appear to be hovering above the keyboard.
The potential when applied to complex 3D objects is huge – our brief hands-on demo saw us rotating and examining a human heart, before peeling away its outer layers to get a good look inside. The overall effect is impressive to behold – though be advised that prices start at £5,200…
Literacy interventions
Who? OrCam UK Ltd
Why we love it: The OrCam Learn is a pen-shaped, handheld device that can scan the text of any printed matter – books, newspapers, magazines – and then read said text aloud, translate it, or even (with some accompanying software) test students’ ability to read it out loud. The OrCam Learn has previously been used to support EAL students and learners with SEND, but its newly added oracy features make it a potentially good fit for any students requiring literacy interventions.
When paired with a computer and mic-equipped headset, the software will display a passage from a previously scanned text, and give users instant feedback on their reading performance, including suggestions for words they might want to practice saying a bit more, while feeding back all manner of detailed comprehension data to teachers.
Smart storage and charging
Who? LapSafe®
Why we love it: LapSafe® is a leading provider of charging solutions and self-service smart lockers. With over 20 years of experience, they’re a trusted supplier to the education industry. The complete range is being showcased at this year’s Bett Show.
AI-assisted literacy interventions
Who? Microsoft
Why we love it: How often have you lost a chunk of the working day (or, more realistically, odd ‘working evening’) trying to source some English comprehension text that’s just right – namely age-appropriate, able to speak to students’ interests and perfectly calibrated to their interests? That’s a task that Microsoft is seeking to simplify with the latest iteration of its Reading Coach application.
Available either as part of an existing Microsoft 365 Education package or as a standalone Windows app, it makes use of ChatGPT’s AI smarts to generate new passages of text to help learners practice and be assessed on their reading skills as they read said passages aloud.
The ‘365’ version includes extensive reporting that will feed data on learners’ scores and progress back to teachers, as one might expect. The standalone version, targeted more at parents and individual students, includes some gamification elements (such as the ability to unlock character avatars), and provides more limited feedback to users there and then.
Reading Coach is currently in a ‘free public preview phase’ – but If you’re a literacy specialist at a school already signed up to Microsoft’s ecosystem, the good news is that you can see what it’s capable of right now.
Movie magic
Who? Greenscreenbox
Why we love it: Established in the EU, this company are just entering the UK market with their hands-on greenscreening kits. Use the blocks, backdrops and batons provided to create and move characters around a set. You can then use the Greenscreenbox software on tablet or desktop to add backgrounds to your scene – choose your image from a gallery or upload your own photos.
Characterful classroom organisation
Who? ClassDojo
Why we love it: Although designed very much with the American school system in mind, this free software contains some great practical tools to help you organise, monitor and feed back to groups, Talk Partners or individuals. It can also be used as a self-contained and secure social portal for parent-teacher interactions – there are lots of opportunities to tailor how it works for you.
A playful introduction to robotics
Who? Avishkaar
Why we love it: The chunky ‘building blocks’ in the Tweak system for ages 5+ are easy to manipulate and just ask to be assembled into fun new creations using the snap-fit mechanism. Children can learn to program their robots using the app, and even join Tweak League, an online robotics challenge.
The company also offers popular Mex kits for ages 8+.
2022
Head of sales at Sync, Tom Crump, talks about working with schools to help them integrate and deploy devices at scale so that your students have the best access to technology.
Former teacher Margaret Allen talked us through the latest member of the Renaissance family – Nearpod. This is an interactive platform that blends real-time formative assessment with dynamic media to create live, self-paced learning experiences for your pupils.
Emma Ringe, global school director at Whizz Education, talks about the company’s holistic approach to raising standards in maths, as well as learning recovery post-Covid.
Customer success engineer Travis Hamilton from Lenovo introduces new launch NetFilter – a content filtering and online safety solution. It’s AI-driven, which helps to ensure students are protected from new threats.
The Safeguarding Company’s Vikkey Chaffe, head of community relations, shares information about the Safeguarding Community – a safe place for anyone involved in safeguarding to communicate with each other without disclosing any information about yourself, your setting or your children.
Hear from Discover Education’s senior director of immersive education, Phil Birchinall, about 20 years of video innovation and Discovery Education Espresso.
2020
Paul McKnight from Vex Robotics talks about the company’s complete educational eco-system and the launch of Vex 123 and Vex Go.
Andrew Hill, head of partnerships at FFT Education, talks about the not-for-profit organisation’s work around school data and the launch of Aspire Pupil Tracking.
Helen Newies, operations director from multi-award winning GCSEPod tells us about how its product is embedded into curriculums worldwide and helps students get better results while reducing teachers’ workloads.
Jason Gibson who works for education solutions company Turnitin chats about Feedback Studio, which can be used to identify and address students’ writing challenges and provide actionable, effective feedback.
2019
Managing director and former teacher Peter Jordan discusses why innovative digital platform Ezy Education caused a bit of a stir at Bett 2019.
Join Nathan Roberts from PowerGistics as he talks about the company’s unique vertical charging solution which allows you to see whether devices are put away and plugged in properly.
Making the most of your visit
Longstanding attendee and Bett pro, Martin Bailey, shares his tips for making the most of the show…
Top advice for newbies?
Until you first visit Bett you can’t appreciate the enormity of it. Planning is everything! Make a list of vendors you want to visit and plan a route – there are many different zones!
Make a timetable, too, of the talks you want to see, but do allow yourself some time to simply wander. One of the beauties of Bett is discovering those new things!
Wear sensible shoes (you will definitely get your steps in) and pack some water. You will most likely be taking photos on your phone and posting on social media about your Bett experiences too, so it is well worth taking a phone charger.
What should I bring?
A colleague! Bett is most definitely an experience best shared and I would recommend all schools to send more than one staff member if they can.
Things are always far better articulated and disseminated back into school when there has been more than one person visiting, and it also allows you to view more of what is on offer. Ideally, try to visit for more than one day too.
Martin Bailey is the digital enrichment leader at Lanchester EP Primary School in Durham, and has been attending Bett for 15 years.
What happens at Bett Show?
Showcasing innovation
Bett Show serves as a platform for edtech companies to present their latest products and solutions straight to teachers. By attending, you’ll get a glimpse into the cutting-edge technologies and trends that are shaping the future of education.
Professional development
You can attend workshops, presentations and hands-on sessions to learn about effective ways to integrate technology into your classroom and improve teaching and learning.
Networking and collaboration
As a teacher you can connect with like-minded individuals, exchange ideas and form partnerships that can lead to the development of innovative educational solutions at your school.
Policy and research discussions
Bett Show often features discussions and presentations on educational policy and research. This can help you stay informed about the latest developments and insights in the education sector.
Global perspective
The international nature of the Bett Show allows you to gain a global perspective on education technology. Learn from and connect with professionals from diverse educational systems and backgrounds.
Influence on edtech trends
Bett Show often sets the tone for edtech trends for the coming year. It showcases emerging technologies, pedagogical approaches and best practices that are likely to impact you in the classroom.
Inspiration for educators
By attending Bett Show you can be inspired by innovative solutions and success stories. Return to your classroom with fresh ideas and the motivation to create more engaging and effective learning environments for your students.
What’s the history of Bett Show?
Bett Show has a rich history and has evolved significantly since its inception in 1985. The inaugural event was held at the Barbican Centre in London.
In its early years, Bett Show was a relatively small event compared to what it is today. It primarily focused on showcasing educational hardware, software and resources.
Throughout the 1990s, the show began to expand both in terms of exhibitors and attendees. The adoption of computers and the internet in education led to increased interest in the event. More international exhibitors and attendees started participating.
2000s onwards
In the 2000s, with the rapid advancement of digital technology, Bett Show evolved to encompass a broader spectrum of educational technology. It began to feature a wider range of products and services, including smart boards, management information systems and online resources.
In the 2010s, Bett Show continued to reflect the evolving landscape of educational technology. It embraced innovations like virtual reality, augmented reality and AI in education. The event also expanded its scope to include discussions on pedagogy and education policy.
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Bett Show, like many events, adapted to the digital age. It introduced virtual and hybrid elements, allowing participants to engage online. This further broadened its reach and accessibility.
It remains a significant event in the edtech calendar, drawing thousands of educators, policymakers, edtech professionals and innovators. It continues to shape the edtech landscape, setting the stage for the adoption of new technologies and approaches in education.
