Jan. 28, 2025
James Massey, School Development Manager at the Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA) joins us as a guest blogger and writes about the space education sits in within copyright, and how to ensure schools stay on the right side of the law.
I was recently reflecting about the early days of teaching primary. Fondly reminiscing about my resource cupboard bursting with potential lesson inspiration like an Aladdin’s cave of learning potential. Everything from an inflatable globe (pretty sure that’s why they made me geography coordinator) to story books that I’d enjoyed as a youngster. Similar to anyone’s personal collection of creative works however, mine was geared towards a solo audience and not designed to cater for a whole class.
When I was setting out as a Newly Qualified Teacher, I honestly didn’t give much thought to reproducing works for my lessons. I had thirty hungry minds waiting to be supercharged, an insatiable coffee habit and a limited schedule.
The school kindly provided me with the obligatory photocopier which gave me cart blanche to become a one-man printing press. As for the copy button on my laptop, well that was the stuff of legend. Basically, I didn’t give copyright much of a second thought.
It was only later in life when I started to produce some of my own writing, and saw extracts of blogs that I had posted, used out of context and without permission. It felt like someone stole from me and I hadn’t noticed anything had gone missing. I realised that someone’s property, intellectual or otherwise, is someone’s property.
We’ve all produced something in our lives that we are proud of, whether it be a painting, a poem, or a photograph that captured personal memories. Imagine if that was taken and used in a way that hadn't had your acknowledgement or blessing, whatever the reason.
Education sits in a fascinating space within copyright. What we want is the best resources possible to create the greatest learning outcomes and to inspire curiosity. That reason seems like justification enough to copy and reproduce the highest quality content without barriers. The truth is that a lot of content creators struggle to make ends meet and won’t continue to be able to produce amazing works without any kind of renumeration. Unfortunately, not everyone is Julia Donaldson. Taking and using without permission or recognition, in any situation, aside from potentially breaking the law, devalues these great works and stops creators creating. Also, what behaviour are we modelling as educators. This is when human emotion and imagination are taken out of the equation and instead, replaced by soulless AI outputs with no real connection to us as a unique species. Which brings me onto my final point about messaging to our future generations.
There has never been more opportunity for our pupils to become content creators and gain an audience using a multitude of mediums. If we don’t protect our creative industries now and Copy, Right we are inadvertently telling young people in our care that their voice, thoughts or creations have no real value. That’s personally, not a world that I want them to live in.
Thankfully, the solution is already out there. All state-funded schools and most independents are covered by the CLA Education Licence. In most cases, licences are held or administered by representative bodies, such as the Department for Education, that act as agents between us and the schools. We take those licence fees and renumerate the relevant rightsholders, authors and creators of the work you use, so they get the recognition they deserve, whilst you can focus on the important job of teaching. If you are not sure if you’re covered then just contact us to find out.
We also provide a fantastic selection of curriculum aligned lesson plans and resources that can help discuss copyright and permissions to your pupils in a way which is age appropriate and purposeful. After all, it may be their work that is being taught in future classrooms.
Having a CLA Education Licence enables teachers to share copies from millions of books, magazines, journals and digital publications protected by copyright without having to seek permission form individual rightsholders, saving them valuable planning time. These copies can be shared both in class and via VLEs.
James Massey
School Development Manager
Copyright Licensing Agency
If you're looking to teach students about copyright, you'll find short sessions on this inside 2BeSafe, the Purple Mash Online Safety Scheme of Work. Every year group from Reception to Year 6 has lessons on Copyright and Ownership, as well as 7 other units. Try some of the lessons with this free taster pack.