Inside the World Schools Summit: The Insights Deveren Fogle Believes Every School Leader Must Understand

Schools keep adding more content, more tools, and more pressure, yet many students are still struggling to keep up.

That reality framed the perspective Deveren Fogle brought to the World Schools Summit in Abu Dhabi. As an educator and executive function specialist, Deveren Fogle spoke to school leaders not about what students should learn next, but about what they are rarely taught in the first place: how to navigate learning itself.

Across systems and countries, he sees the same pattern repeat. Schools are built to deliver content and measure output, while quietly assuming students already know how to plan, organize, sustain effort, and adapt when work becomes challenging. When students fall behind, the response is often more instruction or stricter accountability. What’s missing is attention to the underlying processes that allow students to succeed across subjects and over time.

One of Deveren’s central messages was the need to shift focus from outcomes to process. A research project in history or science, for example, is not just about the final paper or presentation. It requires planning, managing time, organizing information, revising work, and responding to feedback. These are the skills that matter long after the grade is assigned. When schools focus only on the end result, students miss the chance to develop abilities they will need for more complex work later on.

This belief is what led Deveren to build Uluru. The platform was designed to support students during the act of working, not after problems appear. Instead of adding more content, Uluru helps make learning processes visible, guiding students as they plan, estimate time, and monitor progress. It also creates feedback loops that connect school and home, allowing families to reinforce effort and strategy when it matters most.

Another major point Fogle raised was time. Students spend only about 28% of their day in school. That fact alone changes how support should be designed. Learning doesn’t pause when the school day ends, yet many systems treat home and school as separate environments. Without strong connections between the two, students are left to manage expectations on their own.

He emphasized the importance of parental feedback loops and real-time intervention. When confusion or frustration is not addressed quickly, small challenges grow into avoidance. Support that arrives hours or days later often comes too late. Giving families better insight into how learning works allows reinforcement to happen when it actually matters, reducing tension and helping students stay engaged.

He also challenged leaders to rethink how students are labeled. In his experience, labels rarely capture the full picture. A student might struggle in one subject, with one teacher, or under one set of expectations, yet thrive in another context. When labels harden, they can become identities, shaping how students see themselves and how adults respond to them.

He argued that learning is far more fluid than most categories suggest. Performance changes with structure, clarity, and emotional safety. When schools rely too heavily on labels, they risk limiting students instead of helping them adapt. Flexibility, not categorization, better reflects how learning actually works.

Throughout his session, Deveren returned to a consistent idea: education improves when schools teach students how to manage learning, not just what to learn. That means slowing down enough to make processes visible and normalizing struggle as part of growth.

The message to school leaders was not about adding more initiatives. It was about realignment. When schools prioritize process, build stronger bridges to families, and resist rigid labeling, students are better equipped to handle challenges without shutting down.

In a global conversation often driven by performance metrics and quick fixes, Deveren Fogle’s insights offered a practical reminder. If schools want students to succeed long-term, they must stop assuming students know how to learn and start teaching them how.