Generation Alpha is the most digitally immersed generation yet. All other generations have seen the rise of recent technologies, but Generation Alpha have never known a world without smartphones, AI-driven assistants, and streaming services. Technology is not something they use occasionally; it is embedded in how they learn, socialise, and engage with the world. In their book Generation Alpha: Understanding our children and helping them thrive, McCrindle and Fell describe them as being digital, social, global, mobile, and visual. Such attributes shape both their strengths and the challenges they face.

From an educational and workforce perspective, this generation is poised to enter industries that do not yet fully exist, including AI-specialised fields, virtual reality engineering, and sustainability-focused careers. Schools must therefore prepare them not just with content knowledge, but with adaptability, critical thinking, and creativity.

The Role of Schools in Supporting Gen Alpha

Educators play a crucial role in fostering Generation Alpha’s potential. The key lies in balancing the integration of technology with essential human skills. Some priorities include:

  • Personalised Learning: AI-driven platforms can help tailor educational experiences to individual needs, ensuring that students receive support in areas they struggle with while being challenged in areas where they excel.
  • Developing Critical Thinking: With unlimited access to information, students need to learn how to analyse, question, and evaluate content rather than passively consume it.
  • Collaboration & Creativity: Schools should emphasise project-based learning and opportunities for students to innovate, problem-solve, and work together.
  • Digital Wellbeing & Ethical AI Use: Teaching responsible and balanced technology use is critical to ensuring that AI remains a tool for empowerment rather than dependence.

The Parenting Perspective: Challenges & Opportunities

While schools shape a significant part of Gen Alpha’s development, parents remain their primary influence—and they are navigating new complexities in raising children in a digital world. Research shows that parents recognise both the benefits and challenges of technology:

  • Screen Time & Device Ownership: Many parents (42%) delay giving their child a device, while 73% postpone social media access.
  • Concerns About Over-Reliance on Technology: More than half of parents worry about screen addiction, behaviour impacts, and exposure to inappropriate content.
  • Information Overload: A striking 71% of parents feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of parenting advice available, yet 66% feel more informed than previous generations.

The Need for a School-Parent Partnership

The insights from both education and parenting perspectives highlight an important conclusion: schools and parents must work together to support Generation Alpha.

This means:

  1. Aligning Digital Literacy Education: Schools can guide parents on best practices for screen use, AI tools, and responsible online behaviour (all are invited to our Parent Seminar in Term 2 where experts will guide parents in supporting teens to avoid and break free from tech-enabled addiction).
  2. Encouraging a Balanced Approach: Parents and educators should work together to promote both online and offline learning, ensuring students develop social and emotional skills alongside their digital competencies.
  3. Communicating Effectively: Schools can help address parental concerns by providing clear, research-backed guidance on how to navigate technology’s role in children’s lives.

Preparing Generation Alpha for the Future

Gen Alpha is growing up in a world vastly different from previous generations, and their education and upbringing must reflect this reality. Supporting their development is not about limiting technology but about teaching them to use it wisely, critically, and creatively. Schools and parents must act as partners, ensuring that while Gen Alpha becomes fluent in the digital world, they also develop the resilience, problem-solving abilities, and human connections that will define their success.

By working together, we can create an environment—both at home and in school—that nurtures not just technological proficiency, but well-rounded, thoughtful, and innovative individuals.

The Barker Journey Study

For more information about The Barker Journey, our ongoing 10-year longitudinal study about Generation Alpha's experiences of learning, teaching and schooling, go to our project page:

The Barker Journey Study

Further reading

McCrindle, M., Fell, A., & Buckerfield, S. (2021). Generation Alpha: Understanding Our Children and Helping Them Thrive. Headline.

This post was inspired by two infographics on Generation Alpha. One focused on parenting Gen Alpha and the other which provided a more general overview. They can be reached by clicking on the links:

McCrindle Parenting Generation Alpha infographic

McCrindle - Generation Alpha infographic

Dr Timothy Scott

Tim has held various leadership roles in schools in Australia and abroad for the past 24 years, alongside teaching history and modern languages. He is currently Research Principal at the Barker Institute, the school-based educational research centre at Barker College. His research interests include intercultural and interlingual learning and teaching, refugee education, and the role of student voice in improving educational practice. Tim believes embedding research informed practice has become increasingly important and is the mark of contemporary schools, empowering their teachers as experts and enabling their learners to thrive. He is one of the lead researchers for the Barker Institute’s ongoing, decade-long longitudinal study, the Barker Journey. Concurrently with his educational research responsibilities, Tim teaches History and Global Studies at Barker. Tim’s PhD investigated socio-political influences on contemporary German conceptions of history and archaeology.