Artificial Intelligence
In a single fortnight, the government has admitted its AI tutoring tools have 'limited' evidence, and the EEF has opened formal research into cognitive offloading. The state sector now has the right procurement filter. The independent sector needs to build one of its own.
Physical Education
Pro-level sports tech is hitting school sports halls and it could genuinely transform PE teaching. Smart rackets, AI motion analysis, and auto-tracking cameras give pupils real autonomy over their own progress. The pedagogy is exciting; the IT plumbing just needs careful planning.
Assessment
A Commonwealth Prize-winning story was flagged as AI-generated. The case is contested, but the schools parallel is clear. AI detectors deliver binary verdicts on prose they were never designed to judge – and the pupils most likely to be wrongly flagged are the ones who write best.
Safeguarding
The government’s new digital safety strategy and upcoming RSHE lesson plans force schools to confront synthetic media. While banning phones protects focus, blocking network URLs cannot stop AI manipulation. IT must partner with pastoral staff to teach the actual mechanics of digital deception.
Artificial Intelligence
Monday's post argued IT should refuse tools that strip cognitive friction. This week, the evidence landed. The NEU's 9,408-teacher survey and a Yorkshire school's AI marking pilot tell the same story: in real classrooms, the friction-free promise of generic AI is not always delivering as advertised.
Artificial Intelligence
The OECD warns generic AI risks causing "metacognitive laziness" in pupils. Following our look at intentional tech, we must turn this into a procurement rule: if an AI tool removes the cognitive friction required for learning, IT must refuse to buy it. Access is a marketing trick, not a strategy.
Inspection
Ofsted's new research areas and the ISI's inspection framework both signal a massive shift in how technology is evaluated. The focus has moved from hardware and filtering logs to the psychological, pedagogical, and ethical impact of AI on pupil wellbeing, resilience, and cognitive development.
Artificial Intelligence
As the parliamentary inquiry confirms AI is deeply embedded in schools, we must stop playing algorithmic catch-up. Adopting HEPI's 'FUTURES' framework lets us shift from assessing rote production to fundamentally repricing human judgement in education.
Pedagogy
With AI automating entry-level jobs and generating instant 'perfect' answers, the value of education is shifting. If machines do the easy work, and sometimes hallucinate the hard stuff, our schools must double down on teaching resilience, critical thinking, and the messy process of failure.
Safeguarding
While schools are writing policies about academic honesty and parents are worrying about screen time, pupils have simply moved on, seamlessly integrating AI into their lives. Safety and learning happen in the messy middle where, instead of pretending we can block AI, we focus on proper governance.