Blog · AI in schools
AI is often sold to schools as a way to save teachers time. Whether it actually does depends far less on the tools than on the choices leaders make about workload.
Ask a group of teachers what they would do with an extra hour each week, and you will rarely hear the same answer twice. Plan a better lesson. Give more thoughtful feedback. Speak to the student who has gone quiet. Go home on time, for once.
Now ask the same teachers what AI has done to their workload so far. In many schools, the honest answer is: not much. In some, it has added to it.
I have seen this pattern with many new pieces of technology in schools. A tool arrives with a promise of saving time. Staff are asked to learn it, log into it and show evidence of using it. The old tasks do not disappear. The new tool simply sits on top of them.
AI could go the same way. If teachers are expected to experiment in their own evenings, check every output for errors and then still complete every task the old way as well, we should not be surprised when they decide it is not worth the effort. Would you?
The most useful conversation a leader can have about AI is not about AI at all. It is about the work. Which tasks take teachers the most time and add the least to learning? Which tasks are repetitive, routine and draining?
The answers are usually familiar. Writing the first version of a letter home. Producing different versions of the same worksheet for different reading levels. Turning a scheme of work into a set of retrieval questions. Drafting report comments that say the same thing in slightly different ways.
These are tasks where AI can help, with a teacher firmly in charge. The machine produces a first draft. The teacher, who knows the class, decides what stays, what changes and what goes in the bin. The professional judgement remains human. The blank page does not.
Give time to learn, not just permission. If you want staff to use AI well, build it into the time you already control. Twenty minutes in a department meeting where colleagues try one task together is worth more than a long email full of links.
Be clear about what stays out. Teachers need to know, without having to ask, that personal information about students and colleagues does not go into these tools. A short, plain rule protects everyone and removes the worry that stops people trying.
Take something away. This is the hardest one. If AI really does save time on a task, protect that time. Do not quietly fill it with a new initiative. Staff will only trust the promise of time saved if they can actually feel it.
At the end of this term, will your teachers have more time for the parts of the job that matter most, or simply more tools to manage? The answer depends far less on which software your school chooses than on the decisions leaders make about workload.
AI will not reduce workload on its own. Leaders who use it thoughtfully, and who are willing to stop doing things, just might.
Keep reading
Staff wellbeing
Wellbeing weeks and staffroom treats are kind gestures. But how staff feel at work is shaped far more by the everyday decisions leaders make about workload, messages and meetings.
Read the post
Personal effectiveness
Every school leader has a task they keep moving to tomorrow. The difficult email, the budget, the conversation nobody wants to have. Here is a simple habit for getting it done.
Read the post
Student wellbeing
Every school has a pastoral structure. But the students who never cause problems are the easiest to miss. Wellbeing starts with something simple: being known by at least one adult.
Read the post