Guidance for using AI in schools

If you've been contemplating using AI to help free up precious time, you're not alone. From lesson planning and quizzes to admin support, AI has great potential to reduce workload, and it's certainly a piece of technology that we and our students need to get to grips with (and fast!). However, in the education environment, using AI can also come with challenges - school staff need clear guidance to ensure AI is being used safely, responsibly and effectively.

This blog explores the principles, risks and practical applications of AI in education, along with free resources to help your school develop a robust AI policy.

AI in Education

AI is now increasingly being used in classrooms to support teachers - back in August 2024, more than half of teachers surveyed on Teacher Tapp were using tools like Chat GPT for school work - an increase on the previous year's 35%, and we can safely assume that this has grown again.

Teachers are now using AI for:

Lesson planning
Generating model texts
Quiz or assessment creation
Report writing support
Lesson differentiation

You can find ideas and prompts for using AI for planning support in our blog: An Introduction to AI for Teachers. An easy way to start is with the new Purple Mash AI add-on, allowing you to quicky generate self-marking quizzes in 2Quiz.

Find out more about Purple Mash AI

Challenges and Risks of Using AI in Schools

While AI offers exciting possibilities, schools must be aware of the risks:

Exposure to harmful or inappropriate content
Inaccurate or biased information
Data breaches and GDPR violations
Copyright infringement
Staff or pupil misuse
Use of unapproved or unsafe AI tools
Over-reliance on AI tools

Recognising the risks is the first step to introducing AI in your school. 2Simple have developed a free AI Policy Pack which includes a sample Risk Assessment and a template to use to create your own Risk Assessment.

Key Principles for Safe and Effective AI Use in Schools

Once the risks have been identified, schools must then decide how to mitigate these to ensure the safety of pupils and staff. Here are a few ideas on how to make sure AI is used safely in your school:

Choose tools which use age-appropriate filters and comply with UK GDPR and school data protection policies
Only use AI as a support tool, not a decision maker
Never enter confidential or personal data
Avoid uploading pupils' work and seek permission from parents' first
Review all AI-generated content to check for accuracy, bias or inappropriate material