Transition Days work best when they do three things at once: they help pupils feel they belong, they make the building and routines feel predictable, and they give staff early insight into what pupils need. You are not trying to teach Year 7 content yet; you are building confidence, relationships, and shared expectations.
AI can safely add something valuable here: a common language for how pupils will learn in your school. Many pupils arrive with wildly different experiences of AI—from “never used it” to “I asked it to do my homework”. A short, low-stakes carousel lets you set norms early, without fear or fanfare, and dovetails neatly with wider transition work such as a handover portfolio or tutor-time routines. If you are already tightening the bridge from primary to secondary, you can align this with your existing transition evidence using a Year 6–Year 7 handover sprint approach.
Before any station begins, decide what “safe” means in your context and make it easy for every adult to say the same thing. The goal is consistency, not perfection.
Safeguarding boundaries should be explicit and simple. Pupils should not enter personal data, identifiable information, or anything about other people into an AI tool. That includes names, photos, addresses, usernames, school details, medical information, family situations, and anything that could identify a peer. If you use any live AI on the day, keep it teacher-operated (projected) or restricted to a school-managed account, with pupils working from pre-written prompts.
Minimal-data rules are easier for pupils to follow when you phrase them as habits rather than warnings. For example: “Use made-up details”, “Keep it general”, and “If it’s about a real person, don’t type it.” It helps to connect these to your wider integrity and behaviour expectations too, using the same language staff already use during assessments and online safety. If you want ready-made phrasing, adapt the script style from AI traffic-light boundaries and staff scripts so pupils hear one message across classrooms.
Staff scripts matter because Transition Days often rely on mixed staffing and tight timings. Give every adult a one-page “say this, not that” sheet. Include your minimal-data rule, what to do if a pupil discloses that they have used AI inappropriately, and one calm line for when a pupil tests boundaries (“We’re practising safe habits today; we’ll use a fictional example instead.”).
This carousel is designed for six stations, each 10–15 minutes, rotating in tutor groups or half-tutor groups. It is mostly paper-based, with one optional teacher-led live demo station if you have devices and a safe set-up.
The six stations are: Minimum Data, Hallucinations, Bias, Prompt Hygiene, Evidence First, and Values to Charter. Each station ends with a tiny “exit ticket” that pupils keep in a Transition Day booklet. Those slips become the raw material for the final signed charter.
Pupils sort example prompts into “Safe” and “Not safe yet”, then rewrite the unsafe ones using fictional details. Provide a sheet with ten prompts, including tempting ones such as “Write a message to my friend Jamie about our argument yesterday” or “Summarise my medical condition”. Pupils practise converting them into safe versions: “Write a message to a friend about resolving a disagreement (fictional names)”.
The low-device variant is identical: it is entirely paper-based. Teacher prompt: “If it’s about a real person, we don’t type it. How can we make it fictional and general?” Link the habit to a school value such as respect or responsibility.
Give pupils two short “AI answers” to the same question. One is accurate; one contains confident nonsense. Keep the topic neutral and curriculum-light (for example, “What is a mammal?” or “How do you measure the perimeter of a rectangle?”). Pupils highlight claims that need checking, then label them: “checkable fact”, “opinion”, “made-up detail”.
If you can, add a teacher-led mini-demo: show how a tool can produce a plausible but wrong answer, then model a calm response: “We don’t argue with it; we verify.” This station pairs well with an evidence-first writing culture; you can connect it later to evidence-first co-authoring routines so pupils see AI as something to check, not obey.
Pupils read a short AI-generated description of a “successful scientist” or “a typical family” that subtly stereotypes. Their task is to circle assumptions and rewrite two sentences to be more inclusive and accurate. Keep it gentle and age-appropriate: the aim is noticing patterns, not debating complex politics on day one.
Teacher prompt: “Whose perspective is missing?” and “What would make this fairer?” If you want to deepen this later in KS3, you can build from phase-banded AI ethics dilemmas without needing to reinvent scenarios.
This station teaches pupils to write prompts that are clear, bounded, and safe. Give them a “messy prompt” (“Help with my homework about rivers”) and a simple checklist: role, task, constraints, and check. Pupils rewrite it into a tidy version: “You are a study coach. Explain three features of a river in 120 words. Use simple language. Add two questions to check my understanding.”
The low-device variant is that pupils do not need to run the prompt; they just practise writing it. Teacher prompt: “What would you want the AI to do, and what must it not do?” This connects naturally to classroom routines for using AI across subjects; later, teachers can reuse the same checklist via across-the-curriculum lesson moves.
Pupils receive a mini “fact pack” (three short sources on one topic, such as a one-paragraph text, a small table, and a labelled diagram). Their job is to write a short answer using only the pack, then write a prompt that would help them improve clarity without adding new facts. This makes the integrity point concrete: AI can help with structure and explanation, but it should not invent content.
Teacher prompt: “If the answer isn’t in the pack, we don’t claim it.” You can later reinforce this through a simple listening-and-norms cycle once pupils are settled, using student AI listening cycles to refine what “helpful” looks like in your context.
Pupils match safe AI behaviours to your school values. For example, “We protect privacy” links to respect; “We check facts” links to excellence; “We use AI to learn, not to avoid learning” links to integrity. Pupils then draft two lines for a class charter and choose one personal commitment.
This is also where you normalise help-seeking. Add a sentence stem: “If I’m not sure, I will…” with options like “ask a teacher”, “use the school guide”, or “leave it out”.
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End the carousel with a short, readable charter that pupils sign and take home. Keep it to six to eight statements, written in “we” language, and include one line on minimal data, one on checking, one on fairness, one on learning integrity, one on kindness, and one on asking for help. Make it visually consistent with other school agreements so it feels real, not like a tech add-on.
In September, revisit the charter in tutor time. Ask pupils to annotate it with examples: “What does ‘minimal data’ look like in a computing lesson?” and “How do we check a claim in science?” This quick revisit turns a Transition Day activity into a habit.
Staffing works best with one adult per station plus a floater who manages movement and behaviour routines. If you are short-staffed, combine Stations 2 and 5 into one “Check and evidence” station, and run five stations instead.
Rooming should reduce corridor churn. A hall or adjacent classrooms works well: stations on the perimeter, pupils rotating clockwise, with a visible timer. Device ratios can be near-zero. If you choose a live demo, keep it teacher-operated on a single screen, with pupils responding on paper. Behaviour routines should be taught like any other: how to enter, where to stand, how to ask for help, and what a “reset” looks like when the timer goes. A simple “3-2-1 rotate” script prevents the carousel from feeling chaotic.
Make the carousel predictable. Display a visual schedule, give a one-minute warning before rotations, and provide a quiet option for pupils who find busy transitions difficult. For SEND pupils, reduce reading load by using icons, short sentences, and adult-read prompts; allow verbal responses or highlighting rather than writing full paragraphs. For EAL pupils, pre-teach key words such as “privacy”, “bias”, “check”, and “fictional”, and let pupils use bilingual glossaries where available.
Anxiety-friendly options include letting pupils keep the same seat while adults rotate, or offering a “buddy role” (timekeeper, materials manager) so pupils have a clear purpose. If you are building a wider inclusion approach to AI, you may find it helpful to align with a minimum viable inclusion stack so adaptations are consistent across the year.
Send a one-page welcome note home with three messages: what pupils learned today, what your school expects, and how families can support without needing to be AI experts. Include your minimal-data rule, a reassurance that pupils do not need accounts, and a short “If your child uses AI at home” section. Keep it non-judgemental: the aim is partnership. Invite families to ask questions, and signpost where your charter will live (planner, website, or tutor booklet).
In the first fortnight, embed the habits through tiny routines rather than big assemblies. In week one, ask pupils to apply prompt hygiene to a low-stakes task such as generating quiz questions from a class text—teacher-run, pupils checking on paper. In week two, run a five-minute “hallucination spot” starter using a deliberately flawed paragraph. Keep linking back to the charter language so it becomes part of everyday learning talk.
If you want to extend this into a broader KS3 launch, you can later build a pupil-led showcase week that includes bias, citations, and reflection, drawing inspiration from KS3–KS4 exploration projects while keeping safeguarding front and centre.
May your Transition Days feel calm, purposeful, and genuinely welcoming.
The Automated Education Team
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