One year of Sora: a classroom reality check
April 21, 2025
A year on from Sora-style video generation entering mainstream conversation, teachers are asking a practical question: what actually works in a classroom, and what still causes problems? This reality check focuses on the shifts you’ll notice most—better coherence, improved text handling, and more usable editing controls—alongside predictable failure modes like continuity glitches, broken physics, biased portrayals, and unsafe outputs. You’ll find low-stakes use cases, a media literacy sequence, safeguarding boundaries, workload-aware workflows, and a 30-day pilot plan with clear “keep/kill” criteria.
KS2 SATs: AI boundaries and revision toolkit
April 17, 2025
AI can genuinely improve Year 6 SATs preparation, but only when the boundaries are crystal clear. This guide sets out what “appropriate AI support” looks like for KS2, alongside non-negotiable integrity rules for pupils at home and teachers in school. You’ll find practical ways to use AI to generate maths retrieval practice, diagnose misconceptions, and scaffold SPaG and reading comprehension without giving answers. It also includes minimum-data safeguarding routines, low-device alternatives, and ready-to-copy prompts, plus a one-page family agreement you can adapt.
Preparing for the 10-Year Grundskola
April 15, 2025
Sweden’s move towards a 10-year grundskola is a long-runway change, but the organisational decisions it triggers will arrive sooner than many teams expect. This article offers a calm “now-to-2028” readiness checklist for school leaders and teacher teams: what to freeze, what to prototype, and what to document while Skolverket develops the new curriculum. You’ll see how small, safe AI micro-tools can translate draft texts into decisions about stages, timetables, and progression maps—without rewriting schemes of work too early.
Minimum viable inclusion stack: SEND tech update
April 14, 2025
This term-ready update brings together what’s genuinely new (and useful) in built-in accessibility across Google, Microsoft, Apple and Chromebooks, then adds a practical layer: a “minimum viable inclusion stack” you can standardise across classrooms. You’ll also find ten low-effort AI micro-routines that scaffold learning without replacing it, plus guidance on making assistive tech and AI work together rather than clash. Finally, there’s a SEND-specific procurement and safeguarding checklist, and a simple two-week pilot plan with staff briefing points and a one-page parent/carer note.
From Autocomplete to Co-authoring
April 10, 2025
In 2024–2025, AI writing tools shifted from simple autocomplete to document-aware co-authoring spaces that can draft, rewrite and reorganise whole texts on command. That change has made “did they use AI?” the wrong question for assessment. Instead, teachers need routines that capture visible decision-making: prompt logs, revision rationales, source trails and short in-class checkpoints. This guide explains the new risks (over-polish, voice drift, hidden outsourcing) and offers practical ways to redesign writing instruction so students can use AI while still producing assessable evidence of thinking, craft and integrity.
Outdoor Learning Meets AI
April 7, 2025
Spring fieldwork is at its best when pupils slow down, look closely, and record what they actually notice. Yet the pull of instant answers on a device can flatten observation into a quick photo and a guessed label. This article offers a “pocket-to-paper” routine: devices away during noticing, then AI used afterwards for cautious species suggestions, structured data logging, and accessible outputs such as audio, simplified text, and translation. It’s built around a simple safety protocol and an “AI confidence” checklist so pupils learn to verify rather than trust.
GPT-5 release day school briefing
April 3, 2025
GPT-5 will arrive with headlines, hot takes and rapid product changes, but schools need a calm, repeatable way to judge what actually matters. This release-day protocol gives you a one-page briefing and a 60–90 minute comparative “bake-off” against your current model and workflows. You’ll test planning, feedback, accessibility, safeguarding and assessment using a minimum-safe environment, then make an adopt/pilot/park decision with clear evidence thresholds. It ends with the smallest policy tweaks leaders should make in week one, plus ready-to-send staff and parent messages that avoid hype.
Term 2 AI After-Action Review Template
March 27, 2025
Term 2 often leaves schools with a trail of AI experiments: a few wins, a few worries, and lots of half-finished ideas. This 60-minute “AI After-Action Review” (AAR) is a practical retrospective that helps you turn scattered trials into 3–5 agreed Term 3 routines. It is deliberately evidence-light and focused on leading indicators you can capture quickly: time saved, learning quality, equity, integrity, and safeguarding. You’ll leave with clear keep/kill/scale decisions, named owners, and a 30-day check-in.
Easter AI Learning Project Menu
March 24, 2025
This Easter-themed project menu offers short, family-friendly AI learning challenges that work even when devices are limited. Teachers can set clear, bounded outcomes while pupils choose a pathway that suits their age and interests. Each project has printable and offline variants, plus paired-role options for sharing a single device. You’ll also find a simple home–school safety script, minimum-data rules for privacy, and an optional mini showcase rubric that rewards process (planning, prompts, evidence, reflection) over polish.
AI Across the Curriculum: 8 Lesson Moves
March 18, 2025
“AI across the curriculum” works best when it is a small set of repeatable lesson moves, not a wholesale rewrite of schemes of work. This article offers eight AI-supported teaching moves you can drop into any subject, with quick prompts, teacher checks, and subject-specific examples. You’ll also find a copy-and-use one-page planning template, plus a single checklist covering safeguarding, privacy, accessibility and assessment integrity. The goal is simple: better learning habits, clearer evidence, and consistent boundaries—without tool sprawl.
End-of-Term Grading: A Batch Marking Pipeline
March 17, 2025
End-of-term grading can feel like a sprint you didn’t train for. Used well, AI can reduce the admin burden without becoming a grade-decider. This article offers a practical ‘batch marking pipeline’ that keeps teachers firmly in control: how to structure anonymised evidence packs, generate rubric-aligned comment banks, run consistency and bias checks, and produce student-facing next steps. The focus is on minimum-data prompting, clear boundaries, and repeatable routines that support reliable, fair grading while respecting data protection.
AI and LGR22 Assessment: Fair, Aligned Tests
March 14, 2025
LGR22 assessment asks teachers to make holistic judgements from evidence gathered over time, yet pre-test season can push us towards “one big test” decisions. This article offers a practical, teacher-in-the-loop workflow for turning pasted betygskriterier into fair, curriculum-aligned assessments using AI. You’ll see how to build E/C/A-targeted questions, generate three-tier model answers, and add justification checklists that keep grading anchored in the criteria. We also share a light portfolio plan so no single test carries the whole grade.
Teacher Workload Crisis: Can AI Help?
March 13, 2025
Teacher workload is not a motivation problem; it is a systems problem. AI can reduce time spent on certain high-frequency tasks, but it can also create new work through verification, reformatting, and tool sprawl. This article offers a workload-first “task map” showing where AI savings are genuinely plausible and where they are reliably illusory. You’ll also find a ready-to-run 30-day micro-pilot with guardrails for privacy, safeguarding, quality, and policy alignment, ending with a clear keep/kill decision on three core workflows.
Exam-board-aware AI revision for GCSE & A-Level
March 10, 2025
Exam success is rarely about doing “more revision”; it’s about doing the right revision for the paper you will actually sit. This article sets out an exam-board-aware AI workflow for GCSE and A-Level that turns specifications, command words, mark schemes and examiner reports into a misconception-led plan. You’ll see how to build retrieval practice that matches marking criteria, then organise it into spaced repetition that prioritises weak areas and high-yield errors. It also includes clear integrity rules for students and staff, plus a simple teacher set-up and monitoring routine.
World Book Day AI Evidence Pack
March 6, 2025
World Book Day is a brilliant moment to celebrate reading, but it can also spark anxious questions about AI and “who wrote what”. This lesson sequence reframes AI as a drafting partner pupils can use openly, while still proving genuine understanding and authorship. Pupils generate character interviews, summaries and story starters with AI, then build an “AI evidence pack” showing planning, quote-tracking, prompt logs and redraft decisions. You’ll find quick set-up steps, adaptations for different age phases, low-device options, and ready-to- copy prompts and checklists you can use straight away.