Your Summer Term AI CPD Reading List for 2026
May 26, 2026
Summer term is often the last realistic window for school leaders and AI leads to do calm, strategic reading before September decisions arrive. This reading list is organised by the choices schools need to make, not by whichever tool is making headlines. It focuses on policy, safeguarding, procurement, privacy and practical implementation, with a short note on what each item helps you decide. Use it to turn scattered AI news into a clearer plan for governance, rollout and staff development before the new academic year begins.
The Case for Smaller School AI Pilots
May 20, 2026
Schools do not need a whole-school AI rollout to learn what works. In many cases, a smaller pilot is the safer and smarter route: one use case, one team, one agreed success measure, and clear rules for when to scale, pause or stop. This article explains how micro-pilots help school leaders test value without creating unnecessary risk, staff overload or procurement confusion. It offers a practical 30-day structure, sensible review points, and a leadership checklist for making grounded decisions before wider adoption.
Minimum Viable Paid AI Stack for Schools
April 20, 2026
Free AI tools once looked like an easy win for schools, but that bargain is becoming harder to defend. Adverts, tighter limits, silent model changes and sudden lockouts now make free consumer access unreliable for everyday school work. In 2026, the real risk is no longer overspending on AI, but building important workflows on tools that can change overnight. This article explains why schools need a minimum viable paid AI stack, which tasks deserve stable access first, and how to move from fragile free use to a low-cost, governed setup in just 30 days.
The School AI Renewal Checklist for 2026
April 10, 2026
AI renewals in 2026 need more than a quick price comparison or a reassuring sales call. School leaders now face tougher questions about where services are available, which legal entity they are buying from, how training data was sourced, and whether suppliers are ready for the EU AI Act and similar rules. This 12-question checklist helps schools test evidence, not marketing claims, before renewing any AI subscription. It is designed for senior leaders, governors, procurement teams and IT staff who want a practical, defensible way to decide whether to renew, renegotiate or walk away.
Spring Term AI Audit Scorecard
March 30, 2026
Spring term is an ideal point for departments to review how AI is actually affecting workload, teaching quality and risk. A simple audit scorecard can move discussion beyond headline claims about time saved and reveal hidden rework, uneven staff confidence, data concerns and weak curriculum fit. This article outlines a practical five-part framework that helps teams decide what to scale, pause, replace or stop before summer term, without creating another layer of unnecessary admin.
AI chatbot safeguarding pre-flight checklist
March 28, 2026
Recent harmful chatbot incidents have changed the safeguarding conversation for schools. Allegations linked to the Gemini wrongful death lawsuit, the Character.ai crisis and other cases show why leaders cannot treat student AI access as a simple edtech rollout. Before any pupil uses a general chatbot, schools need clear thresholds, supervision rules, escalation pathways, procurement evidence and staff training. This article uses these incidents as forensic case studies to build a practical pre-flight checklist that helps leaders decide whether to proceed, restrict access or pause student use altogether.
GPT-5.4 school briefing
March 27, 2026
GPT-5.4 has arrived with the usual flood of enterprise messaging, but most school leaders do not need to rewrite policy or replace working tools. This briefing focuses on the practical questions: whether lower token limits matter in real school workflows, where more autonomous operation may help or create risk, and which existing GPT-based routines should be kept, retested or rebuilt. The goal is simple: help leaders make calm, evidence-based decisions without overreacting to headlines, vendor claims or product noise.
EU AI Act roadmap for schools
March 17, 2026
The EU AI Act is no longer a distant policy issue for schools. Education is one of the areas where certain AI uses can be classed as high-risk, which means leaders need a clear plan before August 2026. This guide explains the rules in plain English, highlights the school use cases most likely to raise concern, and sets out a practical compliance roadmap. It also shows how Swedish schools can connect AI governance with procurement and data protection, so decisions are calm, documented and defensible rather than rushed at the last minute.
Microsoft 365 Copilot Gets Claude
March 9, 2026
Microsoft 365 Copilot adding Claude will prompt many school leaders and IT teams to ask the same question: what actually changes in day-to-day Microsoft use, and should we enable it now? This briefing looks past the headlines to focus on practical impact inside Teams, Word, Outlook and wider Microsoft 365 workflows. It explores where improvements are likely to appear first, what may stay much the same, and how schools can make a sensible decision based on governance, staff readiness, data protection, safeguarding and procurement rather than hype.
Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite for School Buyers
March 3, 2026
Small, fast AI models rarely get the same attention as flagship launches, yet they may matter more for schools trying to reduce workload without stretching already tight budgets. Using Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite as a practical test case, this guide explores which routine teacher tasks a lightweight model can handle well, where it begins to struggle, and how leaders can judge whether paying for a full model is actually necessary. The aim is simple: help schools buy AI more carefully, with clearer expectations and lower risk.
DeepSeek, Claude and AI procurement
February 26, 2026
Allegations that DeepSeek may have trained on Claude outputs are more than a dispute between AI companies. For schools, they highlight a practical procurement problem: whether suppliers can explain where training data came from, how model outputs were collected, and what legal and operational risks sit downstream. This article uses the case as a clear-eyed procurement study, translating technical concerns into questions leaders can ask now about data lineage, licensing, indemnities, audit rights and contractual red lines before adopting any AI system.
The QuitGPT Movement in Class
February 18, 2026
The QuitGPT backlash offers teachers a timely way to explore consumer activism, media literacy and AI literacy without turning lessons into partisan argument. This article shows how to use boycott posts, screenshots and viral claims as a case study in evidence quality, platform dependency and corporate ethics. It outlines practical questions, source-check routines and discussion protocols that help pupils move from outrage to enquiry. The goal is not to tell students what to think, but to help them examine how online campaigns shape trust, choice and public debate around AI companies.
Claude Opus 4.6 for half-term planning
February 5, 2026
Claude Opus 4.6 arrives with stronger workflow support, and that matters most when the test is practical rather than promotional. In this article, we put it to work on a demanding school task: building a half-term scheme of work through agent teams, then exporting the result into PowerPoint for real staff use. The focus is not on flashy outputs, but on teacher-ready quality: sequence, lesson coherence, curriculum fit, edit load and presentation readiness. The result is promising, but only in the right conditions.
Open Source After Vibe Coding
January 27, 2026
A new wave of discussion around the “Vibe Coding Kills Open Source” paper raises a practical question for schools: how should leaders judge the health of open-source software when AI-assisted coding is now common? This briefing looks beyond the licence label to the issues that matter in education, including reliability, maintainability, security and supplier transparency. It offers a practical checklist for procurement teams, IT leads and computing staff who need to evaluate tools used by pupils, teachers and administrators without abandoning the benefits of open source.
ChatGPT Adverts and School AI Risk
January 19, 2026
ChatGPT’s move towards adverts is more than a product update. For school leaders, it is a warning that the long period of seemingly free, stable consumer AI may be ending. If staff workflows now depend on free-tier tools, monetisation changes can quickly affect access, reliability, privacy expectations and trust. This briefing explains why UK and Swedish schools should shift core routines off consumer free tiers, how to identify the most exposed workflows, and what procurement, policy and contingency steps to take this term.