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.
Last-Minute Exam Scaffolding with AI
May 5, 2026
Exam week often creates pressure to do more, faster, with less time to check quality or safeguard integrity. This article offers a boundary-safe AI toolkit for teachers who need practical revision support without drifting into answer outsourcing or live assessment misuse. It focuses on three reliable use cases: worked examples, low-stakes retrieval quizzes, and confidence-building explanations, all built from teacher-supplied content only. You will find clear red lines, reusable prompt patterns, and a simple workflow that turns one topic into several revision supports in minutes.
AI Voice Tools for MFL in 2026
April 28, 2026
AI voice tools for modern foreign languages have improved sharply by 2026, but classroom usefulness depends on more than an impressive demo. This article evaluates current voice modes against four practical tests that matter to teachers: pronunciation feedback, natural turn-taking, confidence building for hesitant speakers, and safeguarding for younger learners. The focus is not on hype, but on whether these tools genuinely support speaking practice in real lessons, with real pupils, under real school constraints.
Spring Assessment: AI Support or Malpractice?
April 24, 2026
Spring assessment season puts pressure on teachers, pupils and families to use every available support wisely. AI can help with revision planning, practice questions and feedback, but it can also slip into substitution, hidden drafting and fabricated evidence. This guide offers a practical red-amber-green model for judging AI use across SATs preparation, nationella prov revision, coursework and take-home assignments. With subject-specific examples and clear scripts for schools, it helps staff draw firm boundaries without creating panic or confusion.
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.
Easter Revision Without Burnout
April 13, 2026
Easter revision often collapses under the weight of unrealistic timetables, endless flashcards, and rising anxiety. A better approach is to use AI for organisation rather than substitution: building manageable study blocks, rotating subjects with purpose, structuring worked examples into independent practice, and protecting rest. This article explores how teachers and families can create evidence-informed Easter revision plans that improve recall and confidence without exhausting students or handing the thinking to the machine.
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.
Summer Term Reset for AI Boundaries
April 6, 2026
The first week back after the holidays is a useful moment to reset expectations around student AI use. This tutor-time guide helps schools revisit the grey areas pupils often misunderstand, including homework help, revision support, coursework drafting and when disclosure is expected. It offers a practical structure for a short tutor-time session, discussion scenarios, a simple student pledge and ways to align messages across tutors, subject teachers and parents or carers.
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.
Half-Term CPD: AI Safety Essentials
February 24, 2026
This half-term self-study pack helps educators turn fast-moving AI safety headlines into practical safeguarding action. It brings together four major developments, from youth-facing AI companion risks to prompt injection and wider system-level safety findings, and translates them into a clear CPD sequence that can be completed in under an hour. The article ends with a ready-to-run 20-minute staff scenario, plus debrief prompts for DSLs, senior leaders and classroom staff who want to strengthen school AI safeguarding without needing specialist technical knowledge.
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.