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.
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.
Claude 4 / 3.5 Opus: claims-to-classroom protocol
March 3, 2025
New flagship AI launches arrive with bold claims: better reasoning, richer multimodal support, safer behaviour, and more “agentic” features that act on your behalf. For schools, the question is not whether the benchmarks look impressive, but whether the model is reliable, privacy-safe, and assessment-responsible in everyday teacher workflows. This article offers a practical “claims-to-classroom” evaluation protocol you can run in 90 minutes with no pupil data, plus evidence thresholds and checklists to decide whether to adopt, pilot, or park Claude’s next flagship.
AI for Student Wellbeing Conversations
January 17, 2025
AI can help staff notice wellbeing patterns earlier and hold more focused, compassionate conversations with students – but only when used with clear safeguarding boundaries. This practical playbook shows how to position AI as a structured prompt and reflection partner, never as a counsellor or decision-maker. You will find age-appropriate check-in scripts, escalation rules and weekly routines that keep humans firmly in charge. We also unpack data protection, consent and communication with families so your approach is transparent, ethical and sustainable.
Digital Citizenship and AI
October 24, 2024
As AI tools move into everyday schoolwork, they must become part of digital citizenship, not an optional extra. This article gives teachers age-banded, ready-to-teach mini-units that weave online safety, ethics and academic integrity into practical AI activities. With examples from primary through to upper secondary, and options for low- or no-device classrooms, you can help pupils actually practise responsible AI use rather than simply memorising rules. Includes ideas for classroom routines, pupil agreements and ways to link lessons with school policy and home.
Reduce Risk in Educational Activities
January 23, 2024
Introducing the new **Risk Assessment Tool** in the Automated Education app, designed to streamline the creation of comprehensive risk assessments for educational activities. This user-friendly tool simplifies the process, requiring minimal input to generate detailed risk analyses, identify potential hazards, and suggest mitigation strategies. Whether planning a classroom experiment, a field trip, or a sports event, the tool tailors assessments to specific activities and locations, saving valuable time and reducing workload. Ensure safety and compliance effortlessly with this innovative addition to Automated Education. Try it today and enhance the safety of your educational activities.