INSET AI Workshop: Three Micro-Routines
August 25, 2025
This ready-to-run INSET Day workshop helps staff move from general AI awareness to three agreed, policy-aligned micro-routines: lesson planning, feedback preparation, and parent/carer communications. It centres on one shared safety protocol so staff can use AI confidently without drifting into risky data use, unreliable outputs, or inconsistent practice. You’ll get a choose-your-length run sheet, a slide-by-slide deck outline, activities that produce tangible artefacts, and a 30-day implementation plan with simple evidence capture to evaluate impact on workload and quality.
ECT/NQT AI First-Term Operating Manual
July 18, 2025
This guide is a practical first-term “operating manual” for ECTs/NQTs using AI safely and sustainably. You’ll set a small number of default micro-routines for planning, differentiation, feedback preparation and parent communication—each designed to take around ten minutes and reduce decision fatigue. You’ll also get clear red lines for data protection, safeguarding, assessment integrity and copyright, plus a week-by-week checklist to align with school policy. The aim is simple: protect pupils, protect your professionalism, and protect your workload and wellbeing.
Summer AI CPD Roadmap for September Impact
June 27, 2025
Summer CPD can easily become a scattergun list of courses, webinars and half-read articles that never makes it into classroom practice. This roadmap treats AI learning as a September-ready implementation plan: one course, one event, one reading strand and two tiny classroom pilots. You’ll leave summer with a simple Personal Learning Plan, clear safeguards, and lightweight evidence that stands up in appraisal and SLT conversations within the first three weeks back.
Building AI Foundations for Next Year
June 13, 2025
A strong September start with AI rarely comes from a big launch. It comes from small, agreed foundations: clear rules, shared language, consistent routines, and a tool stack people can actually use. This six-week summer-term “AI foundations sprint” turns end-of-year audit findings into practical infrastructure: a one-page policy addendum, student norms, staff micro-routines, a governed prompt library, and a light-touch curriculum map showing where AI is permitted, taught, and assessed.
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.
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.
What GPT-5 Might Mean for Schools
February 17, 2025
“GPT-5” is less a single product announcement and more a stress test for how ready schools are to procure, govern and use fast-improving AI safely. This article maps plausible capability jumps—longer context, stronger reasoning, more reliable multimodal understanding and early agentic actions—to everyday school processes that could be disrupted. It then offers a practical 30/60/90-day readiness plan, plus a leader-friendly checklist to update policy, vendor questions, staff training and classroom routines without committing to any one tool.
February Half-Term CPD: AI Courses & Credentials
February 12, 2025
Half-term is a rare chance to build AI confidence without the weekly rush, but not all “AI for teachers” courses carry the same weight in appraisal or CPD logs. This buyer’s guide helps you choose credentials that stand up to scrutiny by focusing on evidence of learning, classroom transfer, and policy safety. You’ll find a practical selection rubric, three choose-one pathways (beginner, classroom practice, leadership), and a curated shortlist with proof of learning and caveats. There’s also a time-boxed five-day plan and a one-page outcomes checklist you can submit as CPD evidence.
Building AI Workflows That Stick
January 13, 2025
Many schools now have pockets of AI experimentation, but few have sustainable, whole‑school workflows that genuinely save time and improve teaching. This playbook is for school and college leaders who want to move beyond scattered pilots and build 3–5 core AI workflows that staff actually keep using. Focusing on governance, process design and behaviour change, it shows how to choose high‑leverage use cases, co‑design them with staff, integrate them into existing systems, and monitor impact lightly but consistently so AI becomes “the way we do things here”, not another short‑lived initiative.
AI Resolutions for Teachers
December 30, 2024
Term 2 is when good intentions usually collide with reality. This practical AI resolutions checklist helps you turn New Year enthusiasm into six weeks of tiny, time‑boxed habits that actually survive once school gets busy. Each habit takes about ten minutes to set up, has clear boundaries, and comes with “stop if…” rules so you stay in control. Use it to test AI for planning, marking, in‑lesson support and communication without overhauling your whole practice – and finish the half‑term with a clear decision about what to keep, tweak or drop.
Holiday Reading: Best AI in Education Books
December 20, 2024
The holidays can be the perfect moment to explore AI in education without the pressure of term‑time. This curated reading list is designed as a self‑directed CPD programme, not just a pile of worthy titles. Each book is mapped to specific school roles – from classroom teacher to senior leader, SENDCo and IT lead – with clear “try this in January” actions you can use straight away. Dip into one pathway or mix and match to build your own AI CPD plan that feels realistic, practical and grounded in everyday school life.
Year One Reflections on AI in Classrooms
November 28, 2024
After a full year of AI tools in everyday classroom practice, many schools are asking a simple question: what actually worked? This article draws on mini case studies from teachers across phases and subjects to surface the routines that stuck, the workflows that quietly failed, and the patterns that emerged in real classrooms. Rather than re-explaining tools or policies, it distils front-line experience into a practical set of repeatable strategies, red flags and "if we were starting again" tips to help schools refine their AI plans for 2025.
AI Literacy in Schools: Why It Matters Now
June 21, 2024
AI is rapidly becoming as fundamental as reading and digital citizenship. This article outlines what whole-school AI literacy really means, why it matters now, and how leaders can phase implementation with concrete cross-curricular examples, CPD plans, policy guidance, and a 90‑day quick-start checklist.
Free AI Training for Educators
May 30, 2024
Enhance your teaching methods and meet the diverse needs of your students with Google's **Generative AI for Educators** course. This free, self-paced training, developed in collaboration with MIT RAISE, offers practical, hands-on experience with AI tools to save time, personalise instruction, and create engaging lessons. Suitable for middle and high school teachers across all disciplines, the course requires no prior technical experience. Upon completion, educators receive a certificate that may count towards professional development credits. Transform your classroom and streamline your workflow by enrolling today.