Academic Director at Queen Ethelburga’s Collegiate Kevin Oldershaw believes it’s vital for schools to have a clear approach to the use of AI

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is here to stay. Schools cannot afford to ignore it and are doing students a disservice if they do not discuss and agree their approach to its use. At QE, our approach has been to see this as a tool to enhance and support learners and teachers.

Why wouldn’t we? It is already embedded in daily life in different forms – whether it be driverless cars, facial recognition or suggested viewing on streaming platforms. We also know that AI is increasingly being utilised across different career sectors, from medicine to marketing, so we need increase student exposure to its potential in their own future working lives.

After deciding on our approach, we wrote a policy (helped by an AI model of course – they are good for that!) outlining to staff not only how AI can be used by teachers, leaders and support staff but also our responsibilities in using it. Here we considered ethics, data privacy and bias. This is the same message that was then repeated to students in a series of assemblies, delivered in an age-appropriate way.

There has been an emphasis with all students under 18 to use AI models that do not require a log in and to ensure they appreciate that they should not be entering personal identifiable information into any website if they do not know how it will be used. Younger students have worked with their teachers in lessons using AI as a class, but for the older ones, the focus is on encouraging them to experiment and learn how it can help them – but always in a controlled and managed environment.  

“AI is already embedded in daily life in different forms – whether it be driverless cars, facial recognition or suggested viewing on streaming platforms. We also know that it is increasingly being utilised across different career sectors”

As we began to get to grips with how AI can and is being used by staff and students – and as various guidance began to be published and updated – we produced documentation for students, helping them to better understand when it is (and isn’t) acceptable to use AI in their education, how to appropriately reference its use in coursework, and how to work with teachers to adopt the best strategies.  

Further work was done with teachers on how to use AI most effectively, ensuring the use was conversational, crafting the most effective prompts and then building on these to train the AI model to produce the right response. As teachers – already used to articulating to students what we want them to do, observing their responses and then amending our instructions and guidance – we are ideally placed to be able to train AI models. Our academic staff have also been able to opt into a range of CPD training sessions. Here, they have been learning how to model AI best practice in the classroom, use it to personalise their teaching and student feedback, and harness its power to manage intense workloads in a way that gives them more contact time with students.    

Recognising the importance of keeping pace with this rapidly developing area and ensuring that AI is seen as a tool for people to use, not fear, we created and recruited a new role – Head of Cognitive Science and Digital Literacy. As an experienced teacher within Creative Media and an enthusiastic user of technology, Jason Sharma-Pay is ideally placed to not only help us further develop our digital strategy but to better understand how human creativity, empathy, emotional intelligence and capacity for critical thought can ensure AI enhances teaching and learning and, ultimately, student outcomes. 

Queen Ethelburga’s Collegiate qe.org

Further reading: Teaching tomorrow’s skills

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