The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and its potential impact across education has been well documented - from the ability to save time and reduce workloads to fears over plagiarism and assessments, as all noted in the Department for Education’s Generative AI in education report.

For me, as digital transformation lead at Truro and Penwith Academy Trust, a 34-school multi-academy trust based in Cornwall, this is an area of particular focus as we seek to understand how we make the most of its technology and avoid its pitfalls.

Not least, we want to ensure we can use AI to build on our existing technology plan that we call our Advantage Project, which has involved providing an iPad to every pupil in the trust.

Bringing purpose to technology

We were aware that while providing iPads may make for good marketing, it would have very little impact unless there was a clear strategy for how it would enhance teaching and learning practices such as direction instruction, feedback and assessment.

This is the same approach we want to bring to how we harness the use of AI - ensuring it has a place and purpose within our strategy.

Of course, though, while my title reflects my focus on technology, I am happy to acknowledge that as an educator of 34 years, my expertise is teaching, not technology.

This is an asset as I can approach new technologies through a lens of “how will it actually make teachers’ lives better?”.

Using outside help

As such, in order to ensure we use AI purposefully, we have partnered with a local company to help provide training and support to staff through a programme that will cover everything from what AI actually is to how to use different tools and platforms to make the most of it.

There will be three virtual sessions over the next term for staff from across our trust to attend as part of directed staff meeting time.

The focus is initially on developing a better understanding of how generative AI works and how to get the most from it, including guidance on creating and refining prompts in order to improve outcomes.

The second session will look at applying these skills to generate tailored AI lesson planning and resources, and the final session will look at the potential for and limitations of using AI as a formative and summative assessment and feedback tool across our trust.

Alongside these sessions, we will be establishing a virtual AI community and forum on our trust intranet platform. This will allow the dialogue between our partner company and staff in schools to continue, and for specific questions or issues to be discussed and addressed.

Pupils and parents

Furthermore, to help embed this into all our teaching and learning, a cross-phase working group of teachers will be collaborating with the company to build an AI knowledge and skills unit of study for pupils across key stages 2, 3 and 4.

This will supplement the existing programmes of study for online safety and digital citizenship, providing an up-to-date understanding of AI, including modules on how it works, how to use it effectively and responsibly and an exploration of the opportunities, risks and issues it contains.

Finally, a key element of this work, as part of our wider Advantage Project, is the desire to counter some of the socioeconomic inequalities that impact many of our pupils across Cornwall and the communities our schools serve.

As such, we also intend to provide AI sessions for parents - both online and, where possible, in school - to help them embrace and use AI tools effectively so they can engage with an increasingly digital world.

This will focus on free tools such as ChatGPT and will aim to both help ensure parents understand what these tools are and also consider how they could be useful in their own lives, such as in job applications or being able to write and refine prompts to achieve outputs relevant for their lives.

Overall, like any significant change in school, whether adopting a new handwriting scheme or looking at AI, it is key we relate it back to its impact on our core purpose as educators and how it will impact teaching and learning - almost everything else is a distraction.

Martin Higgs is digital transformation lead at Truro and Penwith Academy Trust

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