On May 18, 2026 SecEd with Turnitin held a webinar on 'How teachers and schools can use AI efficiently and safely'  The editor of CofE sat in on the event.

There were four panellists: one from an academy trust in the Midlands consisting of four primary and three secondary schools, a second from a comprehensive school in East Sussex, a third from a London inner city school of whose students 44% were pupil premium, and the fourth employed by Turnitin was from the US.

The webinar covered four topics:

• Help plan curriculum and learning
• Support for the process of learning
• Feedback and marking
• Communicating with parents

Using AI to help plan curriculum and lessons

Use to identify different reading ages and adapt teaching to reading age. 

Use to check understanding of a topic and identify misconceptions

To help students with independent exam revision

Help not just to produce a product, i.e. answer a question, but with the teaching and learning process. 

Help with instructions to LSAs to support their work with disadvantaged students.

Identify the prior learning needed to be attached to what is being taught

When teaching EAL students with a variety of backgrounds create text that is accessible to all students

 

Using AI to support the process of learning

Document how students are using AI. Using it critically and honestly. Students typically accept AI responses at face value.

Use it to recognise bias.

Give guidance to Sixth formers on how and when to use AI. Use it to develop the model of an answer. Then get students to work out their own answers and compare.

Assess whether an AI response mentions things I don't know or whether it mentions things I don't need to know. Think critically. Don't just copy the full AI plan.

Identify what helps and doesn't help in the filtering process.

Use Notebook LM to produce flash cards to test yourself.

Get AI to help adjust learning to different age groups, i.e. 10, 14, 16.

Develop the strength of the prompt.

AI supports/ doesn't replace pedagogy.

Put PS at the end of a document produced with the help of AI. Prompt and Source that will remind to check reliability

Identify subjects that are difficult for certain students

Identify which lessons can cause overload at certain times of the day, days of the week

Don't use to offload work or summarise meetings

 

Feedback and marking

Do trial exam with end of unit tests. Does AI scoring match teacher assessment?

Use formative assessment, what has gone well, how students can improve their learning, not to disempower the teacher or the student.

Help identify patterns across the class

Help identify next steps, how to get from one grade to the next

Get beyond surface marking to diagnostic, help revise the way you teach.

Ask multiple choice questions to identify misconceptions 

 

Role of parents

How do we talk to them about AI? Be proactive, transparent, not defensive.  Meet them in parents' evenings.

Have dialogue with them. Some are suspicious, associate AI with cheating. 75% of year 5 students use AI and believe all they receive.

Remind parents AI is just a tool. Tell them how we are using it.

Reassure them teachers are still teaching concepts.

AI is supporting them, with modelling facilities

In disadvantaged communities some parents have no digital access.

We do safeguarding checks.

We are helping students become capable learners, closing disadvantage gaps, empowering them. Using AI as a learning partner.

Making AI relevant to real life. AI is affecting many walks of life, here and now. Not the future, the present.

 

At the ACT conference on June 26, 2024 the focus was on the pros and cons of using AI in the classroom