Kasia Suliga Wasielewska, a teacher at a north London school, isn’t that fussed when her students use AI. It’s part of the curriculum.
She hands out ChatGPT-generated quizzes, has teens chat with William Shakespeare bots and teaches how to reverse-engineer AI images.
Some lessons ask students to ask chatbots like Google’s Gemini questions and fact-check the answers.
This all started in 2022, when the teacher at St Joseph’s Primary School in Highgate found herself using ChatGPT ‘heavily’.
‘Many of us teachers felt that shift, an increase in imposter syndrome as we started doubting our own voice and knowledge,’ Kaisa tells .
‘Recognising this made me rethink my entire approach, shifting from passive reliance to deliberate, productive use [of AI] in education.’
Kaisa says pupils as young as eight are using AI for homework, while from age 10, they code, build websites and design games.
‘AI must support, not replace, the teacher’s expertise,’ she stresses.
It’s why she teaches ‘AI literacy’ to youngsters to help them prepare for what, as many tech giants insist, is an ‘AI-driven future’.
The Micro:bit Educational Foundation, which makes some of the AI tools Kaisa uses in class, even wants the government to introduce an ‘AI GCSE’.
‘Just as we teach children to read and think mathematically, we also need to support them to understand how technologies, like AI, are increasingly shaping their lives,’ says the non-profit’s chief of learning, Tom Doust.
‘AI should be banned [from homework], so we can control our brains’
Teachers have been here before. Computer literacy. Internet literacy. Social media literacy. There’s always some tech they need to know.
But no one can agree on AI.
More than nine in 10 teens use AI, yet only 15% feel they’ve been given enough guidance on how to use it, according to a survey by Oxford University Press.
Researchers warn that using AI-powered learning tools can erode critical thinking, called cognitive offloading, as teens use AI to ‘think’ for them.
Teachers are conflicted. Frustrated educators are failing students for submitting AI-faked essays while also using ‘time-saving’ AI to do admin.
Still, not all young people use AI, including those at St Joseph’s Primary School.
‘If you’re using it for your homework, then AI is doing the work, not you,’ says one Year 5 student.
‘I only use it sometimes at home when my dad’s cooking something and we don’t know the instructions.’
Other students prefer handwriting their revision notes, something researchers say improves reading comprehension, or worry about their peers sharing personal information with chatbots.
‘I think AI should be banned [from homework], so we can control our brains,’ a Year 6 student says.
‘There’s no education in that,’ a Year 4 pupil adds about AI-assisted learning. ‘You can just look it up and then you have the answer.’
‘Only a matter of time before there’s a GCSE in AI’
Another Year 4 student says they’re not allowed to use ChatGPT at home – they don’t know enough about the app to use it.
This is what worries campaigners like Elizabeth Anderson, CEO of the Digital Poverty Alliance.
Yes, she says, ‘it’s only a matter of time before there’s a GCSE in AI’, but embracing the technology risks creating more inequality.
The alliance has found that 30% of teachers have at least 10 pupils who lack access to a suitable device or reliable internet connection at home.
‘There must also be provision for children who cannot access a keyboard device or broadband connectivity at home,’ says Anderson, ‘otherwise they will be at a major disadvantage which is built into the curriculum.’
The Safe AI For Children Alliance similarly says a GCSE in AI could benefit young people – ‘if done well,’ the organisation says.
‘AI is such a transformative technology that any education related to it has to involve a holistic curriculum.
‘Schools must also ensure that AI safeguarding education is delivered to all students, regardless of whether they choose to study AI.’
For Kaisa, restricting or banning AI – treating it like mobile phones – isn’t the answer either.
‘We must teach children how to control technology,’ she says, ‘rather than letting technology shape how they think.’
The Department of Education told that it takes AI – a tech it says moves at mind-bending speeds – ‘incredibly seriously’.
‘The Education Secretary [Lucy Powell] is leading a reform of the education system to equip young people for lives and careers in this rapidly changing world, including a refreshed curriculum that provides the digital skills and knowledge on systems, software and more, for the technological jobs of the future,’ they added.
‘Alongside this, we have published world-leading AI safety standards for education, are co-designing the next generation of safe AI tutoring tools with teachers and investing £23 million to understand which technologies have the greatest impact in schools and how they can be used most effectively.’
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
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