This week BETT released its latest report on the trends of AI use in UK schools. If you want to read the whole thing, be our guest and click on the link. But we know you; you’ve got better things to do. Here are some key takeaways from a study that spoke to over 1000 teachers and administrators in state and private schools at both secondary and primary level:
- AI use continues to rise, with 49% saying they are monthly users.
- Staggeringly, 33% of respondees had never used AI at work.
- AI use is still more common among administrators (32% regular user) than teachers (23%).
- Training remains a barrier, with 46% of teachers saying they had received no training whatsoever.
- However, teachers at independent schools are twice as likely to have received training.
- Eton College’s work on instructive AI strategies for teachers was singled out for praise.
- 48% of schools have no official AI implantation policy (down from 69% in 2024).
- For those that do, 44% have a primary motivation as reducing teacher workload, with only 14% focused on improving student outcomes, something that Caterham School’s in class AI tool RileyBot prioritises.
- 34% of teachers who used AI experienced significant decreases in their workloads, with chatgpt able to cut lesson planning time by 31%.
- The advantages are clear, but the dangers are still feared: 70% of teachers worry about plagiarism and 69% worry about inaccurate information.
Clarendon’s take:
- AI use will continue to proliferate, get used to it.
- Its use will need to be an ingredient of the meal, not the whole meal itself. Have you ever tried learning a language just by using a language app? I did for a while and non parlo bene, I regret to inform you.
- AI learning can be too passive, with students sitting back and letting the information be generated for them.
- AI will improve with this; it will become much more interactive (much like the language apps), but it may easily fall in to a trap of being quick, visually engaging and superficial.
- The brightest impact I think we can look forward to is the benefits to workload on already stretched teachers.
