AI policies and resources
Summary of the DfE's AI policy paper; an opportunity to share AI resources, scenario based CPD; jobs at members' schools.
This week the DfE released its policy paper: Generative artificial intelligence (AI) in education.
It’s an optimistic briefing about the opportunities AI presents for education, especially for teachers.
But it urges caution (and makes recommendations) about the considerable challenges.
This week’s highlights from the We Are In Beta community summarise the key takeaways and offer you a chance to discover and share practical approaches to AI with your fellow members.
There’s also a masterclass happening next week about a big issue everyone faces that couldn’t be further from anything AI related. Read on to find out what it is.
We - schools - Are In Beta - always learning (when we embrace tech but keep the human touch)
This week
🤖 Summary of DfE’s Generative artificial intelligence (AI) in education
📎 Share and learn from practical approaches to AI
👨🏫 Scenario based behaviour CPD
💼 Jobs with members of the We Are In Beta Community
🤖 Summary of DfE’s ‘Generative artificial intelligence (AI) in education’
The briefing begins by providing a definition of Generative AI, listing possible applications and outlining the benefits if offers.
None of these are particularly surprising, so this summary focuses on the challenges it presents and what you can do about them.
The key challenges:
Accuracy of content - AI-generated content may be inaccurate, biased, out-of-date, or misleading.
Data protection - Generative AI tools often store and process input data, which may violate data protection laws or expose sensitive personal information.
Intellectual property - AI tools may generate content based on copyrighted material without proper permissions, leading to potential legal issues. Original student or teacher work may also be misused to train AI models.
Safeguarding - AI tools may expose students to harmful, inappropriate, or biased content. Unregulated use of generative AI could also compromise online safety or be exploited for malicious purposes, such as creating realistic but fake communications.
To mitigate these risks (and others), the paper offered these suitably broad (but reassuringly concrete) recommendations:
Adhere to your legal obligations - schools must comply with existing frameworks: data protection, intellectual property law and Keeping Children Safe In Education.
Use your professional judgement - staff should always remain part of the process whether that to be assess the suitability output of content or the tools students are using.
Evaluate the risk - any use of generative AI by should be carefully considered and assessed, evaluating the benefits and risks of use in its education setting.
Update guidance - provide materials to guide staff students and parents - eg staff guidance on suitable uses, homework policies, parent information etc.
While the policy paper gives you a starting to point to get going, it doesn’t offer much insight into how schools are currently leading AI on the ground in their schools.
Which brings me on to…
🗓️ AI polices and practice in schools: share and learn from pooled resources and strategies.
When something’s new - and moving quickly - there are always lots questions. Rarely has this been more true as it with advances in AI right now.
That's why, we're helping some of our members to understand how others are leading AI in their schools.
We're gathering insights from across the community into things like:
policies
use cases
guidance, documentation and training
and more
If you're interested in...
accessing a shared drive of resources
learning from the insights we’re gathering and
being a part of of the project…
...share your details using the form below and we'll be in touch about:
how to access shared resources and
how to meet and learn from everyone who takes part.
How did this research come about? How can you get help like this? Read more here
🎥 Getting Impeccable Behaviour Using Scenario-Based CPD
Riuslip High School is an Outstanding School with a P8 of +0.62. But it hasn’t always been that way.
Join us to learn how Ruislip High School transformed its approach to student behaviour with innovative, scenario-based CPD that empowers staff and enhances the learning environment.
📆 Thur 30th Jan
🕟 4.30pm
💼 Jobs with We Are In Beta community members.
If you want to get your vacancies seen by the 23k school leaders and teachers who receive We Are In Beta newsletters across curriculum, pastoral and more, let us know here and we’ll send more info.
System Leadership
CEO - TKAT (Kent) Apply here
Head of People and Culture - Maiden Erlegh Trust (Berkshire) Apply here
CFO - Dunstone Education Trust (Lancashire) Apply here
CFO - Hope Sentamu Learning Trust (Hull and North Yorkshire) Apply here
Deputy Head of Finance - Community Schools Trust (Newham) Apply here
Executive Principal - King's Academy Binfield (and King's Academy Oakwood (Bracknell Forest) Apply here.
Trust Vice Principal York - Hope Sentamu Learning Trust (Hull and North Yorkshire) Apply here
Trust Maths Lead - Areté Learning Trust (North Yorks) Apply here
National Lead for History - Astrea Academy Trust (South Yorkshire and Cambridgeshire) Apply here
National Lead for RE- Astrea Academy Trust (South Yorkshire and Cambridgeshire) Apply here
National Lead for MFL - Astrea Academy Trust (South Yorkshire and Cambridgeshire) Apply here
National Lead for Teaching and Learning - Astrea Academy Trust (South Yorkshire and Cambridgeshire) Apply here
Governance Professional - Skinners Academy Trust (Kent) Apply here
Senior Leadership
Headteacher - Sandy Lane Primary School (Greenshaw Learning Trust) (Bracknell) Apply here
Deputy Headteacher (Culture & Ethos) - Yate Academy (Greenshaw Learning Trust) (Bristol) Apply here
Assistant Headteacher (Teaching and Learning Professional Development) - Gloucester Academy (Greenshaw Learning Trust) (Gloucestershire) Apply here
Senior Behaviour Lead - Henley Bank High School (Greenshaw Learning Trust) (Gloucestershire) Apply here
SENCO - Blessed Thomas Holford Catholic College (Trafford) Apply here
SENCO - Bridgemary School (TKAT) (Hampshire) Apply here
Middle Leadership
Head of Biology - Haggerston School (Hackney) Apply here
Head of Computer Science - The Brakenhale School (Bracknell Forest) Apply here
Head of Drama - The Hollyfield School and Sixth Form Centre (Kingston upon Thames) Apply here
Head of Geography, Travel & Tourism - The Wren School (Reading) Apply here
Second in Humanities - The Brakenhale School (Bracknell Forest) Apply here
Director of Performing Arts - Holmleigh Park High School (Gloucestershire) Apply here
Head of Department - Religious Studies - Worle Community School (North Somerset) Apply here
Director of Sport - Stoke Damerel Community College (Plymouth) Apply here
Head of Science - Haggerston School (Hackney) Apply here
KS3 Achievement Leader for Science - St Bede's Roman Catholic High School, (Blackburn) Apply here
Deputy Director of Science - Fulwood Academy (Lancashire) Apply here
Second in Science - Yate Academy (Bristol) Apply here
Head of Social Sciences - Yate Academy (Bristol) Apply here
Head of Sociology and Criminology - Carshalton High School for Girls (Sutton) Apply here
Head of Year -King's Academy Easthampstead Park (Bracknell Forest) Apply here
Teaching
Too many to list out here, so we have gathered them all here👇
Support roles
Office Manager - Future Academies (London) Apply here
HR Business Partner - Trust In Learning (Bristol) Apply here
HR Administrator (Furness Education Trust) Apply here
Talent Development Coordinator (Futura Learning Partnership) Apply here
Operations and Administration Manager (The Mercian Trust) (Birmingham) Apply here
Caretaker - The Priory Learning Trust (North Somerset) Apply here
6th Form Learning Mentor - The Priory Learning Trust (North Somerset) Apply here
Music Technician - The Priory Learning Trust (North Somerset) Apply here
Pastoral Support Officer - Lampton School (West London) Apply here
On a personal note
On a) AI tools we’ve been using and a) services we’re considering that might be useful for you….
As community managers, we manage a huge amount of information. There are 19k people, 2000+ resources, 500+ sessions and countless interactions between you all.
AI has helped us a bit but we’re only scratching the surface.
Tools we’ve used include ChatGPT (for content summaries), Zapier (for workflow automations) and Sonix AI (for transcriptions).
Three key principles we use are:
Only process content that has been generated inside the community (not any old stuff out there on the internet) - this ensures that what we produce reflects the nuances and practicalities of our members’ ideas and strategies (and avoids being vanilla)
Anonymise everything - we remove all members’ names and school names before processing any content to ensure we adhere to data protection guidance.
We, as humans, remain part of the process - all content generated by AI (eg session recording summaries) have been a) viewed by a We Are In Beta team member before processing and b) reviewed after generation to check accuracy against the original.
So what about those services?
We’re being asked more and more to find people who have capacity to the help our members achieve their goals in a more formal capacity - be it short term projects or more medium term contracts.
We have a growing pool of experts who are now delivering that work in schools.
AI is one such area.
If you:
a) have a need in an area and would like to be connected to an expert or
b) have expertise and want to do more paid work in other schools…
…reply to this email and we’ll see what we can do to help.
Thanks for reading.
@NiallAlcock and the We Are In Beta team
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