“ By the end of 2025, 80% of secondary school pupils were using generative AI tools for their schoolwork, but this is overwhelmingly outside of the classroom, so the pattern here is clear. Lots of informal use, but very little structured use.”


PROFESSOR MILES BERRY, COMPUTING EDUCATION, UNIVERSITY OF ROEHAMPTON


overwhelmingly outside of the classroom, so the pattern here is clear. Lots of informal use, but very little structured use.” On teacher adoption, he added


that while around two fifths of teachers are using generative AI at least sometimes, where teachers are using it, it is often around a very narrow set of admin tasks like generating lesson materials or curriculum planning which is useful, but only a part of what AI could do for educators. In terms of school level


adoption, Large implied the data is more stark. With only around one fifth of primary and secondary schools having a policy in place on the safe and appropriate use of AI. While only one in five teachers say anyone in their school is teaching pupils what AI is and how it works.


AN EMERGING DIVIDE Furthermore, he noted that who gets to develop the AI skills needed to thrive is not evenly distributed. With independent schools being “almost three times more likely than state schools to have a school-wide AI strategy, more likely to teach pupils how to use AI, and to teach how AI applies within subject areas.” The TBI report warns an


emerging social divide could create a new divide on top of the old one. A divide that is not just about access to technology; but access to


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opportunity, confidence and the AI skills necessary that lead to success in the future. “This is fundamentally a


progressive opportunity for everyone in the education space. AI proficiency and ensuring a safe and effective supply of AI products cannot be left to better resourced schools, or a small group of pupils. It must be a universal entitlement, and the choice for English education systems is whether it leads or follows,” said Large. With informal student use of


AI, shallow teacher use, a limited whole school strategy and a new digital divide that is opening up in real time, Large took a closer look at what is driving that.


OBSTACLES AHEAD Large shared five areas the report identifies are within the government’s power to fix in order to get young people AI ready. “The first is leadership. School


leaders are waiting for clear signals, they’re cautious, understandably so, given the risks involved. There is also a lack of teacher confidence in using AI. Our polling highlighted that 91% of those who use AI are entirely self-taught and I think that links to a kind of a systematic training pipeline problem.” The third, noted Large, is


information asymmetry as schools struggle to get the right information


to tell good products from bad ones, with teachers left to navigate a noisy market. The fourth is digital infrastructure – a continuing problem around the digital divide. “Our polling highlights that


barely half of secondary schools have reliable whole school Wi- Fi, and around the same figure have access to laptops for in-class learning. You can’t run AI-enabled learning on patchy Wi-Fi and inadequate supply of devices. The final driver is market dysfunction.” The market dysfunction the TBI


research refers to is a significant reduction of investment in school technology which Large stated has fallen by around 96% since 2020 with just 0.7% of ed tech investment going into AI tools. By contrast, the equivalent figure for AI investment in the health tech sector is around 22%. Implying, said Large, that the market is not delivering what schools need and capital is not flowing in. The accelerated pace of AI


adoption, AI literacy and the need to have it deeper embedded in the curriculum to become more of a core outcome of schooling was discussed too.


COGNITIVE OFFLOADING A key topic was cognitive offloading – where students use AI to bypass learning rather than deepen it, avoiding the building of a knowledge


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