A London school is using AI to teach a class – but will this really help pupils to learn and engage, and lighten the workload of struggling human teachers?
In September 2024, an independent school in London announced that an AI platform would teach a group of its GCSE students. The ‘teacherless classroom’ (which still has three teachers overseeing youngsters using the alternative job title ‘learning coach’) caused both outrage and excitement in equal measure. Had AI finally crashed the cosy little party of British education, so often immune to goings-on in the outside world? Or was it just another attempt by clever tech developers to outdo their equally clever competitors?
Search the internet and you will find all sorts of ‘go-to AI solutions for next-gen education’. Forget all that sort of talk, though. If AI is going to make the difference to education that those involved insist it will, the technologies need to do two simple things – enhance children’s learning and be usable in schools...