DfE supports development of AI tools for teachers

The Department for Education (DfE) has committed to providing every teacher in England with a personalised AI planning assistant free of charge.

It has announced a £2 million investment to support the Oak National Academy, which was established to develop new AI teaching tools that can help plan lessons, build classroom quizzes and reduce workloads. 

The investment will help Oak to improve these tools further before making them available to teachers across the country.

There are already 30,000 teachers using Oak every week. They have provided positive feedback from the initial testing, noting the tools’ ability to help them to speed up planning and refine existing materials.

One Year 4 teacher from Berkshire, who used the Quiz Designer stated: “Oak’s AI tool has massively improved the quality and variety of quizzes I can create. And it’s much faster than making them myself from scratch.”

A secondary school teacher in Devon stated: “Oak’s AI lesson planner offers a really helpful starting point if stuck or low on inspiration and I was particularly impressed at how good it is at highlighting common misconceptions.”

Next month, DfE will publish the results of its AI call for evidence, which was launched to gather views from educational professionals on the risks, ethical considerations, and possibilities of AI in education. The results will support government's work to identify AI’s potential and ensure it advances responsibly.