PRESS RELEASE : Teachers to get more trustworthy AI tech, helping them mark homework and save time [August 2024]

The press release issued by the Department for Education on 28 August 2024.

The UK government announced a new project today that will enhance the ability of AI generative tools to learn from a new bank of lesson plans and curriculums.

Artificial intelligence (AI) will be better at helping teachers mark work and plan lessons under a new project announced by the UK government today.

The project, backed by £4 million of government investment, will pool government documents including curriculum guidance, lesson plans and anonymised pupil assessments which will then be used by AI companies to train their tools to generate accurate, high-quality content. The content, such as tailored, creative lesson plans and workbooks, can then be reliably used in schools.

The content store is targeted at technology companies specialising in education to build tools that will help teachers:

• mark work
• create teaching materials for use in the classroom
• assist with routine school admin

It comes as new research shows parents want teachers to use generative AI to have more time helping children in the classroom with face-to-face teaching – supporting the government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity. However, teachers and AI developers are clear that better data is needed to make these technologies work properly, which this project looks to help with.

Science Secretary Peter Kyle said:

We know teachers work tirelessly to go above and beyond for their students.

By making AI work for them, this project aims to ease admin burdens and help them deliver creative and inspiring lessons every day, while reducing time pressures they face.

This is the first of many projects that will transform how we see and use public sector data. We will put the information we hold to work, using it in a safe and responsible way to reduce waiting lists, cut backlogs and improve outcomes for citizens across the country.

Minister for Early Education Stephen Morgan said:

We are determined to break down the barriers to opportunity to ensure every child can get the best possible education – and that includes access to the best tech innovations for all. Artificial intelligence, when made safe and reliable, represents an exciting opportunity to give our schools leaders and teachers a helping hand with classroom life.

Today’s world-leading announcement marks a huge step forward for AI in the classroom. This investment will allow us to safely harness the power of tech to make it work for our hard-working teachers, easing the pressures and workload burdens we know are facing the profession and freeing up time, allowing them to focus on face-to-face teaching.

The content store, backed by £3 million, is a first-of-its kind approach to processing government data for AI, as the UK government forges ahead with using technology to transform public services and improve people’s lives across the country.

It includes a partnership with the Open University, who will share learning resources as part of the project.

This follows Department for Education tests, published today, which show that providing generative AI models with this kind of data can increase accuracy to 92% – up from 67% when no targeted data was provided to a large language model.

Minister Morgan announced the project today during a speech to international education ministers at the Global Education Innovation Summit (GEIS) in Seoul, Republic of Korea.  The three-day event, on the theme of ‘classroom revolution led by teachers with AI’ will see the launch of the Global Education and Innovation Alliance, of which the UK will be one of the founding members.

He told the delegation the world-leading initiative will mark the first government-approved store of high-quality education material optimised for AI product development and will stimulate the production of safe, legally compliant, evidence-based tools, relevant to our teachers’ needs.

Almost half of teachers are already using AI to help with their work, according to a survey from TeacherTapp, but current AI tools are not specifically trained on the documents that set out how teaching should work in England.

Chris Goodall, a teacher and head of digital education in the Bourne Education Trust, first started using AI when he was teaching business in November 2022. In this role, Chris experimented with using ChatGPT to develop a range of lesson activities, such as personalised case studies, to complement his lessons.

Chris now supports teachers in the Trust, across over 26 primary, secondary and specialist schools, to use AI to enhance their lessons and cut down the time they spend on admin. With his support, teachers have used generative AI to evaluate their curriculum materials and develop case studies and activities to create engaging lessons. For example, teachers at Auriol Junior School illustrated a teacher-written guide encouraging students to read more books with AI-generated text, cartoon creatures and music. This guide encouraged students to become a ‘literacy monster’ and made the programme more engaging.

Chris Goodall, a teacher and head of digital education in the Bourne Education Trust, said:

AI has been a hugely powerful tool for me and my colleagues at the Bourne Education Trust. It allows us to create engaging, personalised learning experiences for our students while also significantly reducing the time taken to create them. Personally, I’ve used AI to quickly generate scaffolded activities, adapt materials for students with special educational needs, and create more engaging lessons that are accessible to all. The time saved allows school staff to focus on what matters most, interacting with students and providing individualised feedback and support.

The content store will take this to the next level by offering easy access to high quality evidence based and legally compliant education materials. Developed with input from educators it supports effective teaching practices and fosters collaboration and innovation.

This initiative demonstrates how AI, when implemented responsibly and ethically, can support and empower teachers to create more dynamic, personalised learning experiences for students.

Ian Cunningham, the chief technical officer of TeachMateAI, a company that makes AI tools to help teachers, said:

TeachMateAI already saves teachers over 10+ house of time each week through our AI tools, but we are ambitious about what more we can do to support teachers and schools. The AI education store has the potential to enable us and other developers to produce highly accurate tools for the sector in a much more efficient way, reducing cost, compute and the time it takes us to bring new products to market.

The Department for Education is also today committing to publishing a safety framework on AI products for education, due later this year. Minister Morgan will meet education technology companies before setting out clear expectations for the safety of AI products for education.

Professor Ian Pickup, Pro Vice Chancellor, Students, at The Open University, said:

We’re excited to be a founding strategic partner in this initiative alongside DfE. Since our founding in 1969, we have remained at the forefront of innovation in education. As part of this mission, we have provided free, open-access materials via OpenLearn since 2006, and see the deployment of AI as a means through which even more learners can benefit from the transformative power of education.

By making content accessible to new educational technology tools, we foresee a future where learning materials can be best matched to personal needs, where learning tasks can be pitched at the right level for student success, and where students can progress at a pace that is right for them.