Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become a rapidly advancing technology that brings a huge amount of potential to the world of education.

Our vision at Gresham’s is to harness the power of generative AI tools to enrich teaching, enhance learning, empower pupils (in terms of their own learning) and encourage creativity. 

Ways pupils can benefit from the use of generative AI tools:

• Using Large Language Models (LLMs) to explain concepts they are uncertain of
• Creating examples of sample tasks for revision
• Enabling retrieval practice through rapid generation of multiple choice and other questions
• Producing revision schedules tailored to their individual need
• Summarising complex concepts so they can be more easily accessed by all abilities
• Assistance with research for essays and other extended writing tasks.

Many universities are embracing AI with their students, allowing its use in a controlled way to help support the generation of assignments. In addition, use of generative AI tools is becoming an integral part of the modern world of employment, creating time saving opportunities and the potential to make organisations more efficient and effective. It is likely that pupils will be starting university courses and jobs in a variety of sectors where confident use of AI tools is of great benefit.

We are fortunate to have an AI consultant working with us on this journey, to support both staff and pupils as we navigate together the challenges and opportunities a world with AI brings. Izabella Bessenyey is a graduate of Harvard University, and she has completed an MPhil with the University of Cambridge in the Ethics of AI, Data and Algorithms. She is currently studying for her PhD at the University of Cambridge in Human-Inspired AI and has been working with the school one day a week since September.

In that time, she has led staff training on how to prompt LLMs effectively to get the best output and has met staff one to one to discuss their training needs for AI use, including attending a lesson where she worked with Year 13 pupils on how they could use AI for a specific task. She has worked with Year 11 on a field day, showing them how to prompt effectively and how to use AI tools to help them prepare revision materials, as well as how to use it to test themselves on content to prepare for exams.

She has now started working with small groups of pupils in Year 13 and Year 9, giving them guidance and tips on how to use AI to help with their work (not simply how to do it for them) and how it can be useful as a revision tool. She has also taught the importance of checking for bias and hallucinations too, and what AI use looks like at university. The plan is she will meet as many pupils as possible in the school in small group settings over the course of the year.

Izabella will be presenting some tips for using AI to support research and revision at our upcoming parent’s AI information evening event on Friday 14^th November. A letter about this went out just before Half Term, so any parents interested in attending are asked to please complete the form via the link in the letter.