In a move set to transform the world of education, the UK Government is injecting £2 million into the Oak National Academy to enhance and expand Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools for teachers. The goal is to provide every teacher in England with a personalised AI lesson-planning assistant.

The innovative initiative seeks to make teaching more efficient and effective by leveraging AI to help educators plan lessons, build classroom quizzes, and reduce workloads. This strategic partnership follows the successful pilot of AI-powered tools that enable teachers to create customised content tailored to their students, using Oak National Academy’s high-quality curriculum materials.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has praised the revolutionary potential of AI in education, emphasising the benefits for both teachers and students. Education Secretary Gillian Keegan is confident that by harnessing AI’s advantages, teachers’ workloads can be lightened, allowing them to concentrate on their primary role: educating and supporting pupils.

Initial testing of the AI-powered tools has garnered positive feedback from teachers who found the tools to be invaluable in speeding up lesson planning and refining existing materials. These tools have the potential to revolutionise how lessons are planned and resources are created.

At present, over 30,000 teachers are already using Oak National Academy resources each week. The project will build on Oak’s commitment to making resources accessible under the Open Government Licence. Ensuring that any content produced with these AI tools will be accurate, safe, and of high quality.

Oak National Academy’s Co-Founder and Chief Executive, Matt Hood OBE, explained that this initiative will significantly ease teachers’ workloads, enabling them to spend more time directly engaging with their pupils. The ultimate aim is to empower educators across the UK.

Today’s announcement coincides with a two-day AI hackathon hosted by the Department for Education in collaboration with Faculty AI, the National Institute of Teaching, and the AI in Schools Initiative. The event brings together educators from schools and trusts across England to explore the possibilities of AI in the education sector.

Over the coming months, the UK Government will work alongside teachers and experts to develop solutions that reduce the time teachers spend working beyond their teaching hours, with a goal of reducing working hours by five hours per week for teachers and leaders. Next month, the Department for Education will release the results of its AI call for evidence, further advancing the safe and ethical implementation of AI in education.

You can read the full press release here.

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This article was written by the Teacher Haven team, if you wish to contribute to our blog, please email us at info@doceoconsulting.co.uk