Alan Stupple, director of Maths at Bedfordshire Schools Trust, shares how he’s using the DfE support materials on AI across the trust.
My role takes me everywhere from supporting an intervention in year two to taking full year 13 classes. It’s the best job out there because I’m not based in one place or one classroom – it varies day to day.
How I got into AI
I first got into AI through the Mr Barton’s Maths podcasts a few months ago. There were three episodes on using AI in the classroom, and one mentioned the DfE modules right around the time they were released. That got me thinking about how we could use this across the trust.
Building staff confidence
What we found was, before we could even talk about large language models or specific tools, some of our staff didn’t have the knowledge of what AI was and what it wasn’t.
There are probably three different camps: teachers who are petrified and don’t quite know what it is, those who are jumping into it and may need to be reined back a bit, and those somewhere in between.
Delivering CPD
We’ve now delivered whole school CPD to three schools. I took slides from the DfE modules – particularly the ones about what makes a good ‘prompt’. They explain the output, what role the AI should take on, and how to write specifically.
We showed the difference between a good prompt and a not-good prompt, using examples such as creating science questions on light for year three.
Then we got staff to actually do it. We gave them scenarios about their own classes and helped them build good prompts. We took work from their shared drives and rewrote it together in the sessions.
Safety first
The most common questions we get are about safety: what can and can’t we put in? Are we allowed to use it on school servers? Staff just wanted to know they weren’t breaking any rules.
We worked with our trust safeguarding and SEND lead to make sure the reminders in his staff presentations were clear – this is what you can and can’t do in terms of pupil data and intellectual property.
Time well spent
The biggest challenge is finding the time to sit down and actually do it at the start. You’ve got to dedicate an hour or two to play around with AI tools and accept that you’re not going to get a perfect answer straight away. That iteration and refinement is key – we want staff to leave knowing the first thing they put in isn’t going to be the best answer they get.
With curriculum reform coming and AI being laced throughout, I think everyone needs a baseline understanding. We’re planning to roll this training out to all our schools that haven’t had it yet, and I’m already using it in my feedback sessions with teachers, looking at how we incorporate teaching techniques such as atomisation into lessons.
Find out more
Access the Using AI in education settings support materials
