Teacher in private school using AI for everything.

[ShakespeareSallo]

As the title says really.

My now teenage child has attended a private school since 11, they are now in Year 10. It has been a great experience for them and worth the money. We aren’t rich by any means but afford it by making cut backs, we haven’t been on holiday for 5 years. VAT has hugely impacted us.

My child now has a teacher for a core subject which they haven’t had before. They bring their book home every week, and it is very obvious that the whole scheme of work and all of the worksheets and homework are AI generated. I am not a dinosaur, and I do use AI myself. However, this level of usage coming from my child’s teacher seems excessive, and I am not sure how much actual teaching is going on? My child has also said all of the PowerPoints used in lessons are obviously AI generated, and even that it has appeared as though the things on the PowerPoints the teacher is seeing for the first time alongside the students?!

Less of an issue, but I’ve also had some suspiciously AI looking and sounding emails from other members of staff in the school.

WIBU to arrange a meeting with the Head of Year to raise these concerns, or is this just the modern era of teaching?

So all this is coming from your child?

Or you have checked that absolutely all output from this teacher is AI generated?

We aren’t rich by any means but afford it by making cut backs, we haven’t been on holiday for 5 years. VAT has hugely impacted us.

irrelevant

Is it affecting the quality of teaching and the school curriculum?

All the worksheets in the book and homework’s that have come home are obviously AI generated, you can tell by the art style.

Well either AI generates the worksheets or the teacher pinches them off TES - chances are the AI ones are more specific to the actual lesson.

Why are you specifying private school? Surely teachers using AI for everything is bad at every school?

Because private school teachers have to write worksheets in their own blood so that parents get their money's worth.

Teachers work very long hours, would you prefer them to spend hours every night and weekend writing every worksheet by hand?

Is the information in the worksheet accurate? The work still of high standard? If so, I’m not sure what you’d be complaining about. If not, that should be the focus of your query to the school, not the AI.

😂👏🏼

So you have considered all these worksheets and concluded this…. Every single thing this teacher has produced?

how is your child doing in this particular subject? I’ll take a wild guess - not thriving

I’d be dubious about she doesn’t know what’s on the next side of the ppt etc, but most schools will now have an ai policy. Also, a lot of schools are buying into ai teaching aids like teachmate that create PowerPoints, worksheets, generate reports etc. This year, in my school, a lot of the ppts teachers use are very obviously ai- even the pupils can recognise this. I’m not saying I agree with it, but I think the school will probably be encouraging it as they will say it’s cutting teachers’ workload, or at the very least, be aware it is happening.

It is possible that they are centrally produced and therefore although she has taught X as a topic and knows it inside out she hasn't specifically seen a worksheet produced by another member of staff.

As long as the information is correct and not hallucinated does it matter?

I’m a teacher and I think it’s shoddy, but I might be in a minority. I do use AI to help give me ideas for lesson activities, or to generate things like questions on an article, but I never just copy and paste into a worksheet or use it to generate a PowerPoint, I make those myself and write the content of the courses myself. Kids can tell when it’s all AI-generated and they hate it. Also I feel I should do them the honour of at least running the lesson material through my brain first.

This is such an important and thought-provoking issue, and firstly, I want to acknowledge how valid your concerns are. 👏
As we navigate the rapidly evolving landscape of education in the age of artificial intelligence, it’s essential to strike a balance between embracing technological innovation and preserving the irreplaceable human element of teaching. 🎓🤖
Here are a few key points worth considering:
✅ AI is a tool, not a teacher. While AI-generated resources can enhance learning outcomes, they should never replace the expertise, professional judgement and pedagogical skills of a qualified educator.
✅ Transparency is key. Parents have every right to understand how AI is being integrated into their child’s educational journey.
✅ Value for money matters. Particularly in the independent sector, where parents are making significant financial sacrifices, expectations around educational quality are understandably high.
✅ Communication is crucial. A constructive, solutions-focused conversation with the Head of Year could provide valuable clarity and reassurance.
The bottom line? 🚀
It’s not about AI versus teachers. It’s about AI empowering teachers to deliver the best possible outcomes for every learner.
Remember: Technology should enhance education, not replace the human connections that make learning meaningful.
You’ve raised an incredibly important question, and I applaud you for starting this conversation. 💡
What do others think? Have we reached a tipping point in the AI revolution in education? I’d love to hear your perspectives! 👇
#EducationMatters #AIinEducation #ParentVoice #FutureOfLearning

Yes that would be my query. I fail to see what effect this has on the teaching unless its wrong or misinformation or not allowing your child to learn the things they need to

Is that the case OP?

It could be that the school has bought in a pre prepared scheme of work. That's quite a common thing these days.
It saves preparation time as a good one will have differentiated activities integrated into it and it means that schools can be sure that all the different classes have a similar input.
Many organisations have adopted a corporate style for fonts etc, so the teacher might not have a say on the this.
However, some published schemes are a lot better than others, and some teachers deliver the materials better than others.
Look at the quality of the resources and their delivery rather than the " art style".
If you have genuine content or delivery concerns I would contact the school and ask to speak to the teacher, but make sure you have more specific attainment related points han the ones you have voiced here.

Well I think it's appalling. I'm not suprised though, DH is a teacher and the shit ones usually end up in private schools...

Mwahahaha 🤖

They still won’t be getting paid for all the hours they work! The content still has to be taught/explained and assessed by the teacher.

As long as your child isn’t on screens all class, is still learning well and is engaged in using worksheets than staring at online learning and it’s only worksheets the teacher is generating, then I wouldn’t see it as a valid complaint (other than the environmental impact which is worth mentioning- as they and @Btc76 on here should be more responsible in this way, IMHO).

Is this AI generated?😂

I’d have some concerns about the teaching, but not about the emails.

I used to agonise over every word, trying to get the tone right. Now Intype a quick email and ask ChatGPT to make it more parent friendly, or more stern, or more of a team approach to solve an issue. It can tweak what I’ve written very quickly, freeing up my time for planning and marking.

if it is accurate then I don’t know why you would be bothered - so what if they are not preparing every slide or work sheet themselves as long as it has been checked to be accurate, appropriate for level and teaching style etc. They mostly get them from a central resource anyway so I don’t really understand why it matters aside from this general notion that AI ‘not good’. Well why isn’t it good for a worksheet if accurate and appropriate? What difference does it make to you? If your son is struggling then that is a separate matter which needs addressing. Surely better for teachers to spend time on other matters rather than generating worksheets themselves that can be done in a fraction of the time.

doesn’t matter that you pay or that you apparently have to make cut backs to pay - who cares. Totally irrelevant to whether AI is appropriate in schools or not. It either is it or it’s not, it’s not simply inappropriate because you feel your son deserves more than state school children because you pay 🙄

It’s not about whether it’s AI or not, it’s whether it’s accurate or not and whether the teacher is actually helping the children to understand the material and get the exam results they are capable of. I have had to do a huge rewrite of my entire A Level scheme because of a change outside my control. I have used AI to produce the resources HOWEVER I can tell you that they are getting much better teaching than if I hadn’t done it because I’ve been able to focus on what’s going into the scheme and the lesson content, in what sequence in order to make the learning more effective and produce much more engaging lesson tasks than if I had been painstakingly producing every resource myself. They’ve been given detailed post-lesson consolidation material because I can get it produced automatically - they just wouldn’t have it otherwise - and they are getting much more detailed exam feedback because I have more time to do that and have spent some time setting up my marking and feedback systems using AI. If you have a poor teacher using AI badly, it’s not really any different to a poor teacher not using AI and teaching badly (it may even be better). A good teacher using AI well is game-changing.

It's not parent friendly at all to have AI generated emails - I would complain if I was receiving these and it's very obvious when an email is written by chatgpt so parents will know. It immediately makes you appear insincere and disengaged.

I taught for twenty years and now have my own teens in private school. I left teaching after covid and pre-AI, but I can say that I would never have used it if it available to generate worksheets or PowerPoints. I'd be telling kids never to use it for their own work, and that message would be entirely undermined if the teachers are using it for theirs! Planning lessons and creating resources is part of the job and it's how I really embedded the content in my own mind ready to teach it to students. Of course I shared resources and lessons plans with my team and we used each other's work, but the idea of feeding it through AI makes me recoil. I wouldn't be willing to pay for that in my kids' school and I certainly don't think kids in state schools should have to put up with it either. Of course teachers are overworked and underresourced, but AI slop in the classroom is never going to be ok.