Start here
Nobody arrives at a site like this looking for a word. You arrive with a situation. Find yours below, and take the guide and the template together. Each route is one guide to read and one file to fill in. Nothing here needs an account, and everything can be handed to someone else in your school.
Starting from nothing
Nine steps, about a term
In order, with the file for each step and the guide that explains it. It follows the first hundred days in the book, so the weeks are a guide, not a deadline.
- 1
Find out what is already in use
An amnesty, not an inquiry: five questions to staff, and what the network logs show.
Weeks 1 to 2 - 2
Answer the ten questions
One meeting with the head or deputy, DPO, DSL, exams officer and IT. Minute the answers.
Weeks 3 to 4 - 3
Put up the four rules
Publish them before the policy is finished. It cuts the risk straight away.
Weeks 3 to 4 - 4
Build the policy
Draft from the ten answers, consult staff for a fortnight, and take it for approval.
Weeks 5 to 8 - 5
Start the register
Live from week 5, with everything the audit found marked approved, under review or not approved.
Week 5 - 6
Assess the most-used tool
A DPIA for the tool that touches the most personal data, with the vendor questions in writing.
Weeks 5 to 8 - 7
Brief candidates
Before the first coursework window, not after the first suspicion.
Weeks 9 to 12 - 8
Write to parents
What you allow, what you teach, and who to tell.
Weeks 9 to 12 - 9
Report to governors
Fifteen minutes and one page. Minute it, then diarise the review.
Weeks 13 to 14
Staff training runs alongside steps 7 and 8, from the free INSET pack or the staff course. Already part of the way? Start from your situation below.
Or start from your situation
- 01
We have been told to write an AI policy
Ten decisions settle almost everything. Make those first and the writing is mostly transcription.
Usually: head or deputy, business manager, DPO
- 02
We are about to buy a tool with AI in it
Sixteen questions, asked in writing, before anyone signs. A vague answer is an answer.
Usually: business manager, IT lead, DPO
- 03
Something has happened involving an image
It goes to the safeguarding lead the same day, whether or not the image is real. The route you already have is the right one.
Usually: DSL and deputies, any member of staff
- 04
Coursework season is coming
The declaration of authentication decides everything that follows. Brief candidates before they write, not after.
Usually: exams officer, heads of department
- 05
A tool wants our pupil data
Assume an assessment is needed, then spend the effort on doing it well. Step two is where the real work is.
Usually: DPO, data manager, whoever is introducing the tool
- 06
Staff keep asking what they are allowed to do
Four rules, one page, published before the full policy is finished. It buys you the term. The free INSET pack runs the session.
Usually: head or deputy, whoever runs INSET
- 07
A teacher suspects AI in a piece of submitted work
Slow it down. Detector scores are not proof, and whether a declaration has been signed decides which route this takes.
Usually: exams officer, head of department, class teacher
- 08
Governors have asked what we are doing about AI
One page, once a term: what is in use, the position, the policy, the checks, the training, and the open items.
Usually: head or deputy, policy owner, clerk
None of these quite fit?
The guides index lists everything in date order, and the glossary explains the terms that get used without explanation. If you are starting from nothing at all, read the regulatory map first: it is the one that makes the rest make sense.
All guides