Education · 29 September 2026

AI in Education

For teachers, school leaders and MATs

At askKira, we provide GDPR-compliant, secure AI built specifically for UK schools. Developed with over 100 education experts and aligned with DfE, Ofsted and EEF guidance, askKira helps teachers, school leaders and MATs work smarter, reduce workload and make data-driven decisions with confidence.

This week's roundup brings you the latest AI developments that matter for UK education.

AI in Education

A NOTE FROM THE ASKIRA TEAM THIS WEEK

We want to be straight with you. This week, the articles submitted for curation were overwhelmingly sourced from LinkedIn posts, unverified X/Twitter accounts and supplementary social media content that could not be independently verified against primary sources. Several articles were duplicates of one another, and the remaining pieces did not meet our standards for recency, verification or newsworthiness for a UK school audience. Rather than fill this section with unverified claims, repackaged opinion or promotional content, we have made the editorial decision not to publish five stories this week. That is the right call for a newsletter that UK educators trust. What the submitted articles do point to, however, is a genuinely important underlying story worth summarising here.

Microsoft's AI in Education Report surfaces a critical training gap

Microsoft's global AI in Education Report, which has been circulating widely this week in education networks, finds that 86% of education organisations now use generative AI, more than any other sector. Yet nearly half of educators and over half of students report receiving no meaningful training whatsoever. Leaders have purchased licences and described that as a strategy. The gap between adoption and genuine capability is widening fast.

Why it matters: UK schools are not immune to this pattern. DfE guidance encourages responsible AI adoption, but without ringfenced CPD budgets and structured staff development, English schools risk replicating exactly the same adoption-without-redesign failure the report describes. If your staff have access to AI tools but no training framework, the tool is not your strategy.

Read the source on LinkedIn →

European Commission findings stress teacher training over tool access

Social media posts this week referenced new European Commission findings on AI in education, with commentary from UK-based technology professionals emphasising that long-term learning impacts of AI tools remain poorly understood. The consensus view is clear: tool access without teacher guidance is not a policy.

Why it matters: For UK MAT leaders and school governors, this reinforces that procurement decisions must be accompanied by training plans, not treated as separate questions to resolve later.

Read the source on X →

On your radar

Training Gap AuditFollowing Microsoft's finding that nearly half of educators received no AI training despite their institutions adopting tools, ask your leadership team this week: can every member of staff name the AI tools approved for use in your school and explain what data those tools process?
Licence Does Not Equal StrategyPurchasing an AI licence is not an AI strategy. If your school has deployed tools without a parallel staff development programme, schedule a governors' agenda item now to review readiness before the autumn term embeds poor habits further.
Assessment Redesign ConversationThe Microsoft report highlights that students primarily use AI to summarise content, which offloads exactly the cognitive work that produces learning. UK teachers should audit which homework and assessment tasks could be completed entirely by AI, and redesign those tasks to require live, oral or process-based evidence of understanding.
European Commission Research WatchNew EU-level research on AI in classrooms is beginning to surface findings about long-term learning impacts. UK schools are no longer bound by EU frameworks post-Brexit, but the evidence base is directly relevant. Assign a member of your senior leadership team to monitor EEF and European findings in parallel.
CPD Budget ProtectionWith AI adoption accelerating across UK schools but central funding for training remaining limited, MAT finance leads should explicitly protect CPD budgets from autumn term pressures. Training costs incurred now are significantly cheaper than the remediation costs of widespread misuse later.
Struggle as LearningThe most actionable insight from this week's research is deceptively simple. Students who used AI alongside their own note-taking outperformed those who relied on AI alone. Brief your teaching staff: AI should prompt productive struggle, not remove it. The goal is to make thinking harder, not easier.
OlderAI in Education, 22 September 2026