DfE: £3mn content store to be used to develop AI teaching tools

The Department for Education (DfE) has announced that artificial intelligence will be used to help teachers mark work and plan lessons under a new £4 million project.

By pooling government documents such as curriculum guidance, lesson plans and anonymised pupil assessments, will then be used to train AI tools to generate tailored lesson plans and workbooks, that can be used in schools. 

The content store, backed by £3 million, is targeted at ed tech companies to build tools which will help teachers mark work, create teaching materials for use in the classroom and assist with routine school admin. 

It comes as new research shows parents want teachers to use generative AI to enable them to have more time helping children in the classroom with face-to-face teaching – supporting the government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity. However, teachers and AI developers are clear better data is needed to make these technologies work properly, which this project looks to help with. 

"We know teachers work tirelessly to go above and beyond for their students. By making AI work for them, this project aims to ease admin burdens and help them deliver creative and inspiring lessons every day, while reducing time pressures they face," said Peter Kyle, Science Secretary.

He added, "This is the first of many projects that will transform how we see and use public sector data. We will put the information we hold to work, using it in a safe and responsible way to reduce waiting lists, cut backlogs and improve outcomes for citizens across the country."

The project includes a partnership with the Open University which is sharing learning resources to be drawn on as part of the project. This follows DfE tests, which show providing generative AI models with this kind of data can increase accuracy to 92%, up from 67% when no targeted data was provided to a large language model. 

In a speech to international education ministers at the Global Education Innovation Summit (GEIS) in Seoul, Stephen Morgan, the Minister for Early Education said, "This investment will allow us to safely harness the power of tech to make it work for our hard-working teachers, easing the pressures and workload burdens we know are facing the profession and freeing up time, allowing them to focus on face-to-face teaching."

He told the delegation the world-leading initiative will mark the first government-approved store of high-quality education material optimised for AI product development and will stimulate the production of safe, legally compliant, evidence-based tools, relevant to our teachers’ needs. 

To encourage AI companies to make use of the datastore, a share of an additional £1 million will be awarded to those who bring forward the best ideas to put the data into practice to reduce teacher workload. Each winner will build an AI tool to help teachers specifically with feedback and marking by March 2025, with applications opening on 9th September. 

Almost half of teachers are already using AI to help with their work, according to a survey from TeacherTapp, but current AI tools are not specifically trained on the documents setting out how teaching should work in England. 

Chris Goodall, a teacher and Head of Digital Education in the Bourne Education Trust, first started using AI when he was teaching business in November 2022. Here, Chris experimented with using ChatGPT to develop a range of lesson activities, such as personalised case studies, to complement his lessons. 

Now, Chris supports teachers across over 26 primary, secondary and specialist schools in the Trust to enhance their lessons and cut down the time they need to spend on admin by using AI. 

With his support, teachers have used generative AI to evaluate their curriculum materials, create case studies and other activities to create engaging lessons. Teachers at Auriol Junior School even illustrated a teacher-written guide encouraging students to read more books with AI-generated text, cartoon creatures and music, encouraging students to become a “literacy monster” and making the programme more engaging. 

Chris Goodall, a teacher and Head of Digital Education in the Bourne Education Trust, said: 

"AI has been a hugely powerful tool for me and my colleagues at the Bourne Education Trust. It allows us to create engaging, personalised learning experiences for our students while also significantly reducing the time taken to create them.

Personally, I’ve used AI to quickly generate scaffolded activities, adapt materials for students with special educational needs, and create more engaging lessons that are accessible to all. The time saved allows school staff to focus on what matters most, interacting with students and providing individualised feedback and support. 

The content store will take this to the next level by offering easy access to high quality evidence based and legally compliant education materials. Developed with input from educators it supports effective teaching practices and fosters collaboration and innovation. 

This initiative demonstrates how AI, when implemented responsibly and ethically, can support and empower teachers to create more dynamic, personalised learning experiences for students."

Ian Cunningham, the Chief Technical Office of TeachMate, which makes AI tools to help teachers, said: 

"The AI education store has the potential to enable us and other developers to produce highly accurate tools for the sector in a much more efficient way, reducing cost, compute and the time it takes us to bring new products to market."

The DfE is also committing to publishing a safety framework on AI products for education later this year. Minister Morgan will meet education technology companies before setting out clear expectations for the safety of AI products for education. 

Professor Ian Pickup, Pro Vice Chancellor, Students, at The Open University, said:

We’re excited to be a founding strategic partner in this initiative alongside DfE. Since our founding in 1969, we have remained at the forefront of innovation in education.

As part of this mission, we have provided free, open-access materials via OpenLearn since 2006, and see the deployment of AI as a means through which even more learners can benefit from the transformative power of education.  

By making content accessible to new educational technology tools, we foresee a future where learning materials can be best matched to personal needs, where learning tasks can be pitched at the right level for student success, and where students can progress at a pace that is right for them.