A case study from schools across Portsmouth: The Digital City project
As part of our ongoing research exploring how generative AI tools are influencing literacy, we asked teachers what support they’d most value in relation to using AI to support learning and literacy. Among the most popular responses were examples of good practice, case studies, guidance on how to use AI to support accessibility and how to support pupils’ effective use of AI.
In this blog, we share information and insights from Gemma Gwilliam, Head of Digital Learning, Education and Innovation at Portsmouth Education Partnership and Assistant Heads of Digital Learning Nicci Sawdy and Amy Quade, who describe how schools working with the Portsmouth: The Digital City project were supported to develop AI literacy in teachers, children and parents; learnings that are intentionally transferable to any classroom setting.
Strategy: making AI a shared, and fair, journey
In Portsmouth, The Digital City project’s coordinated initiative aimed to help primary school children build AI literacy within their everyday learning. As Gemma explains, the initiative was underpinned by principles of safety and equity and followed a clear progression from supporting learning to targeting inequalities:
“We want everyone in the city to understand how to use generative tools safely and securely. It has to be fair and equitable; we can’t have one school running ahead with something while others are left behind.”
Gemma goes on to share how a four-step process is in place to ensure they reach their goal, agreeing a universal approach on how to use technology:
- To enhance teaching and learning
- Reduce workload
- Support accessibility and inclusion, and
- Narrow the digital divide
Guide rails and guardrails: building teachers’ confidence
The importance of starting with clear policies, guidance and guardrails was highlighted as the foundation from which teachers would develop the confidence to use AI effectively and imaginatively:
“All schools should have a very clear policy around governance around what can and can’t be used in terms of student data, but as well as that, there should be a space for experimentation in the classroom within those guardrails."
Without this sense of a shared goal and collaborative learning, a participating teacher explained that they would feel far less comfortable about using AI tools:
“Because we’re part of the Portsmouth: The Digital City Project, it’s been heavily supported that we can discuss and know what’s safe. If it was me on my own, I wouldn’t have used it as much. Having that support has really helped and being able to share it across other schools.”
Foundations and fun: supporting children’s AI literacy in the classroom
Teachers described how even very young children could be supported to learn about basic AI concepts through engaging exercises, such as describing an image and seeing the output when the teacher typed this into an appropriate AI platform. In this case, the school used Canva for education. This allowed children to see how AI might interpret their instructions and learn how to express their thoughts in different ways:
“One of the things we focused on is teaching children about what AI is, before we’ve done anything with generative AI."
“One of the things we focused on is teaching children about what AI is, before we’ve done anything with generative AI.
The first step was basic image generation… it’s teaching how to prompt, but also how to start with an idea, get the image in your head, learn to adapt their prompt, to articulate themselves more clearly.”
Embedding, rather than adding on, learning
“We emphasise that they have to make the choices – AI isn’t going to solve everything, [it] can make mistakes… we’ve shown them how a class can put the same prompt into the same tool and get 30 different outputs. For them, that was a real lightbulb moment"
The initiative emphasised integrating learning about AI concepts into e-safety lessons and existing topics, helping pupils to explore aspects of AI in an age-appropriate and meaningful way that supported what they were already learning:
“When it came to building the curriculum, our priority was to ensure that it aligned with the National Curriculum and with Project Evolve’s e‑safety framework. We wanted it to be genuinely progressive, built carefully on prior learning.”
“AI has been around far longer than people realise. When we discuss the Enigma code as an early example of machine‑based problem solving, the children absolutely love it.”
For older age groups, pupils were also supported to learn more about critical evaluation of AI outputs:
“We emphasise that they have to make the choices – AI isn’t going to solve everything, [it] can make mistakes… we’ve shown them how a class can put the same prompt into the same tool and get 30 different outputs. For them, that was a real lightbulb moment: ‘Oh, we can’t always just believe whatever the AI gives us!’ Moments like that are brilliant teaching opportunities about how AI works, its limitations, and why critical thinking still matters.”
Further support needed for AI literacy
Overall, experiences in Portsmouth present a practical and balanced way of supporting teachers and children in the age of AI, recognising this as a new context within which literacy is enacted and experienced. However it also demonstrates that more support is needed for teachers and educators across the country.
Looking forward, Gemma and her colleagues described variable awareness of safe practices in some schools and inconsistent approaches to using AI for assessment. To complement existing advice from sources such as the Department for Education, greater guidance about these topics on a national level would be welcomed:
“Much of this comes down to data, consent and understanding. Schools need clearer guidance that distinguishes between quick wins, and more complex, higher risk uses. While some schools are confident that staff aren’t entering sensitive information into AI tools, this isn’t always certain in practice. At the same time, some are embracing AI for tasks like marking, while others are rightly asking questions about moderation and reliability.”
More information on AI and literacy
We have a bank of research and useful blogs linked to AI and literacy which will support teachers as you grow in confidence talking about AI with your pupils and young people and using the tools in a classroom setting.