Prompt Like a Pro - School Leaders & Governors

Aims

This online interactive session equips headteachers, school leadership teams and governors with the strategic perspective and practical skills needed to move past the bluster of AI, and begin responding to its benefits and challenges head on. Going beyond surface-level familiarity with tools like ChatGPT, Copilot, and Gemini, participants will develop fluency in advanced prompting techniques, learn to critically evaluate AI outputs, and explore the policy, safeguarding, and pedagogical implications of school-wide adoption. The session balances hands-on skill building with strategic discussion. Participants will walk away with immediate practical takeaways to refine AI policies and processes, alongside a clearer understanding of where AI can deliver genuine value, and where it warrants caution.

Summary

Course aims

• Build confidence in prompting techniques that will move you beyond novice use, including: structured prompting, role-setting, iterative refinement, and prompt chaining
• Reveal the breadth of credible use cases for AI in schools — from leadership communication and policy drafting to lesson design, SEND adaptation, and data analysis
• Learn to critically evaluate AI outputs for accuracy, bias, hallucination, and appropriateness for context
• Explore the risks of over-reliance, automation bias, and uncritical adoption, and how to safeguard against the erosion of professional judgement
• Examine the governance, data protection, safeguarding, and ethical considerations of AI use across staff and pupil populations
• Consider first steps in developing AI policy
• Identify high-leverage, low-risk starting points for staff to reduce workload meaningfully

Key questions to consider

• What does "good" use of AI look like in our school, and how would we recognise it?
• How do we capture the productivity gains without inadvertently losing the expertise and craft of our staff?
• Is our position on pupil use of AI something we are shaping deliberately, or something happening to us?
• What governance, oversight, and policy structures do we need before we encourage wider adoption?
• How do we bridge the gap between novice and skilled use of AI tools?
• Where in our school is AI likely to do the most good, and where could it cause the most harm?
• How do we know when an AI output is good enough to act on, and what does professional accountability look like in the age of AI?