Principal’s Welcome
13/06/2025
Dear Westholme Family,
It’s a tale of two events this week!
On Monday, we welcomed Darren Coxon into Westholme for the day. Darren is a former English teacher and senior leader who now specialises in AI education. If this is an area that interests you or you want to know more about the power of AI, I would suggest following Darren on LinkedIn.
Darren spent some time with groups of support staff and teachers to gauge our current levels of engagement with AI. I really like the way that he encourages teachers to see AI as a “cybernetic team-mate”. This resonates with me: AI should mean augmented intelligence for our professionals.
That said, it didn’t surprise me at all to hear that one colleague had described his current position as “half-excited and half-terrified”! I actually agree with recent advice from the Department for Education: “learn fast, but act more slowly.” Our AI Working Party is doing just that.
Perhaps most revealing, however, was feedback from Darren’s focus group with students. He uncovered a reluctance on their part to talk AI up. My suspicion is that any negativity likely stems from a fear of being accused of cheating rather than any lack of willingness to try the technology. Darren did find that the students had plenty of advice to give the leadership team about how we incorporate AI into lessons.
Darren’s visit coincided with the government’s announcement of funding for maintained schools to educate on AI and further guidance on what tasks could be delegated to AI. Probably most controversial was the suggestion that AI can be used to feedback on children’s work. Having carried out my own mini-experiment, I’ll return to this another week!
The second event I want to highlight took place on a memorable Thursday evening. Technically-speaking, from what I saw on Monday, we don’t need live performances anymore. AI can make up the script, play the tunes and act the scenes with generated characters. No wonder the likes of Elton John and Paul McCartney are so concerned.
In reality, of course, what our children gain from being on stage is priceless and The Circle of Life was no exception to the highest of standards we produce at Westholme.
Auto-generated characters aren’t having the time of their lives on the stage with all their friends, they’re not giving immense joy to their parents and grandparents in the audience, and they’re not gaining valuable confidence from their endeavours.
Auto-generated characters aren’t having to learn lines, songs and choreography. Nor are they taking on board feedback from our expert staff, learning for life that feedback is a gift not a negative. Nor will they get to realise that not everything goes to plan on the night and you have to be ready to adapt!
I’m sure that everyone who joined us on Thursday evening will agree that our Year 6 pupils were simply incredible by anyone’s standards. Congratulations to all our children and staff involved in this brilliant production.
The possibilities of AI may be endless, but they’ll never beat the sheer joy of watching our children grow.
With best wishes for the weekend,
Paul Taylor
