THE TEACHER’S VIEW
Introducing AI into the curriculum can be overwhelming. What does AI even mean? Richard Human, Head of AI at Globeducate has a clear message. Start small, think big and support teachers according to their needs.
Learning from the trolley of broken promises
The trolley arrived one morning in September some years ago, laden with pristine iPads in their sleek cases. Twenty-five devices, one for each child in my class—our school’s bold leap into “21st-century learning.” I felt that familiar flutter of excitement that comes with shiny new technology and its infinite possibilities.
By the following week, the reality had set in. I stared at twenty-five screens and realised I hadn’t the faintest idea what to do with them.
We muddled through with a variety of activities and the children were engaged, certainly, but was this the transformative education we’d hoped for? Gradually, as other priorities pressed in and no one was asking pointed questions about our iPad usage, their use slipped down my mental list.
Looking back, that trolley of devices taught me more about educational technology than any training session ever could. The marketing materials had spoken of revolution; the reality was a well-meaning teacher trying to retrofit expensive hardware into lessons that worked perfectly well without it.
A different kind of challenge
When I began my role as Head of AI at Globeducate, I was determined not to become the trolley pusher—the enthusiast wheeling around the latest technological cure-all that would finally “save education.”
But I also recognised something fundamental: AI could not be compared to the use of an iPad. AI represents something altogether more profound—a technology that was already beginning to reshape how we work, communicate, and think, with particular implications for the young people we teach.
I knew that teachers would be spinning all sorts of plates in their classrooms—assessment, differentiation, behaviour management, curriculum delivery, pastoral care, data collection, parent communication, and countless others. The last thing they needed was another plate to add to their precarious collection. Instead, I wanted to help some of those plates spin themselves, or even take down some plates entirely through the thoughtful introduction of AI.
Doing less, better
I inherited an ambitious AI strategy that spanned everything from Space & Innovation Centres to pioneering student projects like “AInstein Junior” and “AI Sustainable Cities” designed and led by my colleague Elpidoforos Anastasiou.
Working with our Chief Education Officer, Daniel Jones, we made a crucial decision: focus our immediate efforts on two fundamental pillars. First, meaningful AI training for teachers, to help them understand how AI could genuinely reduce their workload whilst enhancing their practice. Second, curriculum development that would prepare students not just to use AI, but to think critically about its role in society.
Everything else, however worthy, would have to wait. Because if we couldn’t get these basics right, all the innovation centres and youth councils in the world wouldn’t matter.
Teacher training: meeting people where they are
For the teacher training, I knew I had to be both comprehensive and realistic. The challenge was our context: 70+ schools across 11 countries, each with different curricula, languages, educational approaches, and priorities. What works for a staff meeting in Barcelona might be completely unsuitable for a training day in Chennai.
Rather than create a one-size-fits-all programme, we built a flexible toolkit. Teachers might access the same core content as a 60–90-minute training day session, spread across staff meetings, or work through it independently. We created video tutorials for visual learners, presentation slides for traditional training sessions, PDF guides for self-paced learning, comprehensive FAQs for quick problem-solving, and ready-to-use templates that teachers could adapt immediately.
Curriculum development
Chief Education Officer, Daniel and I then made another strategic decision: distil the existing comprehensive but almost overwhelming AI curriculum document already produced at Globeducate into something manageable. Instead of launching three years’ worth of content simultaneously, we created just six lessons for 11-14-year-olds — what I called “Chapter 1: Meet AI: Machines That Learn.” These 40-minute sessions slot into form time, self-directed study periods, or assemblies, with multiple delivery formats including 15–20-minute video tutorials that pupils can follow independently.
Each lesson builds systematically—from “What is AI?” through to hands-on work with Google’s Teachable Machine, culminating in students designing their own AI assistant. Crucially, we wove privacy and ethical considerations throughout rather than leaving them as an afterthought.
The approach was deliberately scaffolded. If we got Chapter 1 right across all our schools, we could roll out the second chapter the following academic year, take the pressure off and refine our approach based on real classroom feedback.
Building community: bringing the outside in
Beyond formal training and curriculum, I recognise that AI adoption needs ongoing conversation and community. I write a weekly blog called “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly of AI” for all colleagues, sharing AI stories from around the world.
I also became the organisation’s unofficial AI reading service, distilling insights from Dan Fitzpatrick’s “Infinite Education” into weekly notes for headteachers—essentially doing their reading for them and recognising that school leaders are drowning in priorities.
But perhaps most importantly, I record podcasts and webinars with teachers across the organisation. I want to shine an AI light on colleagues who are already experimenting and innovating. There’s incredible expertise happening in silos across our schools—a primary teacher in Rome using AI to help write the end-of-year performance, a Geography teacher in Bilbao using AI as a teaching assistant whilst working with students who need extra support, a science teacher in Canada who designed an ‘AI Checklist’ for students to use when deciding whether to use AI in their work.
All this work is happening without me and where people are ready. It’s my job to help them go further. We’re launching an annual AI Innovation Competition, providing teachers with full licences to advanced AI software like Microsoft Copilot Pro, to give them the freedom to choose their own projects and, we hope, creating space for innovation.
The ‘second chapter’
Six months into this role, I’ve learned that the challenge isn’t technological—it’s human. The question isn’t whether AI will transform education, but whether we can help teachers feel confident enough to shape that transformation themselves.
The real test for us will come during the 2025-2026 academic year, when we implement the ‘second chapter’ of the plan, expand the curriculum, launch our AI Innovation Hub, and see whether our approach of starting small and building systematically will work at scale across 70+ schools.
My trolley of iPads taught me that shiny technology without thoughtful implementation planning is just an expensive disappointment. But done right, with teachers at the centre, AI might actually live up to its promise of enhancing human potential rather than replacing it.
Richard Human is the Head of AI at Globeducate
