SafeguardED Newsletter

Dear Colleague, 

As Artificial Intelligence (AI) becomes deeply integrated into many areas of life, unsurprisingly, children are engaging with these technologies from their earliest years. Therefore, to support you in navigating this rapidly evolving landscape and to ensure that child safety is at the forefront in schools, we are pleased to introduce the LGfL Artificial Intelligence (AI) Policy Toolkit. This is not a rigid policy template, but a comprehensive and flexible guide to support you in developing vision, policies and practice in your school. 

And if you need help implementing this, please come along to our webinar on 18th March and explore our further resources at genai.lgfl.net. 

Please share this newsletter with DSLs and Senior Leaders in your school.

Why is this a Safeguarding Matter?

The speed of AI advancement is colossal, bringing with it significant opportunities and benefits, but also safety and welfare risks to users. Generative AI (Gen-AI) use has already been connected to the proliferation of illegal imagery, misinformation, "hallucinations," inappropriate and biased content. DSLs play a critical role in ensuring that safeguarding children remains at the forefront of all decisions about AI use.

What's in the Toolkit? 

• Outlined Roles and Responsibilities: Explicit descriptions of the responsibilities of key roles in schools to establish an effective whole-school approach.
• Suggested Steps: A framework for developing your school's AI approach.
• Practical Resources: Access to a pupil safeguarding question bank and a staff Gen-AI survey to gauge current usage and competence.
• Approval Frameworks: Templates to help leaders maintain a register of approved Gen-AI tools and track Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIAs).
• DfE Alignment: Guidance on the latest DfE Generative AI Product Safety Standards, to help you assess if an AI tool is safe for use in your school.

What other support is available?

Come to our 'AI Policy Toolkit: A Practical Roadmap for School Leaders' webinar on 18th March at 3:30, to understand how to use the AI Policy Toolkit and move from policy to practice.

Alongside this, our growing bank of AI resources includes:

• Webinar: Our "Adopting a Safeguarding First Approach to AI" helps outline potential key harms caused by children using Gen-AI.

• Posters

• Curriculum resources

• Template documents

If you need any further advice or support on adopting a safeguarding-first approach to using AI in schools, reach out to us at safeguarding@lgfl.net. 

Best wishes,

Alex and Mubina

Your LGfL SafeguardED Team