Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) Policy

Last review: December 2025

This Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) Policy provides the framework for the ethical, effective, and responsible use of AI tools by all students, tutors, and employees.

Our primary mission is to foster genuine language fluency and cultural immersion through direct human interaction and the supportive homestay experience. We recognise that AI technologies, such as generative models and advanced translation tools, offer powerful opportunities to augment the language learning process by providing personalised practice, instant feedback, and access to vast resources.

However, the rapid development of these tools also presents challenges to academic integrity and the essential human component of our teaching model. This policy aims to strike a crucial balance: utilising AI's potential to enhance learning while protecting the authenticity of student work and preserving the invaluable face-to-face communication that is the cornerstone of the InTuition experience.

1. General Principles

This policy is based on three core principles:

  1. Human-Centred Learning: AI is a tool to enhance, not replace, the valuable interaction between the student, the tutor, and the host family. Real-world conversation and cultural immersion remain central to our school.
  2. Academic Integrity: All students must ensure that work submitted for assessment, or for use in class, is their own original thought and language. AI must be used transparently and ethically.
  3. Data Privacy and Safety: Personal information and private discussions must be protected. No personal data should be entered into public AI models that do not guarantee data security.

2. Policy for Students

2.1. Permitted Uses of AI (Augmentation)

Students are encouraged to use AI tools for non-assessed, supplementary learning activities, provided these uses are disclosed when asked.

  • Language Practice: Using AI chatbots (e.g., ChatGPT, Gemini) as a conversational partner for practice, simulating real-life scenarios, or asking for simple explanations of grammar rules.
  • Proofreading & Editing: Using tools like Grammarly for grammar and spelling checks on practice drafts. Students are responsible for the final accuracy and must show they understand the suggested corrections.
  • Vocabulary/Concept Clarification: Quickly translating an unfamiliar word or phrase, or asking for a simple definition, provided the student still attempts to use the host language first.
  • Idea Generation: Brainstorming initial concepts for a project or essay, but the final writing, argument, and structure must be the student’s own.

2.2 Prohibited Uses of AI (Misconduct)

The following activities constitute academic misconduct and will be subject to disciplinary action:

  • Submitting AI-Generated Work: Using AI to write, translate, or heavily paraphrase any portion of an assessed assignment, essay, or exam answer and presenting it as your own.
  • Bypassing Core Tasks: Using machine translation (e.g., Google Translate, DeepL) for entire sentences or paragraphs when the purpose of the activity is to practice your own translation or writing skills.
  • Undisclosed Use: Failing to declare the use of AI on any assignment where disclosure is explicitly required by the tutor.

2.3. Safety and Data Responsibility

  • No Personal Data: Students must not input any personal, confidential, or sensitive information (e.g., full names of host family members, private conversations, addresses, financial details) into any public AI tool.
  • Age Restrictions: Students must comply with the minimum age requirements of any AI platform they use. Parental/Guardian consent may be required for students under 18, as per the school’s Safeguarding and IT Use policies.

3. Policy for Tutors and Staff

3.1 Responsible Integration

Tutors are encouraged to use AI tools to enhance their teaching but must maintain professional judgment and oversight.

  • Lesson Preparation: Using AI for drafting lesson plans, generating varied practice exercises, or creating vocabulary lists and quizzes.
  • Material Creation: Tailoring or simplifying complex reading materials to match a student's proficiency level.
  • Workload Management: Using AI for administrative tasks (e.g., drafting emails, summarising long texts, observations) to free up time for direct student interaction and/or other school activities.
  • Critical Review: Tutors must critically review and verify all AI-generated content (including facts, exercises, and examples) for accuracy, bias, and appropriateness before presenting it to a student.

3.2. Instruction and Transparency

  • Set Clear Guidelines: For every assessed task, tutors must clearly define whether AI use is Forbidden, Permitted with Disclosure, or Required (e.g., to teach AI literacy).
  • Teach AI Literacy: Tutors must dedicate time to teaching students how to use AI ethically, effectively, and critically, emphasising its limitations (such as generating inaccurate or biased "hallucinations").

3.3. Data Protection

  • Anonymisation: When using AI to help with student feedback or assessment analysis, tutors must anonymise any identifying student data before inputting it into the AI tool.
  • Approved Tools: Only school-approved, secure AI tools that comply with data protection regulations (e.g., GDPR, if applicable) should be used for handling student-related educational data.

4. Policy for Formal Lesson Observation and Standardisation

This section outlines the responsible use of AI tools in the formal process of lesson observation and the standardisation of teaching quality across the school. AI is employed here to provide objective, consistent, and data-driven feedback, ensuring fairness and consistency in our teaching standards.

4.1. Purpose of AI in Observation

AI tools, such as transcription and analysis software, may be utilised to:

  • Standardisation: Ensure that all tutors receive feedback based on uniform criteria (e.g., student talk time, use of target language, clarity of instructions). This reduces subjectivity and promotes consistent evaluation standards school-wide.
  • Objective Data Collection: Automatically transcribe portions of the lesson (with consent) and generate quantitative data on metrics that are difficult for human observers to track accurately, such as the frequency of specific feedback types or the ratio of student-to-tutor speaking time.
  • Focused Feedback: Provide observers with a detailed, objective transcript and data summary, allowing them to focus their human feedback on pedagogical quality, creativity, and student engagement rather than transcription or basic counting.

4.2. Implementation and Consent

  • Informed Consent: By completing the observation recording, you are giving consent for the lesson to be analysed by the designated AI software.
  • Anonymity: All data processed by the AI for standardisation purposes will be anonymised and aggregated before being used in large-scale reports. Individual lesson transcripts and specific data points will be accessible only to the tutor and the Director of Studies for feedback purposes.
  • Secure Tools Only: Only school-procured and vetted AI software that guarantees data security, privacy, and compliance with data protection laws (e.g., GDPR) will be used for observations. Data will not be used to train the underlying public AI models.

4.3. Data Integrity and Tutor Review

  • AI as a Tool, Not a Judge: The AI analysis is considered supplementary evidence only. All final evaluations, performance judgments, and professional development plans will be formulated and delivered by a human observer/supervisor.
  • Right to Review: Tutors have the right to review the raw data and the AI-generated analysis before their formal feedback meeting and to challenge any apparent inaccuracies or contextual misunderstandings by the software.
  • Focus on Development: The data generated is strictly for professional development and standardisation purposes. It will not be shared externally or used punitively unless clear and documented standards of professional conduct or competence have been breached.

5. General Compliance & Review

5.1. Data and Privacy

The school treats all student and host family data in accordance with its formal Data Protection Policy. Specifically:

  • Consent: By enrolling, students and their guardians acknowledge that non-identifiable, general usage data may be collected by school-managed systems to improve educational effectiveness.
  • No Training Data: The school commits to using AI platforms, where possible, that do not use student or tutor inputs to train their underlying models.

5.2. Policy Review

Given the rapid changes in AI technology, this policy will be formally reviewed annually to ensure it remains relevant, ethical, and effective for enhancing the homestay language learning experience.