AI and academic integrity

Existing academic integrity policies provide a starting point. Provisions on unauthorized assistance, misrepresentation, and acknowledgment of sources may already cover some AI uses. Schools should examine that coverage before adding new rules.

The work is to define what assistance is permitted, communicate those boundaries, and establish how concerns will be reviewed.

Review the policy against actual assignments

Consider three situations: a student submits an AI-generated response, uses AI to revise an original draft, or asks a tool to check completed work.

Whether each use is acceptable depends on the assignment's purpose and instructions. Revision assistance might be appropriate when students are developing a subject-area argument but restricted when the teacher is assessing independent writing. Checking an answer may support practice while undermining an assessment of unaided performance.

Read the existing policy against those situations. Identify where it provides a clear basis for decisions and where teachers or students would have to guess.

Define the conduct at issue

A concern about AI use should identify the requirement the student may have violated. That might involve using prohibited assistance, presenting generated work as independent work, fabricating sources, or failing to provide a required disclosure.

Misrepresentation matters, but it is not the only issue. A student who openly acknowledges AI use may still have used assistance that the assignment prohibited. Equally, extensive use may be appropriate for an assignment designed around evaluating AI output.

Write expectations around the work students must do and the assistance they may receive. Product names alone cannot explain those distinctions.

Establish what supports a finding

A detector score should not determine an academic integrity outcome on its own. Assessment guidance from Ofqual likewise treats technological tools as possible sources of evidence, rather than sole determinants of misconduct. Ofqual guidance on AI and assessment

Review relevant evidence from the learning process: drafts, source notes, revision history where available, the student's disclosure, and their explanation of how they completed the work. Give the student an opportunity to respond to the specific concern.

Difficulty explaining an argument may warrant further inquiry, but it does not establish prohibited AI use. Nervousness, language proficiency, disability, and the conditions of the conversation can affect a student's response. Missing drafts are also inconclusive, particularly if students were never required to retain them.

The decision should connect the evidence to a stated requirement and follow the school's established review process.

Distinguish misunderstanding from deliberate misuse

Before deciding on a response, consider:

• Were the expectations clear and communicated before work began?
• Had students been taught how those expectations applied?
• What assistance was used, and how did it affect the work being assessed?
• Did the student accurately account for that assistance?
• Is there evidence of deliberate concealment or repeated misuse?

Where instructions were ambiguous, clarification and another opportunity to demonstrate learning may be appropriate. Where evidence supports deliberate misuse of clearly prohibited assistance, apply the school's academic integrity procedures.

An honest disclosure does not excuse a violation, but it is relevant to understanding what happened and deciding how to respond.

Design assessments that make learning visible

A finished submission gives a teacher limited information about how it was produced. Build in opportunities to observe the thinking that matters: a proposal discussed in class, annotated sources, selected drafts, an explanation of revisions, or a conversation about the final argument.

Class-specific questions can make assessment more meaningful, but they do not make an assignment immune to AI assistance. The value lies in gathering evidence of learning across the process.

Choose these checks deliberately. They should help assess the learning objective without turning every assignment into an exercise in documenting authorship. When independent performance is essential, provide suitable conditions for students to demonstrate it, including required accommodations.

Teach the standard and apply it consistently

Students need examples of permitted assistance, prohibited assistance, and adequate disclosure in the subjects they study. Teachers need a shared process for raising concerns and distinguishing an instructional response from a disciplinary one.

The handbook establishes expectations. Classroom explanations and decisions show students how those expectations work. Both should support the same standard.