December 13
February 10
Could Artificial Intelligence play an active role in delivering pastoral care?
Could Artificial Intelligence play an active role in delivering pastoral care?
This week I attended a conference entitled ‘Leading the Narrative: Stories of Redefining Technology in Education’, which gave me time to the consider AI, and its benefits and possible drawbacks to school life. We live in a world of evolving technology, and whether we like it or not, we need to embrace the change and use it as a tool for improvement. But as we are seeing more and more, we also need to be incredibly vigilant about the potential for incorrect information and bias. Indeed, Ms Lewis and Ms Hickman delivered an assembly to our KS3 students recently to raise a debate on whether AI is an existential threat to the entire system of learning. So as you can see, AI is a hot topic at Blackheath High and in education more broadly.
So, with this in mind, could Artificial Intelligence play an active role in delivering pastoral care?
We know that AI can be a powerful tool in data analysis. Pastoral care has traditionally underused data compared to the academic side of education, but the growing availability of AI platforms makes data analysis in pastoral contexts more intuitive and powerful. Recent insights, Thinking Differently - using AI to unlock new possibilities for school improvement, referenced AI being used to identify a direct correlation between frequent toilet breaks and poor behaviour marks in schools. These insights further explored comparative analysis where attendance was shown to have a more significant impact on exam results than behaviour.
As with all data findings, it is important to remain objective – I can reassure you that I will not be adopting AI analysis of visits to the toilets at Blackheath High! AI analysis does not account for causation, and its effective use really does depend on our human direction and its alignment to our school values and priorities.
So where can I see AI benefiting pastoral care in our school? I think it does have a place, particularly on student wellbeing. As well as enhancing our ability to recognise local and national pastoral trends, we can use it to enhance our PSHEE curriculum, ensuring that we are delivering high quality lessons to provide our students with contextual information to support challenges they may face in their futures.
I have also discovered the benefits of AI tools in helping save time and mental energy, with the potential to give our staff and students more space to recharge both in and outside the classroom. It is clear that carefully selected tools may have the ability to simplify daily tasks, enhance personal wellbeing and free up mental space for better balance and focus – for example, platforms which offer guided meditation and mindfulness exercises designed for young audiences; or those that teach about feelings, coping strategies, and the importance of mental wellbeing. By promoting mental health awareness and literacy, these platforms empower young people to take proactive steps in managing their wellbeing.
When advocating for use of AI in pastoral care it is important to consider its limitations, the most important being its potential to decrease meaningful human connection. Essential to safety, we all need to be alert to the potential of cyberbullying with deepfakes, a rapidly developing and very real online threat. Increasing our use of technology through AI can contribute to addiction to Virtual Reality, or artificial reality. Finally, we must maintain perspective on our individual creativity and not allow this to dimmish through use of AI and technology.
In conclusion, I believe that AI can and will play an active role in the future of pastoral care – but while it may be able to offer human-like responses, it is unable to empathise and express true compassion. We should move forward with a balanced approach that combines personalised human care with AI-driven insights to further ensure a secure and nurturing school environment.
Written by Mrs Leamon, Deputy Head (Wellbeing)
More on AI and wellbeing in education:
