The Prompt: (Issue 7)

Your AI Newsletter

Issue 7

Please share this newsletter with colleagues in your setting!

Welcome to issue 7 of your weekly briefing on all things AI. As AI continues to reshape the educational landscape, our mission is to ensure South Tyneside schools stay ahead of the curve. Whether you are an AI novice or an AI expert, this is your weekly home for the tools and digital principles defining the future of education.

Each week, we’ll deliver three or four essential updates—ranging from DfE policy shifts to time-saving classroom hacks—specifically curated to reduce teacher workload and enhance learning across our South Tyneside community as safely as possible.

🚀 AI Champions Work Group

Haven’t nominated an AI Champion yet? Click the link to access our nomination form:

👉 CLICK HERE TO NOMINATE

  • Next Meeting: Wednesday 11th November 2026, 16:00-17:30
  • Venue: The Word
  • Contact to Book: Email Julia Small at [email protected] to secure a place.

🌐 Item 1: Global Crackdown: The Under-16 Social Media & AI Ban

The momentum for youth digital bans has peaked. Following legislation in Australia, Indonesia, and Malaysia, the UK has announced a sweeping ban on social media for anyone under 16, set for full enforcement by Spring 2027.

The intersection with artificial intelligence is twofold:

  • The 18+ Rule for AI Companions: Regulators are looking past traditional feeds to target generative AI. The new rules strictly enforce an 18+ age minimum for AI romantic companions, roleplay bots, and “intimate functionalities” to prevent algorithmic manipulation and emotional dependency.
  • Enforcement via AI (Facial Estimation): To enforce the ban without hoarding passports, tech companies are turning to Highly Effective Age Assurance (HEAA). This relies heavily on AI facial age estimation—scanning a live selfie to verify a user’s age bracket without storing their identity.

The Catch: Critics and tech giants warn that the required AI face-scanning creates a massive privacy checkpoint for all internet users, while tech-savvy teens will likely bypass it entirely using VPNs or go to the darker parts of the web.

🧠 Item 2: Can Your Pupils Spot the AI Fake?

After last week’s Real or AI quiz from Britannica Education, we have curated some more excellent activities from other sources you may want to use with your pupils:

1. BBC Bitesize: Artificial Or Real?

Can you tell the difference between a real video or picture, or one that has been generated by artificial intelligence (AI)? Have a go and let’s see if you can spot the REAL from the AI!

2. Sightengine: Which Image Is AI?

Here are 2 images. One is AI-generated, the other one is real. Can you tell which one is AI? Test your skills!

3. Google Arts & Culture Experiments

Google Arts & Culture offers incredible interactive experiments to test your AI literacy:

  • Odd One Out: Can you spot the odd one out? Guess the AI-generated “imposters” hidden among the artworks on Google Arts & Culture. One of these images is not like the other—it is created by Google AI.
  • Say What You See: Learn the art of the prompt and improve your image-reading skills by looking at Google AI-generated images and describing what you see, in this experiment created by artist Jack Wild.

📬 Item 3: Food for Thought: The “Ghost in the Inbox”

With the rise of advanced AI email agents, we are rapidly approaching a weird milestone: Within the next year, it is highly likely you will receive an email written entirely by an AI agent, which will then draft a reply and archive it—without either human ever knowing the exchange took place.

So the question is:

If two machines have a meeting in the woods and no human is around to read the transcript… does the meeting actually happen?

Drop a reply using our feedback form below and tell us if this sounds like a productivity paradise or a dystopian nightmare!

Contact Us

If you have any questions or further suggestions, please get in touch: 📧 Steve Robert: [email protected]

The Prompt (Issue 2): Safeguarding Student Images, AI Jingles, and Emoji Storytelling Corner

By Steve Robert – ICT in Schools Team

Welcome to Issue 2 of The Prompt, providing tactical, time-saving edtech guidance across our South Tyneside community. This weekly briefing covers everything from critical national safety policy changes to simple lesson plans designed to save you hours of structural prep time.

📢 Setting Action: Please share this weekly tech brief with colleagues in your educational setting!

📅 AI Champions Working Group

Ensure your school has active tech leadership by registering an AI Champion for our strategic digital working group.

To book a place or ask questions, please contact Julia Small at [email protected].

🛡️ Item 1: Protecting Your Setting’s Images from AI Manipulation

The “Deepfake” Risk: Why School Photos Need an AI Upgrade.

The UK Online Harms Early Warning Working Group has published urgent best-practice guidance addressing image exploitation risks associated with AI image manipulation. This technical document details the responsible publication, sharing, and protection of photographic media and video files featuring children across school websites and official institutional social media channels.

What the national guidance covers:

  • Actionable security protocols to defend young people’s online identities and imagery.
  • An evaluation of the emergent risks when publishing student photos publicly online.
  • A clear action roadmap for Senior Leadership Teams to audit.
  • Direct reporting instructions on what to do if student profiles are altered, misused, or abused by external users.

Resource Links:

🎵 Item 2: Prompt of the Week – Create Catchy Classroom Jingles

Transform your lesson plans into an energetic pop track or custom song in under 30 seconds! Using the Music feature inside the Gemini app, teachers can easily generate 30-second audio cues with full structural control over genre style and vocal delivery.

📋 The Template Prompt:

“You are an expert music producer. Create an upbeat, 30-second [Musical Style] track about [Topic Here]. Make the vocals energetic and easy for [Year Group] to sing along to, with a moderate tempo and catchy lyrics.”

💡 The Prompt in Action (Geometry Focus):

Try copying and pasting this exact text directly into Gemini to build a vibrant math lesson starter:

“You are an expert music producer. Create an upbeat, 30-second pop track about how to find the area of a triangle based on the UK Maths curriculum for UKS2. Make the vocals energetic and easy for Year 6 to sing along to, with a moderate tempo and catchy lyrics.”

Want to review an example track before you generate your own? Click here to listen to our custom “Triangle Trick” Demo Track.

📖 Item 3: Emoji Literacy Stories via the Gemini Storybook

You can use standard device emojis to serve as the narrative engine for creative writing and literacy blocks. By using the specialized Storybook Gem inside Gemini, teachers can turn arbitrary strings of emojis into structured children’s short stories.

For instance, evaluate the exact prompt string used to generate our short story model, “The Crab Who Danced on Ice”:

“Make a 200-word children’s short story for 10-year-olds based on these 5 emojis: 🦀👸✨🩰☃️”

Once generated by the Gem, you can listen to the output text directly inside the browser window, or download it as a print-ready PDF book for your classroom library corner. You can easily scale this workload trick by varying vocabulary lists, maximum word counts, or structural parameters to fit your current target term topic.

💡 Windows Keyboard Shortcut: If you are building prompts on a Windows desktop, press the Windows Key + . (Full Stop) to pull up your visual emoji picker layout immediately!

🗣️ We Value Your Insights!

Help us improve future editions by sharing your local feedback! Please submit any tool comments, structural suggestions, or active student task examples to our secure AI Newsletter Feedback Form. Anonymous entries are fully accepted, and file uploads are encouraged.

For direct curriculum support questions, connect with Steve Robert at [email protected].