Dear Colleagues,
I was struck this week by two stories from opposite ends of the AI debate. At Dartmouth College, in the US, the provost has resigned following an investigation after students alleged that AI had been used to write opinion pieces and answer emails, alongside concerns about academic papers submitted for publication. Meanwhile, Princeton University has announced that it will provide ChatGPT accounts to all faculty, staff and students. Two fairly extreme ends of the spectrum.
So here’s a proud confession of my own: I use AI to help construct my work, including the Weekly Whistle, and I am entirely comfortable saying so. There is an enormous difference between using technology to help structure your thoughts, improve spelling and grammar, challenge your phrasing, synthesise information and bring relevant research to your attention, and simply handing over the thinking and writing before presenting whatever comes back as entirely your own. I could spend hours each week individually researching every article, report and development that might be relevant to us. I do not have those hours and, as a publicly funded organisation, I am not sure that would be a particularly good use of them. The technology does that part better and faster, while the professional judgement stays firmly with me. If I put my name to something, I must have read it properly, checked the facts and sources where necessary, be comfortable with its tone and content, and have genuine ownership of what it says. That is hardly unique to AI. We should apply exactly the same professional scepticism to information from a colleague, a newspaper, Google, a consultant or a textbook. The alternative risks becoming rather absurd. Shall we insist that everything demonstrating professional endeavour must henceforth be produced under examination conditions, written with quill and ink, AI safely locked outside the room, before being signed with an impressive flourish to establish beyond doubt that no technological assistance has taken place? I would rather we did things better: openly encouraging sensible use of the technology while being equally serious about governance, data sovereignty, security, transparency and professional accountability. Use the tools. Be open about it. Check the output. Apply your expertise. Take responsibility for the result.
I cannot sit here at HQ, with colleagues across the central team, enjoying the huge benefits of confidential, work-engaged enterprise AI and the time it saves us, without sharing it: with teachers, to assist lesson planning, resourcing and adapting for different students' learning needs; with support staff, to share the gains in productivity we are now enjoying. More than six months ago I asked our central team what they would feel if we took Copilot away, and a significant proportion chose the answer "I would cry". Since then it has become hugely more helpful and more specific, with fewer inaccuracies, and it has understood our WeST environment so much better that I suspect it will be much higher when we re-run the survey. We are just better and quicker because of it. We have a moral imperative to share that more widely.
Armistice Day is on Wednesday 11 November. I know all our schools find their own, respectful ways to commemorate it, and for some that means representing the school every year at the town or village ceremony, as Ivybridge does. Coombe Dean will hold a Remembrance assembly on Monday and observe the two-minute silence at 11.00am on Wednesday, with the Last Post played by members of its own school community. Poppies are available at the canteen till for a 25p donation, so nobody has to remember to bring cash. At Plymstock the Service Children are selling poppies during tutor time until 13 November, and students who belong to cadet forces and other uniformed organisations are invited to wear their uniforms to school on the day. Hele's Post-16 students are selling poppies at tutor time and break. At Oreston, the Service Club made a Remembrance display for the fence at the back of the school, with adults helping to put the artwork up. It is poignant, and important, that even our youngest children, who now may not have the pleasure of knowing a war veteran, still mark their sacrifice.
My time in school this week was spent at Hele's, where I was delighted by their increase in systems, but even more touched by the compassion and patience I saw from a number of the support staff while I waited in the main foyer. Truly child centred. The same week its Junior Leadership Team organised and ran a Post 16 versus Teachers charity dodgeball match for the MND Association, the first whole-school event they have put on themselves, and the total raised is due to be announced today.
Plymstock came back from 1-0 down at half time against St Boniface in Round 1 of the Plymouth Cup to draw 1-1, then won the penalty shoot-out 3-2 with the very last kick, in front of a packed crowd at what the school calls the Plymstock San Siro. Many of the 47 players who train every Wednesday were there to support, and Teignmouth are next in the Devon Cup. The Year 10 side beat DHSB 4-3 in Round 4 of the National Cup, four well-worked goals and, by the school's own account, a touch of controversy. At Ivybridge, Year 7 performance and development rugby squad beat both DHSB and Coombe Dean. Sir James Smith's Year 10 BTEC Sport students spent Wednesday at Plymouth Marjon University.
Holbeton had Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service in on Thursday for fire safety ahead of Bonfire Night, and the older children made paper fireworks, very safe ones. The Scrap Store opened at lunchtime on Tuesday in slightly chilly November weather, with human towers among the results, and the school would welcome donations of guttering, crates, drainpipes, cable reels and other clean loose parts. Boringdon has Courtney Tulloch, the World Cup gold medallist gymnast, coming in on 4 December for Sport for Champions, when pupils will take on a four-stage fitness circuit of 60 seconds a station. At St Teath the Christmas Shop is coming round again, where each child chooses little gifts for their family and has them wrapped to take home as a surprise, and the school is asking for unused gifts and spare wrapping paper. Woodford's PTFA has brought back its letters from Father Christmas: each reply is hand-typed by a volunteer and comes with a Nice List certificate and a sprinkle of snow in the envelope, and letters must be in the reception postbox by 11 December. Plymstock's Senior Maths Challenge entrants faced 25 questions where a wrong answer costs you points. Question 8: N is the largest 10 -digit integer with all its digits different that is divisible by 7. What is the remainder when N is divided by 10?
Callington's Year 7 STEM group had Mike Thompson and the Babcock team in again on Thursday, building submarines from Lego with the challenge of making the build as smooth a team process as possible; Mrs Frost reports it was highly competitive. The college's Thursday enrichment programme, which runs within the school day, now takes in Latin, sign language, crochet, reading, dance, sport and forensics, and Light Up The Night was held on the Friday of half term in aid of charity. Ivybridge's co-curriculum STEM group built a tetrahedron out of dowel and rubber bands with Sam from BuildX, and UBUNTU Educational and Mentoring Services ran a series of Black History Month workshops with students. All of Coombe Dean's Year 9 went to Dawlish Warren on three coaches, leaving the rain behind them, to measure the height of sand and sediment either side of the groynes for evidence of longshore drift on the spit. Its Year 13 students investigated a crash-damaged Fiesta brought on site by the Crash Investigation Team from Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service, before looking at how peer pressure, passengers and poor decisions affect driver safety. Year 11 finished their mock exam series on Thursday, and teachers are already adapting lessons in response to the papers ahead of parents' evening on 19 November.
Eggbuckland's end-of-half-term round-up carried a 55 per cent increase in positive points compared with the same point last year, over £1,000 raised on its Team Green Macmillan Day, residents from the local care home welcomed into the college, and recognition for its improvement in attendance. Its new Year 7 did their team building with the Navy and then a charity walk to Saltram. Its new Head Students are Emily N and Grace S, with Hamish M and Bethany L as deputies. Coombe Dean's own half-term newsletter reflected on the 20 students who have received Student of the Week so far this term, an award introduced in the first newsletter of the year to recognise the effort and kindness that can otherwise go unnoticed. Ivybridge thanked the parents, carers and students who came to its safeguarding event, where Devon and Cornwall Police, the NHS Mental Health Support Team, Place2Be, SPACE Youth Services and Ivybridge Town Council were among the agencies on hand.
I will report back on Monday's Year 1 Science planning with Sherford Vale Primary, as part of an AI small-scale pilot project. If a blundering CEO and Copilot can plan a decent lesson between them, I am looking forward to seeing what our teachers do with it.
Warm regards,
Nat Parnell
CEO
