In the latest survey of National Education Union members, conducted ahead of Annual Conference in Brighton, 9,408 teacher members in English state schools gave us their views on the current uses of AI within education – among young people, teachers themselves, and new proposals by government.
We found that:
- Two thirds of secondary teachers (66 per cent) agree that pupils’ critical thinking has declined due to AI usage. This is more than double those working in primary (28 per cent).
- AI use among teachers is now widespread and growing. Three quarters (76 per cent) are now using AI tools for day-to-day work, up from 53 per cent last year.
- This usage is primarily in resource creation (61 per cent of respondents) but also lesson planning (41 per cent) and administrative tasks (38 per cent). Just 7 per cent turn to AI tools for marking.
- Half of schools (49 per cent) have no policy whatsoever for the use of AI either by staff or students. Two thirds (66 per cent) have no policy specifically for students.
- Just 14 per cent support the government’s planned introduction of AI tutors for disadvantaged pupils.
The union in recent years has, as part of its work, privately polled members on the expansion of artificial intelligence tools in working lives. For the first time we publish time series findings that show year-on-year trends. They indicate the speed of adoption as well as the gaps in support and guidance.
Staff use of AI tools
AI tools are increasingly embedded in teachers’ working lives. In the form of a multiple-choice question, we asked teacher members about the broad areas in which they are now used.
The last line on the table is perhaps the most striking result of all, with just under a quarter (24 per cent) saying they stick with traditional methods. Since last year, when the NEU previously asked the question, adoption has grown considerably. Back then almost half (47 per cent) were using ‘none of the above’.
Use of AI tools for resource creation is at its highest among secondary members (62 per cent), with primary not far behind (61 per cent). This is an advance on, respectively, 40 per cent and 45 per cent last year.
Lesson planning is also a growing area for AI support, but its increase is slower in secondary schools - moving from 26 per cent to 34 per cent in just a year. In primary settings and special schools/PRU it is now much higher (47 per cent and 46 per cent respectively), up from 28 per cent in both cases last year.
Leadership members are today considerably more likely to turn to AI for admin tasks, with 55 per cent confirming they make use compared to 35 per cent of classroom teachers. All phases are growing at a similar rate, with primary teachers having the slight edge on 40 per cent.
Marking is still largely unaffected by the growth in AI usage, although it has doubled in a year in the case of secondary teachers (up from 6 per cent to 10 per cent). Primary stands at 5 per cent, and in special schools/PRUs the tools are used by 3 per cent only.
School policies
As AI use grows at an exponential rate, it is important that guardrails are in place. However, settings are not keeping up with developments. As the following question reveals, a minority of settings have guidance on AI usage for both staff and students.
An average 49 per cent of teachers tell us they have no policy whatsoever on AI, either for staff or students. Typically, around a third in most categories (31 per cent overall) say they have both. The remaining fifth confirm they have one but not the other.
Secondary schools are slightly more likely to have policy in place, and primary schools the least likely. Different governances vary too, although it should be noted that local-authority maintained schools are more concentrated in the primary phase.
The results for student policies have barely changed in the space of a year, demonstrating an institutional stasis that is not keeping up with changing trends in the lives of young people. In both 2025 and 2026, some 66 per cent of teachers told us there was no policy at their school specific to student use.
Members told us what they have observed at school-level:
"Staff are not trained to use it properly, but are using it and it's producing sub-standard slop. Students are clearly using it for homework."
"I have seen too much cheating recently in exams and homework due to the use of AI."
"AI has a hallucinate mode which means if it does not know something it will make it up. This makes it unsuitable to teach."
"If used correctly AI can be a valuable educational tool; regulation and guidance is needed, and training and policies should be in place in every school for staff and students."
"Children no longer feel the need to spell as voice-to-text replaces knowledge."
AI tutors
In late January the government announced its plan to trial AI tutoring tools to support children from disadvantaged backgrounds. Our survey opened a week later. In it, we asked members to give their immediate reaction to the plan.
Just 4 per cent ‘strongly agree’ with the government’s plan for AI tutors, falling to 3 per cent in primary and 5 per cent in secondary. Overall, agreement was expressed by 14 per cent of teacher respondents.
Nearly half (49 per cent) are opposed to the plan. The largest opposition was among those working in special schools and PRUs where the number ‘strongly’ opposed was also at its greatest. Just over a third of all respondents (36 per cent) expressed no view either way.
The scepticism was expressed in comments attached to this question:
"Students who need tutors often need more than academic support. AI will not give them that."
"Surely AI tutoring is just another cost-cutting tool - another way to avoid providing schools with funding for adequate staffing numbers."
"AI tutoring completely undermines the value of teaching skills and the value to teacher relationships. It will worsen, not solve the problem of availability."
"Students will not be motivated by an AI tutor. I actually had the ethical debate as part of a previous topic in school and 90 per cent of the students say they would not want an AI teacher due to lack of connection, motivation and communication."
"I think disadvantaged students need human interaction for tutoring rather than AI so that social skills can be enhanced and social isolation reduced."
Critical thinking
One of the chief concerns around the use of AI, particularly by young people, is the potential for essential skills to not fully develop due to a growing reliance on those tools. In this year’s survey we asked teacher members if they had seen first-hand a decline in critical thinking skills as a result of AI use by their cohort.
Secondary teachers are more than twice as likely to report a decline (66 per cent) than primary teachers (28 per cent). This is particularly striking, with a third of secondary teachers in strong agreement (33 per cent).
Teachers told us:
"Students are losing core skills - thinking, creativity, writing, even how to have a conversation."
"If we don't have to work hard for something, we become complacent. AI is destroying what 'learning' - problem solving, critical-thinking and collaborative effort - is!"
Respondents in their twenties are more likely to agree with this statement (57 per cent) than those who are 50+ years of age (39 per cent). This is also a significant finding, as younger teachers report greater familiarity with and usage of AI themselves. One might have anticipated a more sympathetic view of the technology, but that is not the reality.
"I am shocked by Ofsted’s recommendation that these technologies should be used when they are not shown to support or develop critical thinking or learning."
"It has serious consequences for skill building and independence. We are not readying them for flexibility in the future."
Commenting on the findings of the survey, Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the National Education Union, said:
"Students must be able to think for themselves. This is at the heart of learning, but our survey shows a reliance on AI is having an effect on students’ ability to think critically. AI should be there to enhance rather than diminish student learning. Teaching students about acceptable AI uses requires time in the school week and that time is in short supply. AI must be regulated so that schools have appropriate tools which don’t undermine learning.
"The profession is far from convinced that AI tutors are a magic bullet for closing opportunity gaps for disadvantaged students. The government is taking a risk in rolling out AI tutoring before its impacts are properly understood.
"AI will only improve learning and support teachers in their role if implemented correctly, within a vision of a highly skilled profession."
Editor’s Note
The online survey of National Education Union members was conducted between 5-16 February 2026.
We received responses from teachers, support staff and other members in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. This release focuses on the responses from 10,311 teachers and 2,996 support staff in English state schools, reweighted by personal and professional characteristics in line with data from the most recent School Workforce Census.
Deprivation is calculated using IDACI bands, band 1 corresponds to the least deprived schools and band 5 to the most.
For reweighting purposes, teachers in state-funded primary and state-funded nursery schools are counted together, as this is how they are recorded in the School Workforce Census. However, state nursery teachers represent only 0.3% of the primary and nursery sample, and so although the group name is used in full in the charts, we mostly refer to this group as “primary” in the text.