On Tuesday 27 October 2026, I facilitated a workshop for a group of support staff from 5 Victorian independent schools titled – Creating visual content without design skills. The workshop explored accessible ways to produce visual content, with a strong focus on Adobe Express and opportunities to extend the creative process through generative AI and Photoshop.
School support staff regularly create the visual materials that connect a school with its community. Posters, social posts and short videos all help communicate important messages, yet the people producing them may have little formal design training. Practical professional learning can help staff approach these tasks with greater confidence and develop skills they can apply immediately.
Starting with everyday communication
We began with making simple posters in Adobe Express before exploring how animation could bring those posters to life. Participants also worked on social posts and short animated videos, broadening the range of formats available for everyday school communication.
These activities connected creative tools with a familiar workplace responsibility: communicating a message clearly. A school event poster, for example, needs to help its audience quickly identify what is happening and what action to take. Adding movement introduces another creative choice, but the purpose of the communication still needs to guide the design.
Adobe Express provided a central platform for exploring these possibilities. Adobe makes Express for Education available free to eligible K–12 schools globally, with school access arranged through its education account and deployment processes. This makes it a useful option for schools seeking to build creative capability across their community without an additional Express subscription cost.
Extending ideas with generative AI
The workshop also covered generating images with Adobe Firefly and Microsoft Copilot, followed by manipulating generated images in Photoshop. This introduced a workflow in which an initial generated image could become material for further editing and creative development.
The educational value of this process extends beyond learning which buttons to press. An AI-generated image still requires human judgement. Does it suit the intended audience? Does it communicate the right message? What needs to be changed before it is appropriate to publish? The ability to evaluate and refine an image remains an important part of visual communication.
Moving between Express, image generators and Photoshop also illustrated how different tools can contribute to a creative task. Staff can begin with an accessible design environment and extend their work as their confidence and needs develop.
Considering responsible use
Alongside the practical activities, the workshop included ethical AI and the environmental impact of AI. These discussions placed creative possibilities within a broader conversation about responsible technology use.
For school staff, learning to use AI involves making decisions about when it adds value and how its outputs should be reviewed. Environmental considerations add another reason to approach generation thoughtfully. The aim is to develop informed habits alongside technical skills, so that creative confidence is accompanied by considered judgement.
One participant valued this dimension of the session, commenting: “It was great to hear a brief summary of ethical AI and the detail was great.”
We viewed and discussed this video …
Skills staff can use immediately
Participant feedback highlighted both the practical relevance of the learning and the enthusiasm it generated. One returning participant wrote: “This is my third session with Tim and every session I walk away with new skills that I can immediately adopt in my day to day duties. Thank you Tim you are saving me so much time”.
Another described it as a “Terrific workshop, feeling very creative”, while a further comment noted: “Everything was explained well and Tim was really knowledgeable”.
The connection between professional learning and workplace application was particularly clear in this response: “Thank you!!! This is exactly what I was looking for and I am very excited to implement your practical suggestions”.
These comments offer encouraging indications of participants’ confidence and perceived usefulness of the session. They also reinforce the value of professional learning that gives support staff time to explore tools relevant to their daily responsibilities.
Supporting creativity across the school
Support staff make a significant contribution to how schools communicate. Investing in their creative capabilities recognises that contribution and helps them respond to an expanding range of visual communication tasks.
The workshop brought together simple design, animation, image generation and editing with discussion of responsible AI use. The feedback suggests that participants left with practical ideas they were keen to apply. For me, that is a valuable outcome: staff seeing new possibilities in their everyday work and feeling equipped to explore them.
Stay tuned for a new range of professional learning for school support staff being offered by ISV in 2027.
With a population of around 1.38 million, slightly smaller than Adelaide’s, Estonia sits on the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe, across the water from Finland and sharing borders with Russia and Latvia. It has 464 schools serving about 163,000 students, with an education system well known for teacher autonomy, equity and digital learning.
In 2025, the Estonian government launched AI Leap (TI-Hüpe) to support critical, responsible and effective AI use in schools. The starting point was a reality familiar to many Australian teachers: students were already using AI, with or without permission (AI Leap Foundation, 2026a, p. 3).
Teachers received access to premium ChatGPT and Google Gemini, along with training and support, before student accounts were introduced in January 2026 (AI Leap Foundation, 2026).
Schools were also given a learning application called ITI, developed with researchers and technology partners. It takes a Socratic approach, using questions, explanations and feedback to guide students towards their own conclusions. During 2026, the program involved 154 of Estonia’s 156 upper-secondary schools, reaching approximately 20,000 students in Years 10 and 11 and 5,000 teachers (e-Estonia, n.d.). By the end of 2027, it is expected to extend to all upper-secondary year levels, vocational students and teachers, and teachers of Years 5 to 9 (AI Leap Foundation, 2026a).
The first annual review, published in August 2026, offers a rare system-wide account of a country taking a deliberate approach to bringing AI into schools and gives Australian educators and leaders something concrete to learn from.
What AI Leap actually did
AI Leap starts with the view that meaningful learning takes active mental effort. The technology needs to support the teaching, with students still doing the thinking. A catchphrase used with teachers summed this up: “take the stairs, not the elevator” (AI Leap Foundation, 2026a, p. 13).
In its first year, the program focused on three areas:
Teachers. Every upper-secondary teacher was offered a paid ChatGPT or Google Gemini account. Each school nominated two teacher leaders to attend monthly regional seminars and bring that learning back to their colleagues through school-based learning circles, usually a 90-minute meeting each month. Subject associations also helped write materials for maths, history, civics, music and languages (AI Leap Foundation, 2026a, pp. 11–15).
Students. The program included an introductory AI literacy course and 23 online lessons. A “Be AI Smart!” video campaign brought in perspectives from experts in law, journalism, art and science. Youth organisations were involved in 41 events, ranging from debate tournaments and hackathons to 18 World Café discussions involving around 950 students (AI Leap Foundation, 2026a, pp. 9–10).
Technology. Working with OpenAI and Estonian researchers, the program developed ITI, a ChatGPT-based study app in Estonian that guides students with questions rather than simply giving them answers. The Institute of the Estonian Language also developed public benchmarks to test AI models on Estonian language, curriculum content and child safety (AI Leap Foundation, 2026a, pp. 17–18).
Funding came from the Ministry of Education and Research, on the condition that the private sector matched half the first-year budget. By May 2026, more than 30 businesses had contributed close to €1 million (AI Leap Foundation, 2026a, p. 38).
Six findings worth reflecting on
1 – AI use among surveyed teachers was already widespread. By early 2026, 95.9% of teachers surveyed had used AI in their work. They estimated it saved them around 1.8 hours a week, most often through creating differentiated materials, planning lessons, preparing feedback and handling admin tasks such as parent emails (AI Leap Foundation, 2026a, pp. 27–28).
2 – Teachers were moving from talking about change to changing their practice. Comparing the late 2025 and early 2026 surveys, there was slightly less emphasis on broad discussions about changing skills, alongside more concrete changes to teaching practice. (AI Leap Foundation, 2026a, pp. 24–25). That is an interesting shift in thinking and practice.
3 – Concerns about students’ thinking remained strong. In the early 2026 survey, 80.2% of teachers agreed that students may be handing their thinking over to AI, while 73.4% said students could produce high-quality work they couldn’t explain. Only 11.7% believed students had developed a habit of checking AI responses against other sources. Access to the tools clearly doesn’t remove the need to teach students how to question what they receive (AI Leap Foundation, 2026a, p. 25).
4 – Learning circles were a particular success. The proportion of schools running AI-focused learning circles grew from 70.5% to 83.4%. Teachers involved reported high motivation and confidence in their abilities, with relatively low stress. The report describes collaborative professional learning as “one of the strongest outcomes of the program”. The questions teacher leaders kept raising will sound familiar to Australian educators: how do we involve sceptical colleagues, where do we find the time, and who sets the rules? (AI Leap Foundation, 2026a, p. 14).
5 – Getting teenagers to use an AI tutor that makes them think isn’t easy. Around 12,400 students activated ITI accounts, but monthly active use peaked at about 5,700, below the program’s 60% target. Average satisfaction was 3.07 out of 5. A recurring complaint, appearing in around 25 comments, was that it asked too many questions. When students became frustrated, many switched to regular ChatGPT or Claude. They reported using other AI tools more often than ITI, which raises a practical challenge for educators trying to encourage deeper thinking through AI (AI Leap Foundation, 2026a, p. 31).
6 – Students who used ITI generally used it to support learning. An analysis of around 218,000 conversations between January and May 2026 found that most active students showed learning-oriented or mixed patterns of use. Only 6.9% mainly sought ready-made answers, and this group used the app much less. The researchers manually set the thresholds for these categories, so the precise percentages need some caution. The useful message for teachers is to look at a student’s overall pattern of AI use. An occasional request for an answer tells us very little on its own (AI Leap Foundation, 2026a, pp. 29–30).
Student’s voice
Between March and May 2026, around 950 students in Years 10 to 12 took part in World Café discussions across 18 Estonian schools. Their recommendations give us plenty to consider here in Australia. Students called for more meaningful learning, clearer expectations around AI and a greater say in their education (Estonian National Youth Council et al., 2026).
Learning
Set tasks that require analysis, creativity and students’ own perspectives, giving them a reason to think for themselves.
Put less emphasis on grades and use a wider range of ways for students to show their understanding, including oral responses, in-class assessments and creative work.
Have teachers and students develop clear agreements together about when and how AI can be used, and how much assistance is appropriate.
Give students practical guidance on using AI to build their knowledge and develop independent thinking.
Explain how learning happens and why knowledge and practice still matter when AI is available.
Review homework so there are fewer, more meaningful tasks. Students shouldn’t feel they need AI just to get everything finished.
Relationships
Make room for experimentation in lessons, with opportunities to explore different answers. Treat mistakes as a normal part of learning.
Provide accessible mental health support and individual feedback. A stronger sense of belonging matters, including when addressing AI misuse.
Give students a voice in school decisions and support the initiatives they lead.
Creativity
Be clear about how students should describe and acknowledge their AI use, and how that use will be assessed.
Have teachers and students openly and consistently label AI-generated content.
Build foundational skills in writing, creativity, problem-solving and critical thinking during primary school, before students rely heavily on AI.
Show students how to use AI in creative work while keeping their own ideas and creative process central.
Social media
Teach age-appropriate media literacy, how algorithms work and the basics of AI through computing or other compulsory subjects.
Embed critical thinking, discussion, information analysis and source checking across schoolwork.
Introduce stronger, binding rules for AI and social media platforms, addressing addictive design, transparency and data protection.
Looking ahead
Update computing classes to cover how AI works, its limitations, data protection and critical evaluation. Include AI learning across subjects in the senior secondary years.
Give students more say in their learning pathways.
Connect school learning more closely with everyday life, future skills and career choices.
Offer opportunities to complete tasks with or without AI. Teach students about the risks and limitations so they can make informed choices.
(Estonian National Youth Council et al., 2026).
How AI Leap connects with Australia
In some respects, Australia is running its own version of Estonia’s experiment, on a state-by-state and sector-by-sector basis. Three trends are particularly similar.
1 – State-built tutors that guide students through questions. Like ITI, several Australian education systems have developed AI tools designed to guide students through their thinking. NSWEduChat opened to NSW public school students from Year 5 in Term 4, 2025 (NSW Department of Education, n.d.; Responsible AI Australia, 2026). InnovationAus describes it as a tool that “does not provide direct answers” (InnovationAus, 2025). South Australia’s EdChat reached public high schools from late 2025 (Furze, 2025), while Education Queensland’s Corella is available to students in Years 7 to 10 with parental consent. The Queensland department describes its approach to the ABC as Socratic, using questions to guide learning (ABC News, 2026).
Estonia’s experience raises a practical challenge here. A tool designed to support learning still needs students to want to use it. If the questioning feels slow or patronising, they’ll simply open another chatbot.
2 – The promise of saving teachers time. Western Australia has committed a further $4.6 million to its ClassmAIte teacher planning pilot, aiming to involve more than 100 schools by the end of 2026 (Education Matters, 2026). Estonian teachers’ estimate that AI saved them around 1.8 hours a week gives us a useful point of comparison. It’s worth remembering, though, that this was self-reported, rather than independently measured (AI Leap Foundation, 2026a, p. 24).
3 – Growing pressure around assessment integrity. A Learning First report commissioned by the NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA), published in May 2026, surveyed almost 3,400 NSW teachers across all sectors. Among teachers who observed student AI use, 73% of senior secondary teachers said students were using it to complete assessment tasks. Around half of secondary teachers said they did not know how to prevent AI-assisted cheating (Williams, 2026). Estonian teachers described a familiar concern: students submitting polished work they couldn’t explain (AI Leap Foundation, 2026a, p. 25).
From Term 4, 2026, NESA’s rules limit unsupervised assessment to 15% of assessment work in Stage 6 Preliminary and HSC courses. Schools must design assessments that demonstrate students’ own knowledge, skills and understanding, ensuring marks do not reflect AI-generated work (NSW Education Standards Authority [NESA], 2026).
The Australian context
These similarities are useful, but the differences between the two countries matter. Estonia has 156 upper-secondary schools, one education ministry and a coordinated national program. Australia has eight jurisdictions and three main school sectors: government, Catholic and independent. Our state-developed AI tools mostly serve government schools.
Many Catholic and independent schools are developing their own approaches. Others, including some in the Steiner network, are deliberately taking a slower approach to AI adoption (ABC News, 2026).
For Australia, one encouraging lesson is the value of giving schools time and support to work things through together. Estonia’s experience suggests that schools’ readiness and opportunities to experiment with colleagues mattered to how well the program worked (AI Leap Foundation, 2026a, p. 39; 2026c).
Six things for Australian teachers, school leaders and policymakers to consider
1 – Involve students in writing the AI rules. This was a clear message from Estonia’s student discussions. Develop a class agreement together about when AI supports learning, when its use must be acknowledged and which tasks need to be completed independently. Include how students will show their own thinking.
2 – Start a small learning circle. Two or three colleagues, an hour a month and one shared question is a manageable starting point. Collaborative professional learning was one of Estonia’s strongest outcomes. If there’s no time set aside for it at your school, that’s a conversation to have with leadership.
3 – Redesign one task to make the reasoning visible. Estonian teachers had students debate an AI, check its claims against primary sources and explain their process in class. One learning circle resource captures this approach in its title: “From Performance to Process: Watch How I Think.”
This connects closely with Principle 3 of the University of Sydney’s Castlereagh Statement green paper, which recommends “process over product” in teaching and assessment. It calls for making learning visible and using AI to support students’ thinking (Castlereagh Summit, 2026).
4 – Teach students how to check AI responses. Only around one in nine Estonian teachers believed students had developed a habit of checking AI output. We shouldn’t assume our students will do this without guidance either. Build source checking into the task, including checking whether a source is credible and actually supports the claim.
5 – Look at patterns of use. A student who occasionally asks AI for an answer isn’t necessarily handing over their learning (AI Leap Foundation, 2026a, p. 29). Look at how they use it across a unit. Talk with them about the choices they’ve made and ask them to explain what they’ve learnt.
6 – Explain why the tutor asks questions. If you use NSW EduChat, South Australia’s EdChat or Queensland’s Corella, talk with students about the purpose of guided questioning. Students in Estonia became frustrated with questions they didn’t see the point of (AI Leap Foundation, 2026a, p. 33). Model how to work through the exchange, and recognise when a direct explanation or worked example would be more useful.
Start with the people
Estonia’s first year of AI Leap shows how much work comes after providing access to the technology. Teachers need time to reconsider tasks and assessment, and students need to understand why doing their own thinking still matters. As the review puts it, “Access to AI alone does not help anyone learn more effectively” (AI Leap Foundation, 2026c).
For me, that’s an encouraging message. We already have considerable expertise in our staffrooms. Giving teachers the time to learn together, try things and talk honestly with students is a practical place to start.
If you would like support (online or in-person) with the safe & ethical integration of AI tools at your school, get in touch with me via – https://timkitchen.net/book-tim/
My new book The Human Advantage – Teaching, Learning and Leading in a Gen AI World is now available to order via – https://timkitchen.net/buy-tims-books/
Have a listen and/or look at my podcast/vodcast – The Kitchen Think on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or YouTube – https://timkitchen.net/podcast/
This is for teachers and school leaders interested in how educators can teach and lead in a generative AI world while keeping creativity, critical thinking, relationships and human judgement at the heart of education.
ANZ customers can order a personally signed copy here.
Book me for 2027
I’m starting to get bookings for key PD days in 2027 and still have some days free towards the end of this year.
Most popular topics include:
For teachers
Rethinking Assessment in the Age of AI (Making learning, thinking and authorship visible)
Teaching in the Age of Generative AI (Building confidence, capability and critical understanding)
For students
AI Explorers: Using Generative AI Safely and Wisely (for Years 5 to 8) This interactive introduction helps younger students understand what generative AI is, how it creates responses and why it should not always be trusted.
The Human Advantage: Navigating an AI-Rich World (for Years 9 to 12) This workshop examines the more complex ethical, academic and social questions surrounding AI. Students consider how to use these tools productively while protecting their independence, integrity, privacy and distinctly human capabilities.
For support staff
Time-Saving Automation with AI (Move beyond one-off prompts to repeatable workflows. Staff learn to identify the recurring tasks that drain their week and design AI-assisted shortcuts they can reuse)
Working Smarter with Generative AI: Foundations for School Staff (A practical introduction to generative AI for the people who keep schools running)
It was an honour to be quoted quite extensively in The Australian Financial Review last month alongside Marjery Evans Chief Executive of IS-NSW in an article titled “Shaping education for an AI future.”
Since the last update there have been a number of episode of The Kitchen Think podcast/vodcast produced with special guests including Victoria (Tori) Spicer-Stuart, Adrian Cotterell, Alwyn Hunt & Laura Bain. Episode 12 is a special chat with Dan Ingvarson.
Is your school in need of an AI audit, or some extra support and advice about AI use in the classroom? The Next Word is a forward-thinking education consultancy that helps schools navigate the rapidly evolving world of generative AI.
I am very pleased to be on The Next Word team as an Associate and encourage you to look up what we can offer your school.
On Saturday 17 October, I had the pleasure of attending the very first Amba Press Community Day, hosted at the Centre for Strategic Education in Melbourne. This free event brought together authors, readers, teachers and people who simply love a good book for a day of connection, conversation and celebration.
Writing can involve many hours working alone, so opportunities to meet readers and spend time with fellow authors are particularly valuable. The day was a reminder of the community behind every publication, and the conversations that continue long after a book reaches its readers.
Leon’s latest book explores some of the important questions facing educators as generative AI develops, including critical AI literacy, ethical considerations, and approaches to curriculum and assessment. It encourages educators to look beyond individual tools and consider what these technologies mean for teaching and learning. These are questions closely connected to my own work with schools, and it was a pleasure to celebrate this contribution to the discussion.
Another personal highlight was meeting Hazel Edwards OAM, whose writing has reached generations of children, teachers and adult readers. Her much-loved picture book, There’s a Hippopotamus on Our Roof Eating Cake, was first published in 1980 and has since grown into a series, with adaptations including classroom play scripts, a musical stage production and a short film. Hazel has written over 220 books.
It was also lovely to catch up with Andrew Fuller, a clinical psychologist and family therapist whose work spans neuroscience and learning, resilience and wellbeing. Andrew works with schools, communities and organisations across Australia, New Zealand, Asia and the United Kingdom, and is an Honorary Fellow at the University of Melbourne.
A finished product can tell us a great deal about what a student has made. But how much does it reveal about what they have learned?
This question framed two workshops I facilitated on Friday 16 October at a special TAS (Technological and Applied Studies) conference event organised by IS-NSW at Meriden School in Sydney. Across the two repeated sessions, approximately 35 teachers explored Making Thinking Visible: Digital Design Folios and Authentic Evidence.
Beyond the polished folio
A beautifully presented folio can communicate a design journey clearly. However, presentation alone does not necessarily reveal the quality of a student’s thinking. An unsuccessful prototype, accompanied by a thoughtful explanation of why it failed and what changed next, may provide particularly valuable evidence of learning.
Digital portfolios offer ways to capture these moments using more than written descriptions. Prototype photographs, short videos, voice reflections and testing results can help students explain what they tried, what they noticed and how their understanding developed.
A photograph might show a joint that failed under pressure. A brief recording could explain why a student changed a fabric, ingredient or component. A comparison of two prototypes might demonstrate how testing informed a revision.
The evidence becomes more meaningful when students explain its significance. What does this photograph show? Why was this change necessary? What did the test reveal that was not obvious beforehand? These questions help move a folio beyond a record of activity towards an account of learning.
Making feedback visible
Feedback is another important part of the design process that can disappear from a finished folio. Students may receive useful suggestions from teachers, peers or potential users, but the final submission does not always show how those suggestions influenced their decisions.
A manageable digital folio can make this relationship clearer. Students can capture a piece of feedback, explain their response and show the resulting change. They can also justify why they chose not to follow a suggestion.
That distinction matters. Responding thoughtfully to feedback involves judgement. Students need opportunities to weigh advice against their design brief, testing results and intended users.
Prompts such as “What feedback did you receive?”, “What did you change?” and “Why?” can reveal that judgement without requiring lengthy written reflections at every stage.
The two sessions at Meriden centred on a practical assessment question: how can we make the learning behind the product easier to see?
A well-designed digital folio can help answer that question. By bringing together evidence of experimentation, feedback, revision and evaluation, it gives students a way to explain their decisions and teachers a richer basis for understanding individual learning.
The finished product remains important. Its educational value becomes clearer when we can also see the thinking that brought it into being.
One of the highlights was showing the value of Adobe Express for Education as a tool to make artifacts and document them within a digital portfolio.
Special thank you to Chris Woldhuis and his team at IS-NSW for organising this conference.
On Monday 12 October 2026, I worked with approximately 20 support staff at Yarra Valley Grammar to explore practical ways Microsoft Copilot could assist with everyday school administration. The session, Working Smarter with Copilot: Practical Shortcuts for School Admin Staff, focused on a simple principle: AI drafts. You decide.
School support staff handle work that shapes how families experience a school. An email, a reception response, a newsletter or a meeting follow-up can make a difference to whether people feel informed and supported. Generative AI offers ways to make some of this work more manageable, but the staff member’s knowledge of the school and its community remains essential.
Putting automation in perspective
We began by placing AI within the much longer story of automation. The workshop traced examples from water clocks and mechanical systems through to industrial machinery, household appliances, barcode scanners and spellcheckers.
This provided a starting point for considering what we might delegate to technology. With generative AI, that question extends to drafting, summarising and organising information. The opportunity is to reduce repetitive work while keeping people responsible for accuracy, judgement and relationships.
Briefing an assistant well
Throughout the session, Copilot was framed as a fast first-draft assistant. It can help with language and structure, yet a fluent response can still contain errors or miss the context that matters to a school community.
A practical prompting framework brought together six elements: role, context, audience, task, tone and constraints. Rather than simply asking for an email about an excursion, staff could specify the year level, what families already know, the details that need emphasis, the desired tone and a word limit.
The same approach applies to staff updates, event invitations and parent enquiries. Clear instructions give the assistant a more useful brief. Follow-up requests then help refine the draft: make it shorter, remove jargon, offer a warmer version or adapt it for a different audience.
Writing that still sounds like us
A substantial part of the workshop focused on everyday communication. AI can turn rough notes into a draft or help edit an existing message for clarity, grammar and flow. It can also suggest where wording sounds abrupt, defensive or ambiguous.
For schools, preserving an authentic voice matters. Families are communicating with people they know and trust. Asking AI to improve a draft while retaining the writer’s wording is one way to keep that relationship visible. Providing suitable, non-sensitive examples of previous writing can also help establish the preferred style.
Another useful approach is to ask what a busy parent might find confusing or what a new staff member would still need to know. Such prompts can reveal omissions, although any suggested additions need checking. AI should not fill a gap by inventing a date, requirement or school policy.
From information to useful action
The practical tasks also explored turning newsletter dot points into several communication formats, extracting key decisions and action items from a meeting transcript, and converting handwritten notes into typed text and a summary.
These examples highlight a common administrative challenge: information exists, but it needs to be organised for someone else to use. A school leader may need a short executive summary, while another staff member needs an action list. AI can help draft both from the same source.
The review remains crucial. A summary must reflect the original discussion, an action owner must be correctly identified, and unclear handwriting must be checked rather than confidently guessed. A draft response to a concerned parent likewise needs to reflect the school’s actual approach.
Keeping responsibility with people
The workshop set out four guardrails: protect student data, verify before sending, keep your voice and follow school policy. Staff were encouraged to use the school-approved account and describe situations generically rather than entering identifying student or family information.
We also included the less visible environmental considerations behind AI, including energy, water, carbon and electronic waste. These broaden the question from what a tool can produce to whether its use serves a worthwhile purpose.
My closing encouragement was to start with one recurring task, save prompts that prove useful and share effective approaches with colleagues. Building confidence through a manageable routine gives staff room to check quality and decide where AI adds value.
For school support staff, working smarter with AI means using assistance thoughtfully while continuing to own the work. The person reviewing the draft brings the context, care and judgement that a school community depends on.
A special thank you to Phil Callil, Director of IT and Digital Learning who initiated this workshop.
I was surprised to discover that I’d been quoted quite extensively in The Australian Financial Review earlier this month, in an article titled “Shaping education for an AI future.”
I remember the interview, but I hadn’t realised the article had been published until a kind reader sent me a copy. I’m grateful they did.
It’s encouraging to see a national conversation about how we prepare young people to learn, think and create in a world shaped by AI.
In this episode of The Kitchen Think, I’m joined by Alwyn Hunt, co-founder of The Rookies, a global community helping emerging creatives explore pathways into games, filmmaking, animation, design and other creative industries.
We explore what happens when a young person loves playing games and wants to learn how to make one? Or watches a film and wonders what it would be like to create its characters and visual effects? Alwyn explains how The Rookies connects students with learning resources, a community of peers and feedback from industry professionals.
We discuss what teachers can do when a student’s interest in 3D art or game development goes beyond their own expertise, and how parents can better understand the careers available in these fields. We also talk about Alwyn’s work in visual effects, the creative opportunities available here in Australia, and how AI is changing industry workflows.
Throughout the conversation, Alwyn makes a compelling case for staying curious and developing the creativity, problem-solving and critical thinking that young people will need as these industries evolve. With the first Rookies Schools Week coming up in October 2026, this conversation is a timely invitation to help young creatives see where their interests could take them.
On 14 September, I facilitated a workshop with ISV titled AI for Everyday Communication: Writing Smarter, Not Harder that involved about 30 non-teaching admin staff from 15 different Victorian independent schools. The session was designed specifically for staff who manage much of a school’s daily communication.
These staff are often responsible for an extraordinary range of writing tasks. On any given day, they may be drafting emails to parents, preparing staff notices, updating newsletters, responding to enquiries, writing event announcements or translating complex information into language that is clear and accessible.
Each task may seem relatively small, but together they consume a significant amount of time. They also carry considerable responsibility. A poorly worded message can create confusion, damage trust or result in a long chain of follow-up emails.
Generative AI can help, but only when it is used thoughtfully.
The aim of the workshop was not to hand school communication over to AI. It was to explore how AI could support staff as a drafting assistant, helping them work more efficiently while maintaining the care, professionalism and distinctive voice of their school.
The blank page is often the hardest part
For many people, the most time-consuming stage of writing is getting started. You may know exactly what needs to be communicated but struggle to find the right opening sentence. You might write and rewrite the same paragraph several times, trying to make it sound professional without becoming too formal or impersonal.
Generative AI can be particularly useful at this early stage.
Instead of asking an AI tool to simply “write an email”, we explored how to provide it with the context it needs:
Who is the audience?
What is the purpose of the communication?
What information must be included?
What tone should be used?
Is there anything that should be avoided?
What action should the reader take?
Finding the right tone
Tone is one of the most important (and difficult) parts of school communication.
A message can be factually correct but still sound abrupt, defensive, overly formal or strangely impersonal. This is particularly risky when communicating about complaints, overdue payments, student wellbeing, changes to school procedures or other sensitive issues.
During the workshop, participants explored how AI could help revise a message without changing its underlying meaning.
One message, different audiences
Schools regularly need to communicate the same information to different groups. A policy update might require one version for staff, another for parents and a simplified explanation for students. Information supplied by a government department or external organisation may also need to be rewritten in plain language before it can be shared with the wider community.
Generative AI can help transform a source document into several audience-specific drafts.
Newsletters, notices and announcements
Newsletters and community announcements are another area in which AI can reduce the time spent drafting and editing.
Participants explored how brief notes or dot points could be developed into a polished article. AI could also suggest headings, shorten a long draft, remove repetition or generate several versions for different communication channels.
The purpose of using AI for everyday communication is not simply to produce more words, more quickly.
It is about reducing the time staff spend staring at blank pages, restructuring paragraphs and repeatedly rewriting routine messages. That time can then be redirected towards the work that requires genuine human understanding: supporting a concerned parent, helping a colleague, coordinating an event or strengthening relationships across the school community.
The most effective use of AI is not to remove people from communication. It is to give them more time and capacity to communicate well.
Used carefully, generative AI can become a valuable writing partner for non-teaching staff. It can help create first drafts, improve clarity, adjust tone, simplify complex information and adapt messages for different audiences.
But the human contribution remains essential.
The AI may help write the words. It is the people within the school who provide the context, judgement, empathy and authentic voice that give those words meaning.
That is what it means to write smarter – not harder.
If you would like to find out more about Dr Tim Kitchen’s consultancy CTL – click here
The Kitchen Think podcast/vodcast – Season 1, Episode 8
What if the city itself became the classroom?
In this episode of The Kitchen Think, Dr Tim Kitchen interviews Laura Bain, Director of Vision and Development for the Immanuel Lutheran College Urban Campus Project on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast.
Laura is helping to develop an innovative senior learning community in the heart of the Maroochydore CBD on the Sunshine Coast on QLD, Australia. Built around the idea that “the city is your campus”, the project aims to connect students with local businesses, universities, community organisations and authentic real-world learning opportunities.
During the conversation, Laura explores:
Why traditional schooling does not meet the needs of every student
How curriculum, wellbeing, technology and community partnerships can work together
The importance of student agency and personalised learning
How physical spaces can influence learning
The potential for AI to provide timely feedback and support individual learning journeys
How schools can help young people use AI thoughtfully, responsibly and discerningly
At the heart of the conversation is a hopeful vision for education – one in which every student is deeply known, learning is connected to the wider world, and schools become springboards into the future.
Subscribe to The Kitchen Think for more conversations about education, creativity, technology and preparing young people for an AI-rich world.
Dr Kitchen’s CTL – Creative Teaching & Learning site – https://timkitchen.net/ctl is also worth a look if you for more resources and support around the safe & ethical use of AI and digital creativity.
