An AI activity in a classroom creates decisions for the adults who choose it. The school needs to consider what a child encounters and how the child can get help. Those decisions belong in the planning of the lesson.
UNICEF’s December 2025 Guidance on AI and Children, version 3.0, places children’s rights at the centre of decisions about AI. Its recommendations address safety and privacy alongside fairness and accountability. In education, it calls for evidence of benefit and attention to the effects on children’s rights. Read UNICEF’s guidance.
Before assigning an activity, a school should decide how it responds to those concerns. A child needs an understandable route through the task and a way to ask for support if the experience becomes uncomfortable or confusing.
Plan for the child using the activity
Consider a hypothetical writing exercise in which an AI tool comments on a student’s work. The teacher should decide what the child is being asked to share. A personal account of a difficult experience would call for a different discussion from an invented story about a journey.
We would design the task so that participation can begin with a suitable fictional example. The teacher should explain what information is appropriate to enter and remain available when a learner is unsure. Instructions should use language the students can understand during the activity.
The school also needs to think about how feedback reaches a child. A teacher could review a sample of comments before deciding whether the activity is suitable for the class. During a trial, students should be able to flag feedback they believe is unfair and discuss it with a person who understands the task.
The teacher should record the circumstances in which a concern arises, so a reviewer can examine the experience in context. That record can also help the school explain its response to the family.
Give concerns somewhere to go
We would ask a school to identify who handles a concern before the first lesson. A teacher receiving a complaint needs to know when to pause the activity and who can help investigate. Families should receive a clear explanation of how to raise a problem.
A review process should record enough context to understand the experience while limiting unnecessary copies of a child’s work. The person responsible for the review should be able to explain what changes and how the school checks the revised activity.
Children should have a chance to describe their experience in an appropriate setting. A school could use a short conversation after the lesson, with an option to speak privately. Staff would need time to consider that feedback before deciding whether the activity should continue with another group.