More than 300 teachers, doctors, academics and parents have asked the government to pause its plan to test AI tutoring tools on disadvantaged pupils in England. In a letter to Prime Minister Andy Burnham and Education Secretary Lucy Powell, they say the trial should stop until there is clear proof that the tools help children learn.
The letter was reported by the Mirror on 8 November 2026. It says children with “the fewest alternatives” should not be the first to face the risks of AI that has not yet proved itself.
What the AI tutor trial involves
The government’s AI Tutoring Tools Pioneers Programme is run by the Department for Education and the government’s Incubator for AI. Eight companies are working with partner schools to design and test AI tutors for pupils in Years 9 and 10.
The tools cover maths, science, English and modern foreign languages. Teachers are involved in designing them, and testing is taking place under teacher supervision.
The programme was announced in January 2026. Companies were invited to bid in April, and co-design work with schools started in summer 2026. This phase runs until March 2027, and tools that prove safe and effective could be made available to schools from 2027.
If the tools work, the government says they could eventually support up to 450,000 disadvantaged pupils each year. The Department for Education says only one in four disadvantaged pupils gets a grade 5 or above in GCSE English and maths, compared with more than half of their classmates.
Why experts want a pause
The signatories include neuroscientists, psychologists and specialists in special educational needs. They argue that the problems holding poorer pupils back are not technical ones, and that a chatbot cannot fix them.
Dr Velislava Hillman, co-author of the letter and founder of the EDDS Institute, told the Mirror the government should “only come back to AI tutoring if it can prove it does more good than harm”.
Other named supporters include Jane Rowland, who directs the SafeScreens Campaign; GP Dr Rebecca Foljambe, founder of Health Professionals for Safer Screens; and Lila Byock, founder of Schools Beyond Screens.
The campaigners also point to a major international study published by the Brookings Institution in January 2026. After reviewing more than 400 studies, Brookings concluded that, at this stage of the technology, the risks of using generative AI in children’s education outweigh its benefits.
There has also been trouble inside the programme itself. Google UK, one of the eight original suppliers, has left the project. Its share of the work was worth £360,000. The other seven suppliers remain: Pearson, Eedi, ElevenLabs, Flint, Learn Anything Education, Medly Ai and Zero Gravity Tech.
What the government says
The government has not agreed to a pause. A spokesman said “children’s safety has to come first” and stressed that this is “not a national rollout” but a controlled trial.
The trial exists, the spokesman said, “to build the evidence about what works” before anything is scaled up. The government has promised national benchmarks covering accuracy, age-appropriateness and safety, with scoring criteria designed together with teachers.
The row comes at a time of wider debate about AI in education. England’s higher education regulator, the Office for Students, has also warned that AI tools make it hard for universities to tell whether students did their own coursework. Read more in our coverage of the pressures facing UK education in UK Business Schools Report Sharp Fall in Overseas Students.
What happens next
The letter puts pressure on ministers to show evidence before the trial grows. The current phase ends in March 2027, and the government will then decide which tools, if any, are ready for wider use in schools.
For now, the 300 signatories want the brakes applied. They say disadvantaged pupils deserve proven teaching, not an experiment, and they want the government to prove the tools work before any child is asked to rely on them.
Sources
ResultSense on the pause letter; Flint on the AI Tutoring Tools Pioneers Programme; Safe AI for Children on the evidence for AI in schools.
Comments (1)
Be respectful — comments are moderated.[…] is now central to learning, which makes the stakes higher than ever. Only days ago, 300 Experts Urge Pause on England AI Tutor Trial reported how more than 300 experts asked England to pause a plan to give AI tutoring tools to […]