At White Oak, students learn to use AI critically, openly and with restraint. It may help them explore a question, test an explanation, organise ideas or receive formative feedback. It must not do their thinking for them. The reasoning, judgement and final work must remain their own.

Student use of AI

Students must discuss the proposed use of an AI tool with their teacher before using it for White Oak work. The teacher’s instructions for the particular subject or task always take priority.

Where AI has materially assisted a piece of work, the student must say so clearly. The declaration should normally identify the tool, the date and the purpose for which it was used. Teachers may also ask students to retain prompts, outputs or screenshots.

Students remain responsible for everything they submit. They must check facts, sources and calculations, recognise possible bias, and be able to explain and defend their work without relying on the AI tool.

Using AI to produce work and presenting it as one’s own is not acceptable. Nor may AI be used where a teacher, an awarding body or an examination centre has prohibited it.

Formal assessments and examinations

Rules for formal qualification assessments are set by the relevant awarding body and the student’s independent examination centre. Those rules take priority over White Oak’s general approach.

Pearson and JCQ rules require assessed work to be the student’s own. Where AI use is permitted, it must be acknowledged in the manner required for that assessment. Undeclared or prohibited use may be treated as malpractice.

White Oak is an independent online teaching provider. It is not an examination centre. Families register students independently with an approved external examination centre. White Oak can help families identify possible centres, but the centre is responsible for accepting the candidate, making examination entries, arranging access requirements, setting fees and applying the relevant examination regulations.

How White Oak may use AI

Teachers may use approved AI-supported tools to assist with matters such as lesson preparation, drafting teaching resources, administrative work or developing formative questions. Every output must be checked by a suitably qualified person. The teacher remains professionally responsible for the material and for the teaching decisions made.

White Oak does not use AI to make decisions about:

• admission or exclusion;
• predicted or final grades;
• disciplinary outcomes;
• safeguarding concerns;
• university recommendations; or
• examination access arrangements.

We will not determine that a student has breached academic-integrity rules solely because an automated detection tool suggests that AI may have been used. Any concern will be considered by a person, and the student will have an opportunity to explain their work.

Privacy and safety

Personal, confidential or sensitive information must not be entered into public generative-AI services. This includes student names, contact information, identifiable student work, health information, safeguarding records and private family correspondence.

Before White Oak introduces a school-managed AI tool that processes student information, it will examine the provider’s terms, age requirements, security, data retention, international transfers and use of information for model training. A data-protection impact assessment will be completed where required.

White Oak will not permit identifiable student work to be used to train a provider’s general AI models unless a lawful basis has been established, families have been clearly informed and any legally required consent has been obtained.

White Oak does not use AI for emotion recognition, biometric categorisation, social scoring, covert monitoring or manipulative profiling of students.

Transparency

Students and families should know when they are dealing with an automated system rather than a person.

If White Oak publishes realistic images, audio or video that have been materially generated or altered using AI, we will identify this clearly where required. Public information prepared with AI assistance remains subject to human editorial review.

Responsibility and review

The Academic Director is responsible for the educational use of AI. The Data Protection Lead oversees privacy and data-processing matters, while safeguarding concerns remain the responsibility of the Safeguarding Lead.

White Oak maintains guidance for teachers and students, reviews the AI tools used in its work and provides appropriate AI-literacy training. This statement is reviewed at least annually and whenever relevant law, examination rules or technology changes.

Questions or concerns may be sent to contact@whiteoakcollege.org.

Last reviewed: July 2026.