If you’ve opened a newspaper, scrolled through LinkedIn, or frankly, just existed in the last two years, you’ve heard about Artificial Intelligence (AI). It’s in the “boom” phase, and everywhere you look, someone is trying to bedazzle you with the newest, shiniest tech. At Koa Academy, we love innovation. It’s in our DNA. But we are also deeply protective of our learning environment. For us, the question isn’t “How quickly can we use AI?” – it’s “Does this actually help our students learn better?” As Jason Hutchison, our Deputy Principal, puts it: “We’re not trying to squeeze AI into our school just to say, ‘Hey, look at us, we’re so advanced.’ We have to make sure it really is improving what we’re doing, and not just acting as a pretty banner.” The AI You Don’t See (But Definitely Feel) When we think of AI, we usually picture a chatbot writing an essay. But at Koa, some of the most impactful AI is happening quietly in the background, making life better for our teachers, and by extension, your child. “We tend to think of AI only as Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT or Gemini,” explains Jason. “But there is so much more to it than that – for example in the automation of systems.” We’ve recently updated our backend workflows using AI automation. In the past, a teacher might have had to enter a test score in three or four different places. That’s tedious, and when humans are tired, errors happen. “Now, we’ve used backend lookups and AI to pull that information by typing it in just once,” Jason says. “We know that what we’re sending to students and parents is more accurate, and we’re significantly reducing staff workload.” Why does this matter to a parent? Because every minute a Pod Teacher spends fighting with a spreadsheet is a minute they aren’t spending connecting with your child. By letting AI handle the admin, we free up time for humans to do what they do best: mentor, guide, and care. Solving the “Two Sigma Problem” One of the philosophies driving our academic approach comes from our Principal, Mark Anderson. Mark frequently talks about educationalist Benjamin Bloom and the “Two Sigma Problem.” In simple terms, research shows that the “Holy Grail” of education is one-on-one tutoring. Students who learn with a personal tutor perform significantly better (about two standard deviations, or “two sigmas”) than those in a conventional classroom. The problem? In the real world, giving every single child a full-time human tutor just isn’t scalable or affordable. This is where AI changes the game. “What AI tools can do is give us the closest proximity to one-on-one learning that we can possibly achieve,” says Jason. “It becomes a research tool, a guide, and an ever-present, 24/7 tutor that students can ask questions of, working alongside the live teacher support they receive every day.” But we aren’t just throwing them into the deep end of the internet to chat with robots. We are curating the environment strictly. Meet NotebookLM: The “Walled Garden” There is a valid fear among parents that AI is a shortcut to cheating, or worse, a rabbit hole of misinformation. We get it. That is why Koa has chosen to embrace Google’s NotebookLM. Unlike an open Chatbot, where students might ask a history question and get a hallucinated answer (or get distracted by something totally irrelevant), NotebookLM is what we call a “closed environment.” “We are creating content notebooks designed to work as a personal tutor, curated by our teachers,” Jason explains. “So, you’re able to ask questions, develop notes, and it creates audio overviews. But it is drawing only on information that our teachers have approved.” Themba, a key voice in our tech integration team, describes this as a “source-grounded” experience. “At Koa Academy, we embrace AI not as a replacement for human intellect, but as a powerful lever to amplify mastery-based learning,” says Themba. “By anchoring technology strictly to specific, reliable documents like textbooks and research papers, we minimize the risk of misinformation.” Imagine your child is studying for a Biology exam. They can use NotebookLM to quiz themselves, summarise difficult concepts, or even generate a podcast conversation about the topic to listen to. But because the source material was uploaded by Koa teachers, you know they aren’t getting lost in the “dark corners” of the internet. They are safe, and they are studying the right material. Future-Proofing Digital Citizens We know that we can’t hide our students from the world. AI is here to stay, and pretending it doesn’t exist won’t help them when they enter the workforce. Our job is to teach them to use it ethically. “We prioritize the ethical use of AI by teaching learners about the biases AI tools could have, data privacy, and the necessity of human-led verification,” Themba notes. “Our goal is to graduate adaptable digital citizens who balance high-level AI fluency with irreplaceable human skills like empathy and ethical reasoning.” We are setting clear boundaries. For example, using generic ChatGPT to write an essay? Not allowed. That’s bypassing the thinking process. But using the teacher-curated NotebookLM to help structure your study notes? That is encouraged. “We understand the parameters,” Jason reassures. “We understand how it can be used to enhance learning and also how it doesn’t lend itself towards being unethical. It’s actually very difficult to use NotebookLM to cheat in longer-form writing; it’s designed to help students understand, not to do the work for them.” A “Forever Conversation” So, where do we go from here? If there is one thing we want parents to take away, it’s that we are on this journey with you. “Parents need to understand that this is officially a forever conversation,” says Jason. “It’s not a ‘one and done.’ The question is rather: how can we continue to learn, grow, and harness the tools available to us to ensure that the best teaching and learning is taking place?” We don’t claim to
