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Good Future Foundation recognises Portsmouth’s pioneering approach to responsible AI adoption in education.
Portsmouth has become the first city anywhere to receive the AI Quality Mark gold award from Good Future Foundation. This recognition celebrates how The “Portsmouth: The Digital City” Project sets an exceptional standard to support schools across the city in adopting artificial intelligence responsibly and effectively.
The city-wide initiative, which evolved from pandemic-era remote learning support, now provides guidance and resources to all 61 schools including both those who are local authority and those from the 14 different multi academy trusts across the city. Through coordinated professional development (including bespoke training for our Portsmouth Primary SCITT), shared best practices, and collaborative planning, the project has helped educators integrate AI tools while maintaining focus on accessibility and inclusion for every student.
Daniel Emmerson, Good Future Foundation, said “Our AI Quality Mark addresses nine areas of school life, so that schools are able to explore in depth where they are on their AI journey, while also identifying gaps and developing strategy along the way. The Digital City Project team have done superb work with their schools in focussing on unique approaches and practices in order to ensure responsible use of this exciting technology.”
The “Portsmouth: The Digital City” Project will now help its schools achieve individual AI Quality Mark certifications. Six pioneering schools will begin the certification process in September, with the city providing mentorship and resources as they work through the AI Quality Mark framework. These schools will then support the next cohort with a vision that all schools have achieved their individual AI Quality Mark certifications by the summer of 2026. Good Future Foundation will continue supporting Portsmouth as the city extends this guidance to help all schools across its education network develop their own responsible AI strategies.
Gemma Gwilliam, Head of Digital Learning, Education and Innovation in Portsmouth, reflected on the AI-focused achievement: “Receiving the AI Quality Mark gold award was initially a recommendation from one of our Assistant Heads of Digital, Amy Quade, who then worked through the process with myself and our other Assistant Head of Digital, Nicci Sawdy. It’s a brilliant example of how our city-wide approach makes a difference. In Portsmouth, our vision is rooted in a shared responsibility to ensure technology is used to enhance teaching and learning, reduce workload, support accessibility and inclusion, and help narrow the digital divide so that every member of our community can choose the right tool, for the right outcome, at the right time.
Our approach to AI is that it must be safe, secure and accessible. Before we even embarked on our training, policies and curriculum, our Technology Specialist Advisors worked through relevant DfE guidance and explored what schools needed to do before providing access to staff. We’ve consulted with specialists from Canva, Canopy Education and Google for Education, as well as ensuring anything we do aligns with safeguarding updates. This was then fed into our separate training strands, policies and curriculums under ‘Technology for children, technology for adults, technology for all’, so it’s personalised and relevant to everyone. Working through the AI Quality Mark framework has given us the opportunity to reflect on how far we’ve come, as well as identify priority areas, demonstrating that this isn’t a tick-box exercise, but an evolving process in a rapidly changing world.
As a team, we’re excited to support our schools individually through their own certification journeys as well as our recently formed “Walsall&Beyond” Cluster so that together we are continuing to promote the safe and effective use of AI for our schools and their families. Having gone through the process ourselves, we’re now well placed to help ensure every school’s approach to AI truly benefits its staff and learners and would recommend others go through this process too.”
This milestone shows how cities can become catalysts for responsible AI adoption, providing the leadership, resources, and collaborative framework that schools need to navigate AI implementation thoughtfully and responsibly prepare all young learners for an AI-infused world.”
To learn more about the AI Quality Mark and The “Portsmouth: The Digital City” Project, please visit:
https://www.portsmoutheducationpartnership.co.uk/digital-city/