Students are already there
By last year, three in four teenagers in Britain had used generative AI — not occasionally, but as a routine part of how they write, research, and think. The National Literacy Trust's 2024 Annual Literacy Survey, drawing on responses from 53,169 pupils, found 77.1% of 13- to 18-year-olds had used generative AI tools, up from 37.1% the year before. That near-doubling happened in twelve months. Pupils attending secondary schools in Grantham and across South Kesteven are part of that shift; there is no reason to think the district sits outside the national pattern.
The practical consequence is straightforward: students are walking into computing lessons, English lessons, and homework sessions already using tools that their schools have not yet been systematically equipped to address. That is not a moral panic — generative AI is not uniquely dangerous in the hands of a fifteen-year-old in Grantham. It is, however, a question of pace. What are local secondary schools actually telling students about these tools, and who is deciding what gets said?
Who actually sets the rules
Three tiers of authority shape what Grantham secondary schools do about AI — but only the bottom tier has any real daily effect.
At the top, the Department for Education updated its guidance in August 2025 and deliberately stopped short of a mandatory national AI curriculum module. Schools and colleges may set their own rules on AI use, provided they comply with UK GDPR, child safety law, and intellectual property requirements. Final responsibility sits with the head teacher and governing body. The DfE's non-prescriptive stance is a considered policy choice, not an administrative oversight: it preserves flexibility for schools in very different circumstances, but it also means no consistent baseline exists across England.
Lincolnshire County Council holds statutory responsibility for education and youth services across South Kesteven, including the district's grammar schools and academies. It can oversee standards and broader digital strategy, but it does not prescribe individual school AI policy. No publicly available South Kesteven-specific local authority AI strategy has been identified — that gap should be stated plainly rather than assumed away.
In practice, then, what any given school in Grantham teaches about AI comes down to the judgement of its senior leadership team and, more specifically, its computing head. That produces a degree of provision that is likely uneven across the district — responsive where staff are confident and motivated, thinner where they are not.
What the computing classroom covers
Three named schools illustrate the range of provision — and its limits.
The King's School Grantham offers GCSE Computing on the OCR specification, where artificial intelligence appears under 'current and emerging technologies' and is listed as a potential career destination alongside programming, game design, and cyber-security. Python is the primary taught language; AI is one topic within a broader computing theory course, not a standalone module. That framing is structural rather than a local choice: the OCR specification does not require a dedicated AI unit, and King's provision maps to it accordingly.
Kesteven and Grantham Girls' School incorporates AI within its computing and pastoral work. No detailed public curriculum guide exists for its computing provision — itself a reflection of how informally much AI teaching is currently structured across English secondary schools, with content evolving faster than formal documentation.
Across Grantham schools more broadly, the Raspberry Pi Foundation's Experience AI resource — co-developed with Google DeepMind — appears to supplement classroom teaching on machine learning. The resource walks students through how models are trained and deployed using accessible, hands-on activities. Crucially, its use is teacher-chosen, not mandated by any local or national authority; schools that draw on it do so because a member of staff decided to.
West Grantham Church of England Secondary Academy illustrates a different model: its partnership with engineering firm BGB gives a small cohort of students hands-on exposure to CAD and precision engineering. Technology skills arrive through employer relationships rather than a curriculum unit on AI specifically.
Taken together, AI is present in South Kesteven classrooms — but as a component of computing, not yet a subject in its own right.
The teacher confidence gap
A DfE survey found that 43% of UK teachers rate their AI confidence at just 3 out of 10. Only 9% feel confident specifically teaching about AI — not merely using it as a productivity tool, but explaining how it works, what it can and cannot do, and why it matters. Around 76% report receiving no formal AI training from their school at all.
These are national figures, but nothing in the available evidence suggests South Kesteven's secondary schools sit outside them. The structural conditions are the same: the same computing specifications, the same absence of a mandatory CPD requirement, the same DfE guidance that delegates all responsibility to school leaders.
Those leaders are themselves stretched. A separate survey found that 63% of school heads in England cite lack of staff confidence or skills as the single biggest barrier to adopting AI — and only 2% of schools nationally have a fully developed, school-wide AI strategy in place.
None of this is evidence of individual teachers failing their students. The training gap is systemic: no national body has mandated AI CPD, and the pace of change in available tools has outrun any formal preparation cycle. The practical consequence is that many computing teachers in Grantham are currently making curriculum decisions — what to teach, what to warn against, what to set aside — about tools they have not themselves been formally trained to use or explain.
What support and change is in the pipeline
Some of the tools already exist. Oak National Academy launched a new computing curriculum in September 2025, developed with the Raspberry Pi Foundation, that threads AI's everyday influence and ethical use throughout Key Stages 1 to 4. It is free, fully adaptable, and available to every school in South Kesteven right now — including those with limited computing budgets. BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT, has similarly published free AI Confidence CPD modules, produced with Microsoft and others, each running 45 to 60 minutes and covering what AI is, how common tools work, and key safety and ethical considerations. Both resources are opt-in: uptake depends entirely on whether school leaders choose to prioritise them.
At further education level, Grantham College's Institute of Technology — part of the Lincolnshire IoT consortium led by the University of Lincoln — offers digital technology and engineering robotics facilities, providing one route into technical AI-adjacent skills after the age of 16.
The bigger structural change is further off. A new GCSE in Computing, integrating AI, data science, and digital literacy, is planned to replace the existing Computer Science qualification. Public consultation on draft programmes of study is not scheduled until Summer 2026; teaching begins September 2028. For any pupil currently in Year 7 or above at a Grantham secondary school, that timeline means they will sit whatever qualifications exist today. The reformed GCSE will arrive after they have already left.
What we do not yet know — and why it matters
The absence of published AI policies from South Kesteven secondary schools isn't merely a gap in the public record — it reveals something about how AI education is currently governed locally. Decisions about what to teach, what to warn against, and how to respond when a pupil submits AI-generated work are being made informally, school by school, teacher by teacher, without any published framework that parents or governors can read or challenge.
That makes the questions worth asking more specific, not less. A parent or school governor could reasonably put three to their school: Does it have a written AI policy — and if not, when will it? What AI-related CPD have computing staff completed in the past year? And has the school adopted any of the free resources already available, such as the Oak National Academy computing curriculum or the BCS AI Confidence modules?
For a student representative or sixth-former, a sharper version applies: what is the school's position on AI-generated coursework, and has that position been communicated clearly to pupils?
None of these require technical expertise to raise. They require only that local people feel entitled to ask, and that schools expect the question. The national framework — which devolves all responsibility downward without requiring any reporting upward — makes that expectation optional. Whether it stays that way in Grantham is a matter for governors, parents, and pupils to settle.