Planning time for primary teachers using an Oak National Academy AI assistant was reduced by 24 per cent, a study by the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) has found, but views on the tool’s longer-term effectiveness were “mixed”.
The AI assistant, called Aila, was launched in 2024 and designed by Oak to create lesson plans from scratch. The study, which was commissioned by the EEF and conducted by the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER), involved a randomised controlled trial with 464 primary teachers in 108 schools.
One group of teachers was encouraged to use Aila to plan lessons, while another was told not to use it but was free to work with other AI tools.
Time saving on planning
Aila helped those primary teachers who used the tool to reduce the time they spent planning lessons by 24 per cent, “without compromising the lesson resource quality”, according to trial findings published today.
Teachers using Aila spent an average of two-and-a-half hours a week planning lessons and preparing resources, compared with three hours and 19 minutes for the group not using the tool. This equates to an average saving of around 49 minutes a week.
However, teachers earlier in their career or with less confidence in their subject knowledge were more likely to find Aila useful and that it reduced workload around their lesson planning.
The researchers say this may reflect Aila’s main aim of preparing new lessons from scratch, as more experienced teachers may prefer to modify existing lesson plans.
In a post-trial survey, fewer than one in five teachers said they felt using the tool meaningfully influenced their teaching and planning.
However, the researchers indicate that this could reflect a range of factors, such as high levels of confidence in lesson planning at the start of the trial.
‘Disconnect’ from intended purpose
Overall, teachers’ use of and views about the tool were mixed.
While some found Aila “accessible and curriculum-aligned”, many preferred alternative AI tools that provided “more ease of use”.
“Aila, by design, seeks to assist teachers through the planning process, requiring more involvement,” the trial findings state.
The report adds that the findings “may also reflect a disconnect between Aila’s intended purpose of supporting lesson planning from scratch and teachers’ planning practices”. It also points to “perceptions that its outputs often required adaptation before being classroom ready”.
The frequency with which teachers used the tool declined over the 10-week trial, in line with other AI tools .
