LEO Academy Trust has proactively integrated Artificial Intelligence, specifically Google Gemini and NotebookLM, to fundamentally transform the daily realities of its educators. By providing extensive AI training to its staff, the Trust has successfully harnessed technology to drive significant reductions in teacher workload, boost professional wellbeing, and elevate the quality of teaching and learning.

AI serves as a powerful lever for workload reduction and efficiency across the Trust. Teachers utilise tailored "Gems"—custom-built AI assistants—to reclaim their planning, preparation, and assessment (PPA) time. For example, educators are using AI to generate high-quality lesson plans, draft differentiated activities, and create exemplar content, such as "What A Good One Looks Like" (WAGOLL) texts. Tasks that previously took up to two hours, like creating specific classroom resources or display materials, are now being completed in approximately five to ten minutes. Additionally, AI is now streamlining heavy administrative burdens by drafting school reports, summarising meeting notes, and composing policy-informed responses to parents. Through these interventions, education workers participating in AI pilot programmes reported saving an average of 2.9 hours per week.

These immense time savings have a direct, positive impact on teacher wellbeing and staff retention. Staff consistently report that AI helps them overcome "blank page syndrome," drastically reducing the anxiety associated with heavy resourcing demands and complex logistical tasks. By removing the panic of starting from scratch, AI provides an initial draft or idea, allowing teachers to focus their energy on refining and personalising content. This newfound capacity frees up mental space, improves professional confidence, and allows educators to redirect their time toward interacting directly with children, making the profession more enjoyable and sustainable.

Beyond administrative relief, AI is actively enhancing teaching and learning by enabling highly adaptive, inclusive classrooms. Teachers use AI to quickly tailor learning materials for children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND), instantly generating visual scaffolds, chunked instructions, and simplified vocabulary lists as well as activities that are bespoke to children’s interests and targets. Tools like Olex AI are being piloted to provide personalised as well as whole class feedback, which is helping the teacher make more informed decisions on the path to take next, while platforms like Google Forms and NotebookLM are used to generate comprehension questions, quizzes, and even engaging audio overviews from static teaching slides. This allows educators to move away from generic resources towards a model of highly responsive, individualised instruction that directly addresses each pupil's unique needs, fundamentally transforming the classroom experience.