Polls suggest the education system needs to provide guidance for parents who say they are confused about letting children use the technology for assignments.
Homework is becoming “worse than useless” because of the increase in children using artificial intelligence to complete tasks, a report has suggested.
Nearly three fifths of parents believe their children are using AI to help them with their homework and some are encouraging its use.
The Parent Voice Project is publishing a report on Monday called How Parents Engage with Schools, based on a poll of 6,000 parents in 2025 and another one of 2,000 parents ten months later.
The number of parents who suspect their child is creating AI-generated homework has jumped from 47 per cent to 57 per cent in less than a year.
The combined polling found that the use of AI for homework varies significantly across the country — Londoners use it more than people in other regions — and families with graduate parents are more likely to use it.
It is the third report by the Parent Voice Project, an organisation that captures parents’ opinions through large-scale polling and focus groups by the research consultancy Public First.
In the focus groups, parents reported confusion and uncertainty over the use of AI for homework. One father with two teenage children said: “I’ve let my son do it a couple of times with subjects I know he’s not going to do well in. So if it’s philosophy, [using AI] is just easy and he can just get it done.
Another father with children aged 12, ten and six, said: “I found out at one point that my daughter was just taking a picture [of her homework] and AI was giving her the answer.”
A third with children aged six and 16 said his son “basically just doctors a few words around that look a bit suspicious” after he has used AI.
A mother told researchers: “In our workplace we’re being told to use AI, and that going forward those who can use it will have jobs that are a bit more secure. Yet we’re trying to stop children using it and use their brain. Getting that balance right is difficult.”
Fiona Forbes, founder of the Parent Voice Project, said: “What parents are evidently telling us is that both they and their children, like the rest of society, are struggling to work out the best use of AI.
“The staggering jump in its use suggests that the school system needs to get across this challenge as soon as possible and start working with parents on advice and guidance, or the whole idea of homework will soon be worse than useless.”
Mark Lehain, chief executive of the Wootton Academy Trust, said that the use of AI had driven its schools to reintroduce handwritten homework.
He said: “The use of AI at home is a nightmare because it makes it impossible to figure out what a child has actually learnt. To address this, plus to ensure we don’t add to a child’s screen time at home, we’re going to stop doing anything that requires a child to use a screen, both in school and at home.
“For homework, this means everything set must be handwritten and on paper, and presented so that we can quiz or check children on it in the next lesson. It’s a big change and is a work in progress, but it’s the only way we can make sure pupils are thinking hard and actually learning the things we want them to.”
A survey of nearly 10,000 teachers conducted earlier this year by the National Education Union found 66 per cent believed pupils’ critical thinking had declined because of AI use.
One said: “Staff are not trained to use it properly but are using it, and it’s producing substandard slop. Students are clearly using it for homework. I have seen too much cheating recently in exams and homework due to the use of AI.”
Sir Ian Bauckham, the chief regulator at Ofqual, the exams regulator, said last week that plans for written coursework as part of reformed qualifications would face “far more scrutiny” to prevent the “AI-fuelled subversion of assessment”.
Read more at: https://www.thetimes.com/uk/education/article/school-homework-useless-ai-cheat-lccjznbwj