AI Policy for Early Years Settings

Most settings don't have a written policy on AI — they have staff quietly using it. ChatGPT for planning ideas, an app for drafting observations, something for parent newsletters. None of it is wrong on its own. All of it is unmanaged.

That's the gap this closes. A ready-to-adapt AI usage policy, written specifically for early years settings, covering what staff can and can't put into an AI tool, how data protection applies when a child's information touches a third-party system, and who in your setting is accountable for AI-related decisions.

Open it and you'll find three things:

• What's permitted, and what isn't — in plain terms your team can actually follow

• The data protection line — what must never go near an AI tool, and why

• Governance — who owns this policy, who reviews it, and how you evidence that oversight
  

This matters whether your team has used AI once or every day this week. Ofsted doesn't ask if you have a policy for everything. It asks if you can show you've thought about the risk before it became a problem.

Adapt it to your setting, get it signed off, and you've closed a gap most settings haven't even opened yet.