AI gives time back to teachers in Northern Ireland | Keryc
When you put powerful technology in the hands of 100 teachers, what happens? In a six-month pilot in Northern Ireland we saw the answer: they steer AI toward concrete solutions with clear pedagogical purpose.
What the pilot did
C2k, the Northern Ireland Education Authority programme, worked with Google for Education to integrate Gemini and Google Workspace tools into real classrooms. The experiment brought together 100 teachers over six months and captured more than 600 distinct uses of the tool.
The numbers that stand out: each teacher reported saving on average 10 hours per week thanks to Gemini. That time was reinvested in student interaction, activity design and professional development. Doesn't that seem like a huge difference in a school week?
The central lesson: AI does not replace teachers. It's a collaborative tool, and when designed with learning-science principles, it boosts what teachers already do.
Practical cases and technical evidence
More agile administration: writing letters to parents, risk assessments for trips, and generating lesson plans were automated with prompts and templates in Gemini.
Multimodal materials: teachers using NotebookLM transformed curriculum content into podcasts and interactive mind maps to make review and deep understanding easier.
Personalisation and accessibility: lessons in Irish and resources adapted to specific needs were created. One coordinator described how NotebookLM helped a neurodivergent student see the big picture via mind maps, preventing them from getting lost in details.
Classroom creativity: creative writing classes generated images and narrative hooks that sparked student curiosity.
Technically, Gemini provides multimodal capabilities and text generation that, combined with Workspace workflows, let you go from a prompt to a ready-for-class resource in minutes. This pilot didn't mean fine-tuning models for each teacher; prompt engineering and integrated workflows predominated, which makes deployments faster and easier to control.
Technical and safety considerations
If you're a technical lead or manager, this matters: deploying AI in education implies decisions about privacy, latency, data control and governance.
Privacy and data: integrating Gemini in Workspace requires clear policies on what data is shared with the model and how outputs are stored. C2k worked with Google on these points.
Guardrails and verification: while AI helps with drafts and materials, teachers keep the final review. It's crucial to implement automated checks and human review workflows.
Latency and user experience: for the tool to be useful in class it needs fast responses and predefined templates that reduce friction.
Training and readiness: the pilot showed adoption scales when there are training resources and a community of practice where teachers share effective prompts and templates.
Pedagogical impact and next steps
The value isn't just in saving time. It's in what teachers do with that time: more interaction, activity design better aligned with pedagogical evidence, and attention to students with diverse needs.
C2k plans to expand Gemini training to more teachers across Northern Ireland. From a technical perspective, the next logical step is to build implementation kits: validated prompt templates, integration pipelines with LMSs and reproducible security protocols.
Important: technology must empower teachers to keep pedagogical ownership. AI helps execute tasks; teachers define learning goals.
Final reflection
Does this mean AI will solve all education problems? No. But in the Northern Ireland pilot we saw how collaborative design between authorities, teachers and providers can turn administrative tasks into classroom time and open space for richer pedagogical practices.
If you're interested in bringing something similar to your context, start with the key questions: what data will you use, how will you measure impact (for example, time recovered, teacher satisfaction, learning outcomes) and how will you train teams. Technology is powerful, but without governance and training it remains a promise.
