No dedicated national R&D programme on AI pedagogy and child-AI interaction

Government itself describes evidence for AI tutoring as 'limited'. EEF runs individual trials (e.g. Aila Teacher Choices) but has no dedicated AI programme; UKRI has no directed programme on learning with AI; the strongest classroom RCT evidence (e.g. the LearnLM UK trial, n=165) comes from US labs studying their own products. Nobody in the UK is funding longitudinal research on what sustained AI use does to children's learning, cognition (the DfE safety expectations even ask products to report 'cognitive offloading' rates, a construct with little research behind it), motivation or safeguarding.

The state is deploying AI tutors to 450,000 disadvantaged children ahead of the evidence. Without independent UK research infrastructure, the knowledge base will be owned by vendors evaluating themselves, and long-run harms or null effects will surface only after national rollout.

A UKRI-DfE directed programme ('EEF for AI'): longitudinal cohort studies with National Pupil Database linkage, standing rapid-RCT infrastructure in volunteer school networks, and open evaluation of the government's own tutoring tools.

// Build together: Counterparty: volunteer school networks plus DfE NPD-linkage approval; philanthropic funder can seed before UKRI-DfE programme.

The state is deploying AI tutors to 450,000 children ahead of evidence, yet no UK body funds longitudinal research, leaving the knowledge base to self-evaluating vendors.