Lack of evidential and scientific rigour in AI implementation putting children’s development at risk, report reveals
London, 10th March 2026: The use of AI in education that lacks evidential and scientific rigour puts children’s learning development at risk, according to a new white paper from Explore Learning, the UK’s largest independent tuition provider. While acknowledging the huge opportunity provided by AI, the report also highlights the risks of overreliance, including reduced critical thinking and cognitive fixation, and the potential for the technology to undermine confidence and inhibit the development of self-regulation in younger learners.
The report details best practices for implementing AI in education. It advocates for this technology to be grounded in educational theory to provide a richer, more accurate understanding of a child’s current learning level, enabling true personalised learning.
With the UK education system facing significant structural challenges amid increasing pressure to meet the diverse needs of its students, the white paper finds that a blended approach of technology combined with human educators can provide critical support. As the government takes an increasingly active role in shaping AI’s integration into education, the report is a timely contribution to the discussion on the key issues affecting the future of learning in the UK.
Key findings from the report:
- Prioritising evidence over hype: True personalised learning is impossible without rigorous, ongoing assessment of each child’s progress. Technology serves this understanding, but it does not replace it. Evidence is nuanced and should be rigorously interrogated, with a clear recognition that ‘educational technology’ encompasses a wide range of interventions with varying outcomes.
- Technology can bridge the support gap for children with SEND: Support for the 1.7 million children with SEND in the UK is already at capacity, as Explore Learning saw, with a 35% increase in children with SEND accessing its tuition in 2025 compared to 2024. The white paper outlines the significant potential of evidence-based systems to bridge the support gap through early signal detection, adaptive scaffolding, and pattern recognition across populations.
- A blended technology approach is critical to progress: While technology demonstrates strong positive effects on foundational skills, it risks eroding the higher-order cognition that education exists to develop. Humans must lead in areas where AI poses risks; no algorithm is perfect, and human involvement is critical to mitigate the impact of false positives and negatives. The most effective EdTechs recognise technology’s limitations and position themselves as augmenting, not replacing, human relationships.
- The VC model in EdTech creates complex dynamics: While the influx of investment from venture capital (VC) funds has stimulated innovation, the 5-7-year return most VCs expect does not support responsible development, which requires patience and rigour. This can put pressure on product tech teams to demonstrate immediate, measurable impact. This results in “metric fixation”; the reduction of education to easily quantifiable outcomes.
The white paper comes as Explore Learning announces the launch of its aptitude algorithm update to Compass 2.0, its most powerful, personalised learning platform to date. The update deepens its tailored approach by modelling each child’s learning pace and adjusting the volume, sequencing, and scaffolding of tasks so that learners remain within their Zone of Proximal Development, where cognitive growth is most effective. Explore Learning’s early pilot data is encouraging, suggesting that just 90 minutes of Compass 2.0 each week results in 22 months of progress in one year.
Lisa Haycox, CEO, Explore Learning, said: “The UK’s education system is under greater pressure than ever, and AI has significant potential to alleviate these challenges, but only when backed by strong evidence and proven to improve outcomes, with the same rigour we expect of any educational intervention. The research is clear: poorly designed tools risk a mirage of false mastery, where short-term gains disappear when the technology is removed. We cannot forfeit children’s futures for hype, and we should continue to encourage healthy debate to guard against this, while embracing the full potential of transformative technology. At Explore Learning, our approach is built on a foundational conviction: personalisation requires a genuine understanding of each learner.”
Dr. Hisham Ihshaish, Head of Data and AI, Explore Learning, said: “At Explore Learning, the question has never been whether to use AI, but how. Our technology is grounded in established learning theories and informed by 25 years of longitudinal learner data. The latest updates to Compass 2.0 dynamically model not just what children know, but how they learn and the pace at which they develop, recalibrating scaffolding in real time. With AI adoption in education causing uncertainty for parents and teachers alike, we want to provide clarity: the potential is significant when technology is grounded in evidence and designed with children’s development at the centre.”
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