Why safety matters in Aila
Contents
Aila's content moderation agent
Aila's content moderation agent categories
Read more about Aila's safety guardrails
Introduction
Our mission is to provide you with high-quality, curriculum-aligned resources that support effective teaching and learning. Aila, our AI lesson assistant, is designed to help you plan engaging, age-appropriate lessons and resources for pupils in key stages 1 to 4. With the rapid advancement of generative AI, ensuring content safety is critical, especially in this educational context.
To protect pupils and support you, we’ve embedded rigorous safety guardrails into Aila. These include:
- prompt engineering (the instructions we have given to Aila) to keep AI outputs aligned with the national curriculum and age-appropriate.
- input threat detection to block users who could be trying to mislead Aila or use it for purposes other than its intended ones.
- a content moderation agent that evaluates content produced against clearly defined safety categories.
- a human-in-the-loop approach to ensure you review all generated materials before they reach your pupils.
These guardrails work together to ensure that Aila remains a safe, reliable planning tool for teachers.
Aila's content moderation agent
Aila’s content moderation agent reviews the content it produces to ensure it is safe to use in your classroom. The agent classifies content into four categories: (1) safe, (2) content guidance, (3) highly sensitive, and (4) toxic. Below, we explain what each category includes and what Aila will do if this type of content is produced.
Aila's content moderation categories
1) Safe
Content in this category is fully appropriate for classroom use and aligns with both the age group and the national curriculum.
2) Content Guidance
Some lesson content may be appropriate for use in schools, but it includes themes that need sensitive handling. When this happens, Aila provides a warning to flag the nature of the topic so that you can approach it with care. These topics often relate to complex social issues or emotionally charged material. You should check this content carefully before you teach it as AI-generated content can be susceptible to inaccuracies and bias. You should consider your school’s context or the experiences of individual pupils before teaching these lessons.
We have fifteen content guidance categories.
- Equipment required
For content that involves the use of classroom tools or materials, such as art supplies, science equipment or sports gear. You should ensure that the equipment is used safely with appropriate supervision. - Outdoor learning
For learning outside the classroom, such as fieldwork or nature-based activities, you should consider safety, environment, and supervision of pupils. - Risk assessment may be required
Applies to content involving activities like experiments, tool use or physical exertion, where a formal risk assessment may be required due to potential hazards. - Recent content
Large language models have been trained on large amounts of data. They often have a training cut-off date. Topics or events which may have emerged after the large language models' last training update carry a higher risk of inaccuracies or hallucinations (false information being presented as factually correct). Recent content should therefore be checked more carefully to ensure it is accurate and appropriate for your pupils. - Recent conflicts
Includes recent global or national conflicts (since 2009). These may be emotionally sensitive or factually complex and require careful teacher framing. See useful information and analysis relating to recent conflicts. - RSHE
Relationships, Sex and Health Education (RSHE) covers relationships, gender, sex education, and health topics such as substance abuse, first aid, vaccinations, mental well-being, bullying, and online harms. Your school’s approach to these topics will be covered in your school’s RSHE policy, and this should be consulted before teaching these lessons. For more information, please consult the RSHE national curriculum documents. - Nudity or sexual content
Content may reference sex education, reproduction, puberty, or nudity in artistic or scientific contexts. These topics are flagged to support sensitivity during delivery and alignment with your school’s policies. - Language may offend
Includes references to strong or inappropriate language such as swearing, slurs, offensive terms, or disrespectful use of religious or cultural words. You may need to provide context or remove certain terms depending on your pupils and the school’s policy and context. - Discriminatory behaviour or language
Flags content that portrays or discusses racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, or other forms of discrimination. This includes historic or outdated portrayals that could reinforce bias if not carefully framed. - Crime or illegal activities
Includes references to criminal behaviour such as gang involvement, knife crime, exploitation, radicalisation, drug use, or misinformation (e.g. fake news, copyright infringement). These topics require context and care when being taught, as some pupils may find them upsetting. - Sensitive or upsetting content
Includes content that may affect some pupils, such as bereavement, illness, bullying, trauma, climate anxiety, or substance use. - Mental health challenges
Covers references/discussions of depression, anxiety, eating disorders, substance abuse, self-harm, or suicide. These topics are flagged for their emotional impact and the importance of age-appropriate, supportive delivery. - Violence or suffering
Flag depictions of violence, war, death, famine, or natural disasters. This content may be distressing for pupils and should be approached with sensitivity. - Sexual violence
Includes references to sexual abuse, harassment, grooming, coercion, forced marriage or female genital mutilation (FGM). These are highly sensitive areas requiring strong safeguarding awareness, and your teaching of these topics should be informed by your school’s policies. For further guidance, please refer to the DfE’s current RSHE guidance. - Additional qualification needed
This category includes lessons and activities that must only be delivered by staff holding an appropriate additional qualification/s. This includes swimming, vaulting in gymnastics, trampolining and contact and tackling in rugby.
3) Highly sensitive
Some topics, while important and potentially suitable for the classroom, are too complex or sensitive for Aila to reliably generate content on. In these cases, Aila will block the lesson entirely and inform you that this topic cannot be planned using Aila. You are welcome to use Aila to plan lessons on a different topic or title.
- Health and Safety
Discusses specific health and safety guidance. AI can produce inaccurate information. Please refer to your local or national advisory service such as the afPE resource 'Safe practice: in PESSPA" for health and safety guidance related to PE lessons or CLEAPSS for guidance related to science or design and technology. - First Aid
Discusses specific first aid procedures where accuracy is essential. AI can produce inaccurate or outdated information. Organisations, such as the British Red Cross or St John's Ambulance, may have suitable resources available to help you. - Current conflicts
Includes current global or national conflicts. These may be very emotionally sensitive or factually complex. Large language models may contain outdated information and be more open to hallucinations and bias, so we have not allowed Aila to plan any lessons on conflicts that are ongoing (from 2023-present). See useful information and analysis relating to recent conflicts. - Child specific advice
This category covers content that relates to specific children e.g. advice on child protection or mental health. AI can produce inaccurate information in this area and is not designed to respond to disclosures and so Aila is not able to produce content on this topic. You must follow your school's safeguarding policy and report any concerns relating to your pupils to your designated safeguarding lead. Please refer to ‘Keeping children safe in education’ for more guidance on this topic. Organisations, such as the NSPCC, may have suitable resources available to help you. - Specific Laws
References specific laws where accuracy is essential and AI may produce misinformation. - History of Homosexuality or Gender Identity
Includes historic treatment of LGBTQ+ people, which may result in stereotyping, misrepresentation, or outdated perspectives being unintentionally surfaced. - Self-harm and Suicide
Covers any mention or discussion of self-harming behaviours or suicide, due to the risks of triggering or unintended messaging. For further guidance, please refer to ‘keeping children safe in education’.
4) Toxic
This category includes content that is fundamentally inappropriate for educational settings due to its harmful, illegal, or dangerous nature. If Aila’s content moderation agent detects toxic content, the content will be blocked immediately. You will be shown a message explaining that this has occurred. If this occurs repeatedly, your account will be blocked.
- Guides self-harm or suicide
Content that describes, encourages, or supports self-harming behaviour or suicide in any form. For futher guidance, please refer to ‘keeping children safe in education’. - Encourages harmful behaviour
Promotes actions that are reckless, dangerous, or antisocial, and could put pupils or others at risk. - Encourages illegal activity
Content that supports, promotes or glamorises involvement in unlawful behaviour. - Encourages violence or harm to others
Promotes aggression, cruelty, or any form of physical or emotional harm or violence towards others. - Using or Creating Weapons
Describes, promotes, or instructs on the use or creation of weapons, including chemical, biological, nuclear, cyber or explosive weapons. - Using or Creating Harmful Substances
Content that encourages or explains how to make, obtain, or use dangerous or harmful substances.
We’ve deliberately designed Aila’s moderation system to prioritise caution. This may occasionally result in content being flagged or blocked even when it might be appropriate in some school contexts. However, we believe it is better to flag more content than to risk unsafe material reaching pupils. We’re continuously evaluating and refining our systems using real-world data and teacher feedback.
If you ever feel a decision was made in error, or you need additional support, please contact our team. Your feedback helps us to improve Aila for everyone.