These case studies below represent some of the first outputs from the Shape the Future Leaders Coalition's 2025-26 practitioner research programme.  Spanning a number of the research strands, they capture the breadth and ambition of what Coalition members are investigating:

• how AI can sharpen the precision of feedback for dyslexic writers at Thames Christian School

• how SchoolAI chatbots can scaffold metacognitive self-evaluation at Warwick Schools Foundation

• how a geo-locked LLM might synthesise fragmented multi-agency documentation into coherent, person-centred profiles for young people with complex needs at Cavendish High Academy

• how AI tools can be meaningfully introduced in a low-resource, high-deprivation setting at Stretford High School, where "double disadvantaged" students arguably have the most to gain

• how structured AI-supported planning might help Reception teachers design more precise oracy provision for children with rising speech and communication needs at Woodland Academy Trust

• how Microsoft Reading Coach can deliver personalised, stigma-free fluency support to older struggling readers who have fallen through the cracks at All Saints' Academy, Cheltenham

• how a bespoke AI platform built to trust specifications can alleviate teacher workload and provide high-quality formative assessment to complex responses by students in diverse contexts at Beauchamp College in Leicestershire

​

What makes these studies significant is not just their diversity of context - for example, an independent school, a selective foundation, specialist SEND provision, and an inner-city comprehensive - but their shared commitment to evidence.  Each is built around a disciplined action research cycle, grounded in the daily realities of teaching, and each asks whether AI genuinely serves learning rather than simply assuming that it does.