The key aims of the trial are to understand the impact of using Aila on the average time that Key Stage 2 (KS2) teachers spend on lesson preparation during a ten-week period, and to assess the quality of the lesson resources produced.
To participate, schools and teachers must meet the following criteria:
School eligibility:
- Any state-funded mainstream school in England with Year 3 – Year 6
- Not currently encouraging use of Aila
- Willing to not use Oak National Academy website during the trial period
- Has at least one Year 3 to 6 teacher who will be teaching and involved in planning lessons in the autumn term 2025
- Are not participating in the EEF Writing Roots trial.
Teacher eligibility:
- Teachers who have teaching and lesson planning responsibilities during the autumn term 2025, for any subjects in Year 3, 4, 5 or 6 and are willing to be part of the trial
- Teachers who share class teaching responsibilities are eligible (e.g. job-share, part time teachers)
- Teachers who plan to create at least some lesson resources from scratch in any subject during the trial period and aren’t intending to use pre-prepared, paid for or well-established curriculum resources for all of their teaching
- Teachers who are not currently using Aila for lesson planning. Teachers who are already using Aila to plan lessons at least once a half term are not eligible to take part
- The use of other AI (e.g. ChatGPT) is acceptable
- Individual teachers will confirm their participation by completing an online survey in September 2025
- Teachers can use existing resources (including Oak resources, if they are ready to be used) but they will be asked not to use Oak website to generate new resources during the autumn term.
This is a randomised controlled trial (RCT). Schools will be randomly allocated to one of two groups: 1) using Aila or 2) not using Aila.
Further information is available in the 
School and teacher information sheet.
Schools that sign up for this trial will be allocated to one of the two randomised groups by NFER – the ‘Aila group’ or ‘non-Aila group’.
Further information is available in the School and teacher information sheet.
- Schools and teachers will be playing an active and important role in contributing to a new evidence base; an eventual evaluation report and lessons learnt will be published at the end of the trial.
- Participating teachers have the professional development opportunity to test out a new approach to lesson preparation.
- Schools that complete all the weekly diaries and share lesson plans can receive a payment of up to £130 per participating teacher at the end of the trial.
- Schools that take part in case study visits or interviews will receive an additional thank you payment for their time.
Recruitment to the trial begins in May 2025. A detailed timeline of activities for the trial can be found in the School and teacher information sheet
To register your interest, please complete this online form. The closing date for expressions of interest is 30 June 2025.
If you have any questions or would like further information about the research, please contact the project team at [email protected]