Educational support assistants

provides feedback to teachers and completes and maintains records

AI tools like ChatGPT or Microsoft Copilot can help draft progress reports, structure observation notes, and maintain records templates, significantly reducing administrative time for support assistants.

supports schoolwork under teacher’s supervision

AI tutoring tools like Khan Academy's Khanmigo can supplement schoolwork, but the in-person supervision, real-time adaptation, and physical presence required make this largely a human task.

implements care programmes, as appropriate

AI can help document or structure care programme steps, but implementing physical and emotional care plans with a specific child requires trained human judgment and physical presence.

helps child understand instruction through a variety of means and encourages self-confidence and independence

AI can generate alternative explanations or visual aids, but building genuine self-confidence and independence in a child requires human empathy, relationship, and moment-to-moment emotional attunement.

helps and encourages child to communicate

AAC (Augmentative and Alternative Communication) apps and AI speech tools can support communication, but encouraging and scaffolding a child's communication requires sustained human relationship and sensitivity.

identifies signs of distress and offers reassurance

AI cannot reliably detect subtle emotional or behavioural distress cues in real time, and offering genuine human reassurance to a distressed child is fundamentally a human interpersonal skill.

attends to child’s physical needs

Attending to physical needs such as toileting, feeding, or mobility is entirely hands-on and requires physical presence, making AI essentially irrelevant to the task itself.