Two-thirds of secondary school teachers in England say their students are losing the ability to think independently, and they point directly at AI.
A survey of 9,408 teachers conducted by the National Education Union (NEU), released at its annual conference in Brighton, paints a stark picture. 66% of secondary teachers report that critical thinking skills have declined among pupils who regularly use AI tools. 28% of primary teachers see the same pattern in younger children. One teacher put it bluntly: "Students are losing core skills - thinking, creativity, writing, even how to have a conversation." Another warned: "If we don't have hard work, we become complacent. AI is destroying learning."
The numbers go beyond thinking skills. Teachers report that students no longer feel the need to spell because voice-to-text does it for them. The decline isn't subtle - it's showing up in classrooms daily.
Schools Are Flying Blind on Policy
Half the schools surveyed have no AI policy at all. 66% lack any student-specific guidelines for AI use. That means most students are using ChatGPT, Claude, and similar tools with zero institutional guardrails.
This policy vacuum exists despite massive teacher adoption. 75% of teachers now use AI in their daily work, up from 53% last year. 60% use it for creating classroom resources, around 40% for lesson planning and admin, and 7% for marking student work. Teachers are not anti-AI - they just see what happens when students use it without structure.
The AI Tutor Backlash
The UK government's plan to introduce AI tutors for disadvantaged pupils is meeting heavy resistance from the people who would work alongside them. Only 14% of teachers support the initiative, while 49% actively oppose it. The concern: AI tutors will be used to cut costs and replace human teaching rather than supplement it.
NEU General Secretary Daniel Kebede framed the stakes clearly: "Students must be able to think for themselves. This is at the heart of learning."
This survey lands at a moment when every school system in the world is grappling with the same question: how do you let students benefit from AI tools without letting those tools do the cognitive work that builds actual skills? England's teachers are saying, loudly, that the current answer is "you don't" - at least not without clear policies and intentional limits. The fact that half of schools haven't even started writing those policies should concern anyone with kids in the system.