In depth
AI at school: pupils, parents, teachers
Homework, cheating, official rules, habits at home: what AI really changes in school life, and what the French ministry, the CNIL and the EU say about it.
Reviewed on August 22, 2026
What AI changes in homework and class
Since 2023, any secondary-school pupil can ask an assistant to write an essay, solve a maths exercise or translate a text in seconds. Classic homework ("write it, hand it in") loses part of its value as proof of work. Teachers are therefore moving the effort back into the classroom: in-class writing, oral work, annotated drafts, and more often "show your " than "give the answer". On the teachers' side, AI mostly serves to prepare lessons, tailor exercises to different pupils and produce materials. In France, the ministry's framework published in June 2025 sets the starting line: independent use by pupils from Year 9 (4e, around age 13), and compulsory in Year 9, Year 11 and the first year of vocational CAP courses.
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Imagine a classmate who has read every book in the world and answers anything in one second. He can help you understand a lesson... or do your exercise for you. But on test day, he is not there: only your own head remains. So school is working out how to use that classmate so you learn more, not less.
Learning with an assistant, not copying
Three uses genuinely change the game. Explaining: ask for a rephrasing ("as if to a ten-year-old", "with an everyday example") until it clicks, then close the screen and explain it back in your own words. Practising: have it generate a quiz or exercises of the same type as in class, or play the examiner for an oral. Getting feedback: paste your own text or working and ask where the mistake is, without asking for the corrected version. A useful line to type at the start: "don't give me the answer, guide me with questions". And always check against the lesson: assistants get things wrong with great confidence, especially in arithmetic and on dates.
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An AI assistant is like a very patient big brother who never laughs at you. You can say: "explain fractions with pizza slices", "ask me five questions about my lesson" or "I wrote this, what's wrong with it?". The secret: you do the work, it helps you think. If you only ask for the answer, you learn nothing, and on test day you are on your own.
Cheating, detectors and trust
AI detectors (GPTZero, Turnitin, Copyleaks...) estimate a probability from statistical regularities in the text; they "see" nothing for certain. OpenAI withdrew its own detector in July 2023 for "low accuracy"; several US universities (Vanderbilt, Pittsburgh...) switched off Turnitin's because of false positives, which hit pupils writing in a second language hardest. In France, the 2025 framework is clear: a piece of work produced with generative AI without explicit permission and without personal appropriation counts as cheating. In practice, teachers do not rely on software: they have pupils explain their work orally, ask for drafts and document history, set in-class writing and vary the tasks (personal topics, local news, documents studied in class).
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Some pupils get AI to write their homework, and some teachers use "detector" software meant to guess whether a text came from a machine. Problem: these detectors are often wrong, like a dog that barks at the postman too. They can accuse an honest pupil. So teachers prefer something else: asking you to explain your text out loud, or having you write in class.
What the rules say: school, age, data
Three layers of rules. The vendors: ChatGPT, Gemini and Copilot require a minimum age of 13, with parental consent up to 18 (and, at OpenAI, parental controls since September 2025); Gemini accepts under-13s only through a Family Link managed account; Claude is for adults only. The French ministry: the June 2025 framework reserves independent use for pupils from Year 9, provides (Pix IA courses in Year 9, Year 11 and CAP, rolled out to all schools in early 2026), bans entering pupils' personal data into consumer AI tools and bans requiring a pupil to create an account on an external service. The CNIL: in France, a minor can consent alone to the processing of their data only from age 15; below that, a parent's agreement is required.
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Using an AI assistant comes with rules, like riding a bike on the road. Most assistants are off-limits before 13, and some before 18. At school in France, you may use one on your own only from Year 9 (age 13 or so), and the teacher must agree for homework. And you never give your name, your address or your photo to a robot.
At home: good habits
Start by asking, not banning: "what do you use it for? show me". Set a short frame: AI after a first attempt alone, never for homework handed in as is, and always check against the lesson. Use the parental account: link your account to your child's (ChatGPT), Family Link (Gemini), switch off memory and history, set time windows. Remind them about data: no full name, address, photo or personal problems in a conversation. Watch the "companion" use: an assistant available 24/7 can become a confidant, and that is where matter most. And stay in touch with the teacher: knowing what is allowed in class avoids misunderstandings.
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At home, the simplest rule: AI helps you understand, it does not do the work for you. Ask your parents to look with you, ask it questions out loud together, then tell them what you learned, without the screen. If you can explain it back, you've won!