Your school's AI policy, in one page

A principal sent me her school's AI policy last term. Fourteen pages. Six headings. A definitions section that ran for two pages. A section on emerging risks that referenced "evolving capabilities" four times in a single paragraph. The policy had been adopted by council in February. By Easter, three teachers admitted they had not read past the second page. By June, two assessments had been re-run because of unflagged AI use the policy had technically covered, but in language so abstract that the teacher couldn't recognise the situation when it appeared.

The policy was not a bad document. It was a bad fit for the moment a teacher actually needs it. AI policy decisions in schools happen in the thirty seconds before a teacher accepts or rejects a piece of student work. They happen in the inbox at 8:47 on a Tuesday morning when a parent asks if their daughter's report comment was written by a machine. Fourteen-page policies do not survive those thirty seconds.

So we put a generator online. You answer five short questions about your school. The generator produces a one-page policy that your staff can hold in their hand and your students can paste at the bottom of an assignment. Editable, copyable, designed to be read.

What the generator asks

Five things. Your school name and rough enrolment, so the policy reads as yours and not as a template. The name of the policy owner, so when something is unclear there is a person to ask, not a committee. Your position on staff use of AI: encouraged within boundaries, permitted with light documentation, or restricted to an approved tool list. Your position on student use: permitted with disclosure, permitted only on approved tasks, or not permitted in assessment. The concerns you are explicitly tracking: academic integrity, equity and access, privacy and data handling, bias and accuracy, workload reduction for staff. Pick whichever apply.

That's the input. The output is a policy that names what your school does, names who decides when something is unclear, and names when the policy will be reviewed. Anything more than that is usually decoration.

What the generator deliberately doesn't do

It does not generate a definitions section. If your staff cannot work out what counts as "AI" in a sensible reading of the policy, no glossary is going to save them. It does not include a risk register. Risks belong in a risk register, not in a working policy. It does not include a list of approved tools. That list changes weekly and belongs in the staff handbook or intranet, not in a document that gets adopted by council.

It also does not include a cover image, a foreword from the principal, or a footer with the school's seven values. None of that helps a teacher in the thirty seconds before they make a call about a student's work. We left it out on purpose.

What's in the policy

Six short sections. What this policy covers. Staff use. Student use. Concerns we are explicitly tracking. When something is unclear. Review.

The staff use section reads differently depending on which position you picked. "Encouraged within boundaries" trusts staff to apply judgement and asks them to mention AI use in student-facing material the way they would mention a textbook source. "Permitted, document use" sits in the middle and asks for a brief informal record of where AI was used in drafting. "Restricted to approved tools" names that staff can only use the tools on the school's list, with sign-off required for new ones. Each version sets a default and explains the rule, in plain language, in under 200 words.

The student use section does the same for student work. Permitted with disclosure, permitted only for approved tasks, or not permitted in assessment.

The "when something is unclear" section names the policy owner by name and role. That is the most-read section. It is also the section schools most often forget to write.

Why a one-page policy actually gets used

The honest reason is that staff don't have time. The optimistic reason is that constraint is a feature. A one-page policy forces the senior team to decide what they actually believe about AI use in their school. Most fourteen-page policies are long because the team writing them couldn't agree, and the longer document was a way of including everyone's position without choosing between them.

Choosing is the work. The generator just exposes the choice and writes it down once you've made it.

Get it reviewed

The output is a starting draft, not a legal document. Run it past your school council, executive team, or relevant department before formal adoption. We have no liability for how this is used. That is also a sentence we put in the disclaimer because the lawyer who reads your policy is going to look for it.

The generator is at digitalattitudes.com.au/tools/ai-policy-generator. It runs in the browser, nothing is stored, and you can copy or download the output as plain text.

If your current policy is fourteen pages, this is the version your staff might actually carry into the classroom.