AI
The workplace wants AI fluency. The school exam hall fears it. What does this mean for young people?
Ben Keene, Director of Entrepreneurship, shares a quick summary of what he's been trying to make sense of this week.
Canva has been disrupted. The tool that took over much of designers’ routine work is restructuring, affecting 22% of its staff. More shocking than the irony is the speed. Lots of brilliant people are now out of work.
The bottom rung of careers is shifting. PwC analysed a billion job ads. Jobs needing AI skills pay a 62% premium, and graduate jobs now expect judgement and leadership from day one.
AI now beats experts at checking facts. As Ethan Mollick showed, the best results come from combining expert humans with smart machines. Experts auditing AI’s evidence jumped from 61% to 91% accuracy.
The exam rulebook is, not surprisingly, heading the other way. Under Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ) rules, undeclared AI use is malpractice, even for spelling and grammar. Pupils must screenshot their prompts, and teachers have to judge authenticity with no reliable way to be certain.
So the workplace is paying a premium for AI fluency, and the exam process treats it mainly as a risk.
My sense as this all unfolds is that young people need three things together:
→ Deep knowledge. Not to spot errors, but to ask the right questions and tell a confident answer from a sound one.
→ Values and judgement. Empathy and creativity matter more as AI absorbs the routine.
→ An entrepreneurial instinct. Practice at initiative, decisions, money and pitching before they leave school.
Daniel Susskind’s rule: teach pupils to use AI well, AND to work without it, then assess both. A pitch in front of a panel is one of the oldest AI-proof assessments there is.
At Sherborne, we’re building on 500 years of core teaching with responsible AI, character education and entrepreneurship across the Group.
Read Ben's article in full in Sherborne Substack.
"Sherborne - where we are at:
- + Turing Tutor is taking shape, and the inaugural Turing Conference went well
- + Responsible AI is getting dedicated leadership from January
- + Character education is moving from the edges to the centre.
- + Entrepreneurship is up and running across the Group!
- + High-quality core teaching carries on every day..as it has done for 500 years!”
Ben Keene is Director of Entrepreneurship at Sherborne Schools Group. Ideas to change the world welcomed: ben.keene@sherborne.org
10 November 2026
