Family AI homework guide: three activities, one agreement, one parent notice

Theme B · Responsible AI use · P1-P6 · Pastoral and parents · Original idea #7

A guide families can use at home with no teacher present: three 15-20 minute parent-and-child activities, a family homework agreement, and a parent notice a school can edit and send home.

Preparation

15-20 min per session, three sessions (can be spread across different days)

Equipment

No accounts or special equipment; pen and paper only, with a parent and child working together

Version

0.1

Reviewer

Billy Kan

Fact-checked by

Billy Kan

What this solves

When a child wants to use AI for homework, parents are often unsure whether to allow it or stop it: when help is acceptable, what to ask, and what to do with the answer once it arrives. This guide needs no teacher present. It lets a parent and child build one simple, consistent habit at home through three 15-20 minute activities: try it yourself first, ask for help (not answers), check before you use. It also includes a family homework agreement and a parent notice a school can edit.

Learning objectives

After the three activities, a parent and child can:

1. Try the work themselves first, then decide whether to ask AI for help.
2. Ask AI for help rather than for an answer.
3. Check an AI answer before using it, for both correctness and suitability.
4. Sign a family homework agreement together, and understand that it must sit alongside the school’s own homework and AI-use rules.

Teaching steps

Each activity takes 15-20 minutes and can be done on separate days. No accounts or special equipment are needed — just pen and paper, with a parent and child working together.

1. Activity 1 — Try it first (15-20 min) — Pick a homework question the child has not yet done. The child tries it their own way (3-5 min) and writes down “what I tried” and “where I got stuck” separately; the parent asks only “What did you try?”, and does not give the answer. Purpose: build the “try first” habit.
2. Activity 2 — Learn to ask for help (15-20 min) — The parent plays the “AI helper”. The child practises asking in helpful ways, such as “Please explain the steps, do not give me the answer” and “Please point out where I went wrong”; the parent replies by explaining, not by doing the work. Purpose: turn “give me the answer” into “help me understand”.
3. Activity 3 — Check the answer (15-20 min) — The parent prepares a “wrong answer” in advance (use the fictional example in the printable), and the child compares it with the question, finds the mistake and explains it in their own words. Purpose: build the “check before you use” habit.
4. Sign the homework agreement (about 10 min, can be the same day as Activity 3) — Read the agreement aloud together, fill in the school name, class and date, sign it, and put it somewhere visible.

Teacher notes (parents’ evening): At a parents’ evening, spend about 5 minutes demonstrating the Activity 3 check, then ask parents to start with Activity 1 at home. Tell parents clearly that this guide is a helping tool and is not a substitute for the school’s own homework and AI-use policy; where the school already has rules, the school’s rules take precedence.

Answer key and marking notes

This guide is not marked. The points below are the concrete signs a parent can use to judge whether the child has “got it”:

• Try it first — the child can say “what I tried and where I got stuck” before asking for help. If the answer is only “I do not know” with no attempt, ask “Which step did you try?”.
• Ask for help — a good question names the stuck point and asks for an explanation rather than an answer. For example: “In this mixed-operation sum I do not understand why I multiply and divide before adding and subtracting; please explain the steps, do not give the answer.”
• Check the answer — the child must point out the mistake and explain it in their own words, not just say “this is wrong”. Fictional example: question “24 / 4 + 2”; wrong answer “24 / (4 + 2) = 4” — the child should say the order of operations is wrong, and the correct answer is 8.
• Homework agreement — it counts only when the whole family reads it aloud, fills in the school name and signs it; signing without discussing does not count.

Files

The full steps for the three activities, a printable homework agreement, a parent notice a school can edit, and the teacher notes are in the download:

Family AI homework guide (A4 printable)

Every example in the file is fictional (for example “a fictional P3 class”) and does not involve any real pupil or school.

How this relates to the EDB framework

This resource maps to the Blueprint for Digital Education Development in Primary and Secondary Schools (source B, the three-fold leaflet), p.1, which calls for home-school cooperation, and the AI Literacy Learning Framework for Primary and Secondary Schools (source F, Supplement I), p.1-8, which calls for adult accompaniment in early primary.

Reference: https://www.edb.gov.hk/en/edu-system/primary-secondary/applicable-to-primary-secondary/it-in-edu/debp.html

This guide is a teaching resource independently produced by Beets and is not an official EDB document, nor a substitute for the school’s own homework and AI-use policy.

Feedback

Have you used this guide at home? Which activity worked best for your child? Tell us what needs adjusting, which resource you would like next, and which year bands or languages we should add.