P1-S6 School planning: AI-readiness infrastructure checklist (devices, network, accounts, filtering, storage)

• StageP1-S6
• SubjectSchool planning
• Learning strandfundamental operating principles of AI / human-AI communication and collaboration / reflection on the application of AI
• Official documentsBlueprint for Digital Education Development in Primary and Secondary Schools
• Session time60-90 minutes (can be split over two meetings)

Turns school AI infrastructure into five areas — devices, network, accounts, filtering, storage — each written as an item a school can check, with the current state, the owner and a target date filled in.

• AudienceTeachers
• ThemeSchool planning

• EquipmentEditable Word checklist; projector or print; the network, account and storage items are best filled in with the school's IT colleague present
• Version1.2
• Last updated2026-10-16

The test for school AI infrastructure is simple: a teacher with no IT background, holding a device the school lends them, in their own classroom, can do what the lesson needs done.

What this solves

What stops AI in a classroom is usually not the teaching material. It is the layer underneath: whether there are enough devices, whether the classroom network actually carries them, which account a pupil signs in with, what the web filtering does to the tool, and where the pupils’ work and records end up. Get that layer wrong and the best lesson plan still stops in the first lesson.

This checklist splits school AI infrastructure into five areas — devices, network, accounts, filtering, storage — and writes each one as an item a school can check face to face. It is not a tick-box exercise: each item asks for the current state and an owner, so every gap becomes something a named person is following up.

It is the part of a School Development Plan and its digital education planning that is easiest to skip: get the groundwork in place first, then design the teaching and learning. Filling it in also settles where pupils’ prompts and learning data are kept, and who does the professional gatekeeping before a tool’s answer reaches a pupil. Do it the other way round and the teacher blames themselves for a lesson that was never going to work.

Purpose

By the end of this checklist a school will be able to:

1. See the current state and the gaps in all five areas on one page.
2. Give every gap an owner and a target date.
3. Tell which gaps affect the whole school and which affect a single panel or class, and set the order of work accordingly.
4. Check progress item by item against the same list at the next review.

The checklist is built on the three learning strands of AI literacy (the fundamental operating principles of AI, human-AI communication and collaboration, and reflection on the application of AI), and on the values of technology for good, critical discernment, human-AI collaboration and timely and appropriate use: the devices and the network decide whether a pupil can do the task at all, while the account and storage items decide whether a school is set up for over-reliance or for pupils who can still do the work themselves.

Fill it in against “a lesson really can do this”, not against “this is technically possible”.

How to use it

The file is one Word checklist in five areas, each with three columns: current state, owner, target date. Work through two areas per meeting, led by the curriculum coordinator or the IT coordinator.

Area 1: devices

• How many devices are available to a class at one time, against the gap to one device per pupil or one between two.
• Whether the devices let pupils do the task (typing, opening a page) rather than only watch a demonstration.
• The loan and return arrangement: who runs it, where the devices live, how it is recorded.
• What happens to a pupil who cannot use a device, for example because their own is unavailable.
• The difference between what a teacher’s device can do and what a pupil’s can, such as showing or mirroring a screen.

Area 2: network

• Wireless coverage and stability in classrooms: how many devices can work at once.
• Whether the bandwidth carries a class opening pages and uploading files at the same time, and how it behaves at the busiest hour.
• The fallback plan when the network fails, for example an activity that does not need it.
• Whether certain hours need to be given priority for teaching.
• The arrangement away from school, such as online lessons or work done at home.

Area 3: accounts

• What kind of account pupils and staff use: managed by the school, or each person signing up separately.
• Who creates an account and who closes it, and what happens when a pupil leaves or changes class.
• Who consents on behalf of a pupil below the legal age, and how that is recorded.
• How closely an account is tied to a pupil’s identity: whether a real name is required, or a class and seat number will do.
• The sign-in support procedure, such as who resets a forgotten password.

Area 4: filtering

• Whether the content filtering already on the school network and devices covers AI tools and the content they generate.
• Who reviews the filtering rules, how often, and how a teacher reports a case that needs changing.
• Whether a teacher can temporarily allow one site during a lesson, and what that procedure costs in time.
• The arrangement when a pupil uses the same tool away from school, and how that is explained to parents.
• Where filtering and teaching needs collide: which activities the filtering blocks, and what replaces them.

Area 5: storage

• Where pupils’ work, prompts and conversation records are held: a school account, a personal account, or the tool’s own servers.
• Who can see those records, how long they are kept, and what is deleted when the period ends.
• Which personal data must be removed before anything is uploaded, and who does it.
• The backup arrangement: how work survives a failed device or a closed account.
• Whether all of this agrees with the school’s existing personal information collection statement.

Suggested order of work

1. Do devices and network first: these two decide whether a lesson can happen at all.
2. Then accounts and storage, both of which touch personal data, and are best filled in with the colleague responsible for data protection.
3. Filtering usually needs a real test: set aside one lesson and try it on a pupil device and a teacher device.
4. Afterwards, copy anything that cannot be fixed straight away into the relevant part of the School Development Plan or the Annual School Plan, with an owner and a target date.

Review checklist

Before the list goes back, check each item:

• Every item names who is responsible and a target date; nothing says only “to be handled”.
• Every item describes the current state, not only “needs improvement”.
• All five areas are filled in; none is left blank.
• No item touching pupil personal data conflicts with the school’s existing personal information collection statement.
• At least one item is already in this year’s timetable.
• The list has a single overall owner and a next review date.
• After reading the list, a teacher knows who to go to when something does not work.

Files

School AI-readiness infrastructure checklist (editable Word document)

Five areas (devices, network, accounts, filtering, storage), each item with a current state, owner and target date field, plus a page of notes and blank items at the end. A school can adapt and reuse the whole document.

Official documents

Every resource in this library is written to the AI Literacy Learning Framework for Primary and Secondary Schools and falls within the policy scope of the Blueprint for Digital Education Development in Primary and Secondary Schools.

This resource maps to:

• Blueprint for Digital Education Development in Primary and Secondary Schools (three-fold leaflet, p.1): calls for enhancing infrastructure and resource provision, and asks for digital education infrastructure that is safe, efficient and equitably accessible to all. This checklist turns that requirement into five school-level areas (devices, network, accounts, filtering, storage); the five areas are the school’s own framework, not a list given in the document.

Learning strand: fundamental operating principles of AI / human-AI communication and collaboration / reflection on the application of AI

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

This page is an independent Beets teaching resource, not an official EDB document.

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