Coming Back Strong: How Teachers Can Protect Their Energy and Use AI to Ease the Workload

The first weeks of term are always a mixture of excitement and exhaustion. After a summer of rest—or at least a change of pace—teachers often step back into school life with renewed energy. Yet it doesn’t take long before the demands of planning, marking, pastoral care, and extracurricular commitments begin to pile up again.

It’s no surprise that teacher burnout remains one of the most pressing issues in education today. The balance between doing the job well and maintaining personal wellbeing can feel precarious. For many, the challenge is not the lack of dedication but the sheer weight of administrative and cognitive load.

A New Ally in Reducing Workload

This is where technology—used wisely—can make a genuine difference. AI has been criticised in some quarters for adding complexity or creating fear of surveillance, but when designed to serve teachers first, it can lighten the load and enhance impact. By taking on repetitive tasks, surfacing patterns in student learning, and providing ready-made resources, AI can give teachers back time and mental space.

Rather than being a replacement for professional judgment, AI can act as a quiet assistant: capturing the detail of a lesson, structuring it into useful outputs, and offering insights that otherwise might be lost. The aim isn’t to add more, but to take things away—to relieve teachers of the burden of constantly remembering, rewriting, and reformatting.

From Coaching Feedback to a Teacher’s Second Brain

Every time a lesson is uploaded into Starlight, teachers receive an AI coaching feedback report—a focused snapshot of what went well and where practice could be refined. Alongside this, the Teacher Toolkit is automatically generated: a set of practical, time-saving resources designed to function like a second brain.

Here’s what it includes:

• Learning Intention Summaries: A running log of lesson aims, helping teachers track progression across a sequence of teaching.

• Student Misconceptions: Highlighted misunderstandings drawn directly from the transcript, giving a clear steer on what to revisit next lesson.

• Homework Instructions: Either a record of what was set, or suggested tasks when none were given—helping maintain consistency for students and saving time for teachers.

• Retrieval Questions and Answers: Ten tailored questions, many linked back to student misconceptions, ready to use for low-stakes quizzes and knowledge checks.

• Absent Student Emails: Automatically drafted summaries of what happened in the lesson, complete with homework, so teachers can keep everyone up to speed without extra effort.

• Key Vocabulary Lists: Tier 2 and Tier 3 terms, clearly defined and extracted, ensuring subject language is front and centre.

• Participation Logs: A record of who spoke and contributed, supporting equity of voice and future planning.

• Recognition Suggestions: Gentle prompts for positive reinforcement, ensuring students’ efforts are acknowledged.

Together, these features form a comprehensive package—not as a replacement for a teacher’s craft, but as a reminder system, a note-taker, and a planning assistant rolled into one.

Looking Ahead

The beginning of term is always a critical moment: habits are set, expectations established, and resilience tested. By using tools that lighten workload without compromising quality, teachers can protect their energy, avoid burnout, and focus on the part of the job that matters most—the human connection with their students.

The Teacher Toolkit is not about doing more. It’s about making sure that what teachers already do is captured, streamlined, and supported—helping them come back strong, and stay strong, all year.

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The Insight Engine is written by Adam Sturdee, co-founder of Starlight—the UK’s first AI-powered coaching platform—and Assistant Headteacher at St Augustine’s Catholic College. This blog is part of a wider mission to support educators through meaningful reflection, not performance metrics. It documents the journey of building Starlight from the ground up, and explores how AI, when shaped with care, can reduce workload, surface insight, and help teachers think more deeply about their practice. Rooted in the belief that growth should be private, professional, and purposeful, The Insight Engine offers ideas and stories that put insight—not judgment—at the centre of development.