PrimarAI
AI in NSW Primary Schools.
What is this?
PrimarAI is now the home of an open project: building the practical case for what Australian primary education can become in the age of AI. It's published here weekly, free to read, free to share, and written for anyone with a stake in primary education — teachers, principals, parents, policymakers, and the kids themselves.
What you'll find here
What you'll find here
Weekly writing: essays on what primary school could look like when AI is taken seriously, published every Sunday.
Classroom observations: what's actually happening when primary kids meet AI, written from inside the work.
A structural proposal: taking shape over 2026: a practical model for the Australian primary school day, built and written openly.
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Australian primary education is ready for its best version yet, and AI is what makes it possible.
A working teacher's case for what that looks like, built in real classrooms and written openly.
I'm Dane Smale, a NSW primary school teacher and the founder of PrimarAI
one of the first Australian ventures to build a primary-specific AI education program.
Over the past three years I've developed the PrimarAI curriculum: seven NSW-syllabus-aligned sessions drawing on the best of global models, Alpha School, the AI Assessment Scale, MIT's Day of AI, adapted for Australian classrooms.
PrimarAI has built a public profile as one of the few Australian voices working on AI specifically for the primary years.
What three years in this work has clarified is that we're at an inflection point. Australian primary education doesn't need another conference, another framework, or another set of guiding principles. It needs concrete strategy.
That's what I'm now building, and writing about openly as I go.
Future Ready: The AI power-up for students
The past, present and future...
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We give the students context and space to ponder and discuss
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We look at where we all were a year or so ago, whats AI is being used for now (live demonstrations and discussion), and a fun and eye opening demonstration of how it will affect every students' future.
Session 2
Getting hands on. lets get our hands dirty and use it!
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Students experience hands on the power and excitement of various forms of AI, using teacher led explorations.
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This brings the class to common level of understanding.
Session 3
Essentials session
'It's not a magic box, but I can create magic...'
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Students learn how AI actually works, and start seeing it as a tool they can shape.
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Students begin to familiarise with training their own models and understanding prompts tokens and bias,
Session 1
Essentials session
Session 4
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Generative AI
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How Ai can create something new.
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Generative AI: Showcasing AI systems that create stories, music, artwork, and conversations through tools like ChatGPT.
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How AI creates: Exploring how AI learns patterns from existing content to generate new variations through large language models.
Session 5
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How to approach AI effectively and ethically.
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How to get it to do what you need it to do.
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Developing strategies for effective "prompting" while navigating important ethical questions about responsible AI use.
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Students become prompt engineers, crafting clear instructions while exploring considerations like privacy and bias.
Session 6
Essentials session
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AI and Social Media
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AI Safety, Data Privacy and Consent
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Social media is flooded with misleading and disturbing text and images. this session reveals for students how algorithms analyze online behavior to curate personalised content on social platforms.
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Students learn how AI collects personal information and they develop strategies to protect their data while online.
