Portsmouth Makes History as UK’s First City to Win AI Gold Quality Mark

Awarded by the Good Future Foundation, the honour celebrates Portsmouth’s bold initiative, “The Digital City”, which now supports all 61 schools across the city. From local authority schools to 14 multi-academy trusts, every school is benefiting from a coordinated approach to AI training, policy, and classroom practice.

The Good Future Foundation, a UK registered charity, specialises in supporting schools and teachers in their responsible adoption of AI. The foundation seeks to engage teachers through co-created training, resources, and continuous support, as needed, to effectively incorporate AI into their teaching practices. All workshops and educational services the foundation provides are completely free of charge to participants.

The Foundation’s AI Quality Mark is a first-of-its-kind benchmark. It assesses the integration of AI within school life, including areas such as leadership, lesson delivery, safeguarding, and parental communication. Previously only awarded to individual schools, this is the first time a local authority has achieved the highest accreditation. The Foundation aims to establish this tool as the national standard for AI evaluation in education.

Daniel Emmerson, Good Future Foundation, said “Our AI Quality Mark addresses nine areas of school life, so that schools are able to explore in depth where they are on their AI journey, while also identifying gaps and developing strategy along the way. The Digital City Project team have done superb work with their schools in focussing on unique approaches and practices in order to ensure responsible use of this exciting technology.”

The “Portsmouth: The Digital City” Project will now help its schools achieve individual AI Quality Mark certifications. Six pioneering schools will begin the certification process in September, with the city providing mentorship and resources as they work through the AI Quality Mark framework. These schools will then support the next cohort with a vision that all schools have achieved their individual AI Quality Mark certifications by the summer of 2026. Good Future Foundation will continue supporting Portsmouth as the city extends this guidance to help all schools across its education network develop their own responsible AI strategies.

Gemma Gwilliam, Portsmouth’s Head of Digital Learning, Education and Innovation, said:

“This is a brilliant example of how our city-wide approach makes a difference. In Portsmouth, our vision is rooted in a shared responsibility to ensure technology is used to enhance teaching and learning, reduce workload, support accessibility and inclusion, and help narrow the digital divide so that every member of our community can choose the right tool, for the right outcome, at the right time.

“As a team, we’re excited to support our schools individually through their own certification journeys so that together we are continuing to promote the safe and effective use of AI for our schools and their families. Having gone through the process ourselves, we’re now well placed to help ensure every school’s approach to AI truly benefits its staff and learners and would recommend others go through this process too.

“This milestone shows how cities can become catalysts for responsible AI adoption, providing the leadership, resources, and collaborative framework that schools need to navigate AI implementation thoughtfully, and responsibly prepare all young learners for an AI-infused world.”

As pupils and teachers prepare to return to schools in the next few weeks, The Good Future Foundation hopes to return to the region soon and encourages other local schools to get involved at www.goodfuture.foundation.