Scotland appoints its first dedicated AI literacy teacher to help pupils spot deepfakes and challenge what they are told

From the Newshound archive · first published 6 October 2026.

Mearns Castle High School in Newton Mearns, East Renfrewshire, is believed to be the first school in the UK to create a principal teacher of AI literacy post, a role now filled by Jamie Laycock, who previously taught biology. His central message is clear: schools cannot afford to ignore AI, and young people must question it rather than accept it uncritically. Laycock's early lessons have centred on deepfake detection, with pupils finding the task far harder than they had expected.

A University of Edinburgh report concluded that Scottish schools were ill-equipped for AI's rapid emergence in education.

Laycock warns that AI 'hallucination' — where software confidently presents invented information as fact — poses a serious risk to pupils who lack the foundational knowledge to detect it.

He says the biggest danger is pupils forgetting they are talking to a machine: 'It has human-like qualities but actually this is just a machine.'