As part of Safer Internet Day 2026, Larches class took part in a BBC live lesson all about AI. Children across the country were tasked to come together to create an AI chatbot that allowed us to find out more about Maverick the Vulture from Knowsley Safari Park. 

The children began their session, meeting the wonderful Maverick and his keeper and were asked to think about how we could use AI technology to help us find out more about this wonderful creature. They discovered that AI can be very useful as a research tool and got to work with experts in the field to build their very own AI chatbot.

First, they explored why and how to train a chatbot to ensure that it uses correct, factual information. They had to carefully select the most effective sources to train their AI bot. Then they had to create their own system prompts to tell the chatbot how to behave. For example, 'You are an expert on vultures' or 'You must always tell the truth' or 'If a user asks you something that is not about vultures, you must say I don't know'. Finally, the children had to design their own avatars for their AI chatbot. There were some great vulture-inspired designs!

At the end of the session, experts pulled together all the children's hard work to create an actual AI chatbot. Children across the country could send in their questions to Maverick, the AI chatbot vulture and have them answered!

The children thoroughly enjoyed learning about AI and how it worked. They also thought about how to use AI safely and came up with some key rules to protect us when using AI.

To top off a fantastic session, we sent in some of our work to the BBC, and amazingly, we were featured on the BBC Live website page! The children were very excited to have a shout-out from the BBC Bitesize team. See a photo of their shout-out below!