Planting the Roots for an AI Future in Elementary School

AI may feel like a distant topic in an Elementary School shaped by inquiry, play, and hands-on learning. But the principle is the same as with any lasting skill: the foundations begin early. Each day, WAB’s youngest learners are building the habits, knowledge, and sense of agency that will support them in a world shaped by AI: asking questions, noticing patterns, explaining their thinking, and developing the confidence to make choices about their own learning.  

In ES classrooms, you can see this in very concrete ways. In design classes, students program simple robots to navigate mazes or respond to sensors; they test, adjust, and test again, seeing directly how human decisions change a system’s behavior. In Units of Inquiry, they choose questions within a shared theme, design small investigations, work in changing groupings, and present their findings to real audiences. By Grade 5, at the PYP Exhibition, students are spending weeks following their own lines of inquiry linked to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, pulling in literacy, mathematics, science, and the arts to communicate a message they care about. This is where deep learning, research, and disciplinary knowledge become essential, giving students the foundation to evaluate information and use emerging tools with purpose and accuracy. 

What makes this innovative is how deliberately we build student agency. That matters because when AI makes it easy to accept suggestions quickly, agency helps students stay active in their thinking rather than handing that thinking over to a tool. In an IB school like WAB, learner agency means voice, choice, and ownership: students learn that their questions matter, that they can decide how to investigate an idea, and that they can reflect on how their thinking is shaped by others and by tools.  

International guidance on AI stresses protecting human agency as digital tools become more capable of suggesting, predicting, and deciding for us. When an ES student can explain, “Here’s how I chose this strategy,” or “Here’s why this answer makes sense,” they’re practicing the same metacognitive skills they will need to analyze and critically review when a system recommends the next video, article, or AI‑generated answer. Over time, this builds the habit of looking beyond the surface of an AI-generated response and considering its accuracy, completeness, and possible bias. 

Director of Innovation in Learning and Teaching, Stephen Taylor puts it this way: for students to thrive in a fast-changing world, they need to develop effective agency and inquiry. This means being open to new learning, applying their learning to new contexts and testing out new ideas and approaches. This allows them to build on knowledge and skills and learn what tools to use, and how. Inquiry in WAB ES is intentionally collaborative and personal: students learn to make decisions, justify them, and adapt. These are essential skills for learning, decision-making, and responsible participation that students will need in the future. 

For families, the same habits can be reinforced at home. Questions like “How do you know this?”, “Where did this information come from?”, or “Why did you choose that way to solve it?” help children practice explaining their reasoning, questioning sources, considering perspective, and noticing how tools can shape what they see. That is how WAB begins preparing its youngest learners for the future. 

This year, through our Innovation Series, in collaboration with Stephen Taylor, our Director of Innovation, we’ll be sharing stories and examples of what innovation looks like across WAB. We’ll share stories from classrooms, examples from alumni, and insights from global partners. Our hope is that together, we can build a clearer picture of how innovation at WAB helps our students become better learners and prepared for life beyond WAB.