Winning at Social and AI

For students today, the digital world is not separate from real life. It’s where they connect, express themselves, learn, and make choices every day. Helping students navigate that world with empathy, judgment, and confidence is part of our work.

This year, students in Grades 3 to 8 have been engaging with #WinAtSocial, a digital citizenship curriculum from The Social Institute. Simultaneously, our faculty has developed a clear AI Student Policy that helps students understand when these tools can support learning and when original thinking matters most. Together, these efforts help students build the judgment and confidence they need to navigate the digital world well.

Learning by Doing

The most meaningful conversations are the ones that feel real. By bringing these conversations into everyday school life in a way that is relevant and age-appropriate, we give students the chance to work through situations that reflect the digital world they already know. So far, teachers have shared 44 interactive lessons. The content is shaped with student input, including feedback from a national student advisory board, which helps keep it grounded in real experiences and current conversations. These sessions invite students to reflect on how they show up online, how they make decisions, and how they want to use their voice.

“The students appreciate the lessons and the topics. They are curious and hungry for skills around how to navigate challenges like privacy and online safety. They don’t want to be fed misconceptions; they want to know how to get real information.”

— Aidan de Jean, Elementary School Principal

In Grade 7, for instance, students recently looked for themselves online to understand their digital footprint and how a curated, positive presence can actually benefit their future college applications.

“Our goal is to arm our students with the thinking skills to be as safe as possible. We want them to understand what they are consuming and what they are producing, because to ignore that is to ignore a huge chunk of their lives.”

— Dani Jansen, Teaching & Learning Coordinator, High School

A Clear Approach to AI

AI is already changing how students learn, create, and solve problems. That makes clarity important. Our Student AI Policy was developed with faculty and department heads to help students understand how AI can be used responsibly. The goal is not to treat every use of AI the same. It’s to help students develop judgment. At the end of the year, students and faculty will have a chance to provide feedback to improve the policy. With a focus on two pillars: student privacy and protecting the integrity of the learning process, we use a simple Red, Yellow, and Green Light system.

This gives learners a practical way to think about when AI supports learning and when it gets in the way. It also makes expectations clearer across classrooms. That matters, because students need more than access to tools. They need the confidence and discernment to use them well.

A Shared Journey

Families are part of this learning with access to The Social Toolkit, which includes short “Family Huddles” designed to support simple, meaningful conversations at home. These resources help extend the learning beyond the classroom and give families another way into topics that can sometimes feel fast-moving or hard to unpack.

The St. George’s Difference

What stands out in this work is not just the content. It is the approach behind it. Students are being invited into honest, thoughtful conversations about the world they are already navigating. They are being trusted to reflect, ask questions, and build the judgment they will need over time. Through this approach, students learn to make choices with care.