Tonight your child grades the robot: the red pen game

Primary school children spend the whole year on the same side of the table: someone asks, they answer, someone marks. Today it flips. Your child is the teacher, the AI is the pupil, and the red pen belongs to them. They set the tasks, check every answer against something real, count on their fingers, look out of the window, open a book, and decide whether the pupil passes.

The twist is that this is not about catching the machine out. A chat answers in the same confident voice when it is right and when it is wrong, and an eight year old has no way of knowing that until they see it with their own eyes. Checking is a skill, like braking on a bike, and you learn it by doing it many times on small things. No AI is stupid, and that word is not used in this house: the fun is not that the pupil slips, it is that the teacher notices.

• The child is the teacher and sets the tasks. The adult sits alongside, types into the chat if needed, but does not mark.
• No answer counts as right until it has been checked against something real: fingers, paper, a book, the window, someone in the family.
• Points are for checking, not for being right. Saying wrong without having looked scores zero.
• A pupil who honestly says I don't know earns points, because in this class honesty counts.
• Fifteen minutes and it ends. A tired teacher marks badly.

Four tasks for the teacher

Today you are my pupil and I am your teacher. I am [AGE] years old. Task 1: how many letters s are there in the word Mississippi? Write them out one by one and then give the total. Task 2: Mary's father has five daughters: Nana, Nene, Nini, Nono and one more. What is the fifth one called? Explain how you knew. Keep your answers short, I am going to mark them.

You are still my pupil. I live in [ONLY THE NAME OF THE TOWN OR CITY]. Tell me five things about this place that a child of [AGE] can check: the name of the nearest river or sea, what gets celebrated here, roughly how many people live here, something famous from here, and something you can see from a square or a park. Next to each one, say whether you are very sure, fairly sure or just guessing.

First question, on its own: what is a purrephant? Once you have answered, I will tell you that I made it up: it is an animal that purrs like a cat and has a trunk. Then describe it in five sentences for a child of [AGE] and say clearly that it is made up.

The scoreboard and the diploma

• The pupil is right and the teacher has checked it: 1 point for the AI and 1 for the teacher.
• The teacher finds a mistake and proves it with something real: 3 points for the teacher.
• The pupil honestly says it does not know or is not sure: 2 points for the AI.
• The teacher says wrong without checking: 0 points, and the task is repeated.
• Anyone who says the word stupid loses a point. That goes for both sides and for adults too.

Design a printable diploma in the style of an old school certificate with a gold border. Large heading: Robot Teacher Diploma. Below it the name [FIRST NAME OR NICKNAME ONLY], the date [DATE] and the line: for checking before believing. A small friendly robot holding a red pen in one corner, space for a signature at the bottom. No photos, no real people.