Case Study: The AI Teaching Assistant: Automated Parent Comms

An intelligent system that monitors student performance and behaviour, automatically drafting personalised emails to parents for timely intervention and praise.

Project Type

AI & Automation

Core Technologies

n8n, LLMs, Excel, Outlook

Sector

Education

Impact

Proactive Communication,
Workload Reduction

The Business Challenge

Teachers spend a significant amount of time manually tracking student progress and initiating communication with parents. This process can be reactive, inconsistent, and time-consuming, especially when managing large classes. Important opportunities for early intervention or positive reinforcement can be missed, and the administrative overhead contributes to teacher workload and burnout.

The Solution: An AI Communication Assistant

We developed an automated workflow using n8n that acts as an AI-powered communication assistant. The solution connects to student data logs in MIS systems, identifies key events (such as low assessment scores, missed homework, or positive behaviour), and uses a Large Language Model (LLM) to draft context-aware, personalised emails. These are then saved as drafts in the teacher's Outlook account, ready for a quick review and sending.

The Automated Workflow:

1. Scheduled Trigger & Data Ingestion

The workflow runs automatically every weekday afternoon. It connects to the schools system to read from multiple data sources containing student rosters and academic engagement logs.

2. Data Filtering & Event Routing

The system filters for recent events and checks a communications log to ensure an email hasn't already been sent for a specific event. It then uses a switch to categorise and route each event (e.g., 'Assessment', 'Homework', 'Behaviour').

3. Conditional Logic & Dynamic AI Prompting

For each event, specific rules are applied, such as identifying assessment scores below 60%, missed homework, or positive behaviour notes. Based on the event type and its details, a unique and detailed prompt is constructed to instruct the AI model (GPT-4) to write a supportive and professional email.

4. Email Generation & Logging

The LLM processes the prompt and generates a complete email. The workflow then creates a draft in the teacher's Microsoft Outlook account and appends a record to the communication log in Excel to prevent duplicate messages.

Key Outcomes & Business Impact

Proactive & Timely Communication: Ensures parents are informed promptly about both concerns and achievements, fostering a stronger home-school partnership.
Reduced Administrative Burden: Frees up teachers from the repetitive task of manually tracking events and writing individual emails, allowing them to focus on teaching and planning.
Improved Consistency & Quality: Standardises the tone, format, and quality of parent communications across the school, a professional and supportive voice.
Data-Driven Intervention: Leverages real-time data to trigger communications, ensuring that interventions are timely, relevant, and well-documented.
Enhanced Teacher Wellbeing: By automating a demanding and time-consuming administrative task, this solution directly contributes to reducing teacher workload and improving job satisfaction.

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