We’ve expanded our Digital deception: Understanding deepfakes and manipulated images lesson suite with a new two-lesson pack for KS3-4 students with SEND.
Research highlights that young people with learning needs and disabilities are at a significantly greater risk of sexual abuse and experiencing sexual violence.
Sadly, this trend also extends to deepfakes, with Internet Matters research finding that a quarter (25%) of young people with SEND have had an experience with a deepfake — more than double the proportion of their peers without SEND (which is already alarmingly high at 11%).
Our new lesson pack gives you everything you need to cover this challenging topic with confidence, ensuring students with SEND learn what deepfake images are and how they can be harmful, as well as how to respond if they encounter deepfakes online.
The lessons will also help you meet new requirements for secondary schools to teach about AI-generated images and deepfakes at secondary.
Once again, we are grateful to the Home Office for their support on this project, which has enabled us to make these materials freely available to all schools.
As with our other lesson packs for pupils with SEND, these lessons are intended to be used flexibly, and you are encouraged to adapt them to meet your students’ needs and abilities.
Each lesson plan provides four main activities for you to choose from, which are based on four progression stages outlined in the 2026 edition of our PSHE education Planning Framework for Pupils with SEND (Core, Development, Enrichment, Enhancement).
The new RSHE guidance stresses the importance of being relevant and responsive to young people’s experiences and their learning needs. In this lesson pack, we have taken a new and emerging issue and made the learning accessible for pupils with special educational needs; focusing on positive messages about how they can support their peers online and respond to instances of AI manipulated images.
Jenny Fox, PSHE Association Senior Subject Specialist