After watching this video yesterday, I’ve been having a bit of a tinker with Google’s NotebookLM recently, and a genuinely exciting possibility for its use in schools has sprung to mind.

As many of you know, I’ve previously explored how we can responsibly harness AI to support our pupils. If you missed them, I’ve written about using ‘Gems’ in Google Gemini to act as a sort of local LLM to gain insight into pupil data and also building a local LLM to assess and document pupils’ SEMH needs and progress. These concepts are all about keeping sensitive data secure while empowering staff with deep, instant analysis.

Now, imagine taking that concept and streamlining it even further with a powerful, dedicated tool.

The NotebookLM Game-Changer for SEN

The current paid version of NotebookLM offers some features that are absolute gold dust for a busy school environment. Crucially, it allows for up to 300 notebooks (a serious capacity boost!) and, most importantly, the ability to share a notebook with someone else.

How brilliant would this be for a SENCo?

A SENCo could create a dedicated, secure NotebookLM file for a specific pupil, populating it with all the essential, anonymised data: reports, observation notes, previous progress reviews, and Individual Education Plan (IEP) documents.

They could then securely share this specific notebook with the relevant teaching staff and support assistants.

This transforms the way teaching staff access and understand the information. Instead of having to spend precious time sifting through a stack of documents, they can simply ask the notebook questions, such as:

• “What are the top three strategies recommended for supporting this child’s focus in a Maths lesson?”
• “Can you summarise the child’s most recent reading assessment data?”
• “What are the key trigger points documented in the pupil’s behaviour plan?”

It becomes an on-demand, private consultant, ensuring every member of staff has the most current, relevant, and personalised insight into how best to support that child. It shifts the focus from ‘knowing where the file is’ to ‘knowing how to help.’

Using NotebookLM as a private LLM is an incredibly exciting prospect for improving the consistency and quality of support across the whole school, however as always with AI, there are lots of things to consider around data security, responsible use and adoption.

Another thing to consider is that I am NOT part of a ‘Google school’, we use Microsoft 365, so I am interested to see how a ‘Google school’ if they do not have access to the ‘paid’ features of NotebookLM (the additional notebooks and the capacity to share notebooks), how these could be accessed. If you know, please leave a comment below.