The proportion of children reporting issues with conspiracy theories, misinformation and disinformation in their schools has increased by over a third in a year, research suggests.
Polling by Public First for the Commission into Countering Online Conspiracies in Schools also found 81 per cent of teachers reported having had a pupil bring up a conspiracy theory with them.
According to the commission’s polling, 27 per cent of young people now report that conspiracy theories, misinformation and disinformation are an issue in their school, up from 20 per cent the year before, a rise of 35 per cent.
And the proportion of parents who reported that their children have raised a conspiracy theory with them jumped from 28 per cent in 2024 to 38 per cent in 2025.
Generative AI is a “major new driver”, with 44 per cent of young people saying they had seen AI-generated images or videos made to seem real in the past month. Thirty-nine per cent said they had encountered deepfakes.
In focus groups, school staff said examples of conspiracy theories raised by pupils surrounded current affairs such as the Russian-Ukrainian war, Tommy Robinson and the death of Charlie Kirk.
‘A perfect storm’
Sir Hamid Patel, chief executive of the Star Academies trust and co-chair of the commission, said schools were “facing a perfect storm of misinformation.
“False claims are spreading faster and becoming harder to detect. Adults are not immune to this, and misleading information is increasingly shaping the conversations young people encounter not just online, but also at school and at home.
“That raises the importance of curriculum measures that help pupils think critically, weigh evidence and question what they see.
“In a world of viral deepfakes, malign influencer content and growing uncertainty about what is real, media literacy must be embedded in lessons from primary school to protect children.”
The research found parents remain young people’s most trusted source of information, with 90 per cent of children and young people saying they “completely or moderately trust” a parent.
But 50 per cent of young people “have experienced a parent believing something they had read online that was untrue, rising to 65 per cent among 17 to 18-year-olds”.
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