Student Participation Agreement

CognateHelix

Student Participation Agreement

CognateUK · CognateHelix Programme · 2026-2027

Before You Sign

This document sets out what it means to be a CognateHelix student: how you show up, how you work, how you use AI, and how you conduct yourself. It's written plainly because we want you to actually read it, not just scroll to the signature.

Everything here exists for the same reason: to make sure the work you build over the next 15 months is genuinely yours, and that the programme works well for everyone in it.

Your parent or guardian receives a copy of this document as part of the programme onboarding materials.

How the Programme Works

CognateHelix runs from October 2026 to December 2027. It includes live online sessions scheduled according to the programme timetable, together with a Cambridge residential weekend, a partner school day, two Signature Project Reviews, a 3-day online Summer Intensive and a Signature Project Showcase. The programme timetable provided to you in the onboarding pack gives the current dates and session arrangements.

Between sessions, you'll use the CognateHelix digital platform and ProfBot (the programme's AI learning assistant) to continue exploring ideas, reflect on your thinking, and build your Signature Project Portfolio.

The programme concludes with a Signature Project Showcase followed by a programme close in December 2027, at which portfolio completion is confirmed. Students who meet the completion threshold receive a Completion Statement.

That portfolio is the thread running through everything. Every session, every tool, every expectation in this document connects back to it.

Showing Up and Contributing

The programme works because everyone shows up. If you can't make a session, let the programme team know in advance, but consistent attendance is what makes the learning build over time. One missed session is a gap; several missed sessions means the work that follows doesn't have the foundation it needs.

Sessions are recorded, and catch-up arrangements can be agreed on up to three occasions across the programme. Some fixtures cannot be caught up. If you need to miss a session, let the programme team know in advance.

When you're in a session, be ready to contribute. That means joining prepared, engaging with discussion prompts, completing activities and reflection exercises, and keeping the environment focused and respectful. You won't always feel confident about what you're saying. That's fine. The expectation isn't that you have the answer; it's that you're willing to think out loud and engage seriously with others who are doing the same.

Join online sessions with your camera on and your microphone accessible. If there's a technical reason you can't, let the facilitator know in advance. Being visible matters: it's how your peers and tutors know you're present, not just logged in.

Using the Platform and ProfBot

You'll familiarise yourself with the CognateHelix platform and ProfBot during onboarding. Both are designed to support your learning between sessions: ProfBot helps you explore ideas, organise your thinking, and reflect on what you're working through. It's a tool, not a tutor, and how you use it matters.

For expectations on how you use the CognateHelix platform, including ProfBot, please refer to the Acceptable Use Policy.

Using AI Honestly

Modern science runs on AI. The scientists you'll work alongside at university and beyond use AI tools every day, to analyse data, check their thinking, and speed up the routine parts of the job. CognateHelix is built for that world. So we're not going to pretend AI doesn't exist, and we're not going to ban it. We're going to help you use it the way a good scientist does: openly, skilfully, and honestly.

That last word is the point. Used well, AI makes you a stronger scientist. Used to skip the thinking, it quietly hollows out the very things this programme exists to build, and it fails you at the exact moment you need those things most: the moment you need to explain your work under questioning, whether in a university interview, an apprenticeship assessment, or a professional setting.

The one rule behind everything:

Everything in your portfolio must be something you can explain and defend as your own.

If you couldn't talk an interviewer through a sentence, why it's there, what it means, how you arrived at it, then it shouldn't be in your portfolio. That single test settles almost every question about AI you'll ever have on this programme.

Two Questions That Decide Everything

Before you reach for an AI tool on any task, ask what the task is really for:

Is it asking me to build, analyse, or understand something? AI can help. Use it well and say you used it.

Is it asking for my own voice, reflection, or judgement? This must be you. AI stays out of the writing.

What This Looks Like in Practice

🟢 Go

AI is welcome here

Asking ProfBot to explain a concept you didn't follow. Checking your understanding: "have I got this right?" Using AI-directed tools to run and interpret data analysis (e.g. in Orange). Tidying the grammar of something you've already written yourself. The "put the AI to the test" tasks, where you use AI on purpose and then judge what it got wrong.

🟡 Care

Allowed, but check it and acknowledge it

Using AI to find facts or sources: you must verify them yourself (AI invents things) and say where they came from. Getting AI feedback on a draft you wrote: the words that stay must remain yours. Using translation tools for a specific technical term.

🔴 Stop

Never do this

Having AI write your reflections, your Science Identity, or any "in your own words" answer. Using AI to write your personal statement, application form, or interview answers, whether for university, an apprenticeship, or a job. Pasting AI-generated text and presenting it as your own work.

The Three-Question Habit

Whenever you rely on something an AI gave you, run it through three quick questions, the same habit real scientists use:

Do I trust this? AI sounds confident even when it's wrong.

Should I question it? What would I check before I believed it?

Where does my judgement matter? What did I decide here that the tool couldn't?

You'll see that last question at the foot of every worksheet. It isn't a formality; it's the skill the whole programme is teaching.

Always Say When You Used AI

Being open about AI isn't a punishment; it's what professional scientists now do in their own published work. Whenever AI helped with a piece, add a short line saying so: what you used, and what for.

For example: "I used ProfBot to help me understand what a survival curve shows; the analysis and conclusions are my own."

Honest acknowledgement never counts against you. Hidden use does.

Your Signature Project

Your Signature Project is the piece you'll carry into the moments that matter, when you need to explain and defend your work under questioning. Every module feeds into it, and by the end of the programme it represents 15 months of genuine work. It gets its own rule, and it's a strict one: every part of it must be yours to explain.

AI can help you build the analysis and tidy how you write it up. But the thinking, the interpretation, and the story of what you did and why, those are yours. You will sit across from someone and defend this project out loud. Write only what you can defend. Anything you can't explain isn't an asset; it's a trap.

If a tutor thinks a piece of your portfolio isn't your own, they'll talk to you about it and ask you to explain it or redo it. Your portfolio is reviewed for quality, not graded like an exam, so the consequence isn't a lost mark. It's worse: you arrive at your interview with work you can't stand behind, and no amount of polish hides that. The aim is always to get you back to work that's genuinely yours, because that's the only work that helps you.

After the programme closes, you will have 90 days to access the platform and download your portfolio. We will remind you before access ends.

Conduct

Everything on this programme happens in a professional environment. That means acting with integrity in all interactions, whether in live sessions, on the platform, or in messages.

Direct social media connections between students and tutors or facilitators are not permitted while you are on the programme. All programme communication happens through the CognateHelix platform and approved channels. The full details of what you can and can't share externally, and how professional networking works after the programme, are set out in the CognateUK Social Media and Professional Boundaries Policy, which is available on the platform.

When the programme asks for your feedback, give it honestly. The programme is still developing, and your perspective shapes what it becomes for future cohorts.

Your Commitment

By signing below, you confirm that you have read this document and understood what is expected of you as a CognateHelix student: how you show up, how you use AI, how you handle your Signature Project, and how you conduct yourself. You agree to use AI honestly throughout the programme, as a tool where it helps, and never as a substitute for your own voice, reflection, and judgement.

Student Participation Agreement · Version 2026-09-v2