Seneca
Seneca offers interactive resources and revision tools to help students in a range of subjects and levels from key stage 3 (KS3) to 5. I find it particularly helpful for scaffolding revision strategies to students who struggle with organisation or knowing where to begin.
It’s free to use and has lots of features, including the ability to set assignments (great for homework). Premium access is available to whole schools and includes time-saving devices like auto-marking and reporting. The platform is great for individual teachers with their classes, for setting cover, and as a suggested (free!) revision platform for students.
EdPuzzle
A video-based learning platform that allows teachers to create interactive lessons; handy during the pandemic but still has lots of uses today! Ideal for flipping the classroom, assessing comprehension, and engaging students with video content.
You can either search pre-made videos or create your own – up to 20 for free, or opt for unlimited use (at a cost) for a premium option. The site is pretty user-friendly for uploading and editing videos, adding questions, and monitoring student progress. EdPuzzle offers total freedom over the videos you choose!
EduCake
This is a quizzing platform for primary and secondary education, best known for pre-built, auto-marking question banks which are excellent for homework and formative assessments.
30 day free trials and individual student subscriptions are available, but full use of the platform is accessed through department or school subscriptions. EduCake is aimed at teams looking to streamline their assessment approaches, reduce teacher workload and boost student engagement.
Primary Quiz
A previous partner of ours! We love Primary Quiz and their ready-to-go, intuitive quizzing platform for primary classrooms (Years 1-6). The focus is on low-stakes questions and regular practice which builds students confidence and awareness of their own learning.
Hear some experienced platform users talk about their experiences in our webinar from March 2024. Trials are available, and then subscriptions for whole schools start at £395 annually.
ChatGPT
We’ve played around with ChatGPT’s big brother (Open AI Playground) for a couple of years before ChatGPT rippled across the world. If you’ve still not heard of it, the software’s growth exceeds any other technological invention or launch, ever!
GPT stands for Generative Pre-Trained. This AI-powered chatbot is free to use and has many educational purposes. It can generate questions from your resources, provide model answers, suggest lesson plans, and differentiate resources! AI is obviously no replacement for teachers’ years of training and experience, but it can be an excellent starting point and a real time saver.
Quizizz
A super useful tool with ready-made quizzes which can be set during lessons, for homework or any other use you can think of! You can edit quizzes, create your own or use the built-in AI functionality. Choose different modes, from allowing students to master content through repeating incorrect questions to utilising your class’s competitive streak.
A wide range of subjects and ages are catered for, and the free version gives you access to most of the features. Paid individual or school subscriptions have even more to offer in terms of deadlines, answers, and adaptive questioning modes.
Pupil Progress
This tool is designed to streamline and enhance student progress tracking for departments and schools. It offers a range of features including assessment, tracking, and reporting functionalities and can be tailored to your department or school.
The beauty of the tool is that it offers a live assessment of the current predicted grade for your students, drawing down from teachers’ assessments, exam board specifications, units and modules, and all the nuanced calculations that are associated with that.
Pricing plans are affordable for subjects, so this is a department tool rather than something which individual teachers can access. Teachers can easily input and monitor student data, generate reports, and gain valuable insights to support personalised learning.
SchoolReportWriter.com
Okay, trust me on this one; I know the website looks like a throwback to dial-up days (Sorry, school report writer team!), but underneath the graphics lay some amazing functionality, and it’s totally free!
To use this properly, you do need to put in a bit of groundwork populating comments, but once you’ve done that, you’ll save hours of your working life every year. I have used this for writing student reports, giving feedback on coursework and providing comments on assessments.
The tool lets you easily select pronouns and synonyms for common words or phrases and choose multiple comments to build truly personalised reports and feedback efficiently!
GCSE Pod
They have been around for a long time, still providing teachers with workload-saving curriculum and assessment tools. GCSEPod offers ready-made lesson plans and resources. The content is shared mostly in ‘pods’ of 3-5 minute videos and covers 28 subjects across a range of exam boards and tiers.
GCSEPod is a unique assessment tool which scaffolds support to students. It provides individual feedback to help them progress; a tool used on a more whole school or department level.
TeacherMatic
There are so many AI platforms now available to all of us, including schools and teachers. Where to start? Our advice is always to use the AI benefits from tools you currently use, but if you’re looking for one of our favourites as a new potential resource to try, we would recommend TeacherMatic.
TeacherMatic provides endless possibilities (as AI prompts) under one roof. This avoids the need to use endless tools to achieve the overall goal of a teacher. Imagine writing lesson plans, designing quizzes, marking student work providing feedback, and so much more, all in one place, with one login? Co-created and built by teachers too!
With so many tools to choose from, always ensure software is affordable and research-informed …
Now, who have we missed out?
Georgie Porter
