Tech To Help Teachers Tackle The New School Year

It’s the first week of September, which means it’s back to school for children and teachers across the world.

But the days of blackboards and handwritten homework are starting to become a thing of the past. Instead, teachers are turning to tech to help them manage piles of homework, hours of lesson planning and even school timetabling.

In fact, according to the Department for Education (DfE), 80% of schools are either using new tech tools or a mix of new and old post-pandemic. It’s no surprise that than UK schools have been reported to spend an estimated £900m per year on EdTech.

According to the DfE this was mainly used for:

School management and admin – helping schools manage their operations more efficiently.

Support for teaching and learning – including new devices, new methods of teaching and EdTech that allowed them to personalise learning.

Pastoral support – helping improve safeguarding and communication with agencies regarding student wellbeing.

 

The Rise Of Teachers Using AI

 

Already, AI tech and startups are being deployed across schools to help teachers streamline operations, personalise lesson content and improve student engagement.

And AI is a huge part of this. In fact, according to Twinkl’s 2025 survey of over 6,500 UK teachers, 60% now use AI tools for work-related tasks compared to just 30% in 2023.

For teachers, AI doesn’t just lighten their workloads, it means they can spend more time on lessons and less time dealing with admin.

 

 

The Tech Tools Every Teacher Should Know About

 

Starting a new school year? Here as some startups we think are worth knowing about…

 

Teachally

 

 

Teachally uses AI to help teachers save time by allowing them to quickly plan lessons, guides and assessments that are HQIM-compliant.

The platform asks teachers a series of questions that helps it understand what they need, including how many lessons they want, what skills they want to harness and whether they want to add assignments.

Then, the resources are generated on demand, formatted and ready to go in over 100 languages.

 

Graide

 

 

Graide uses AI to help teachers with marking, allowing them to grade assessments faster and provide personalised feedback to every student.

Marking can be a huge time suck for educators, especially around exam season. This means they are more likely to make mistakes and have less time to provide personalised comments on each paper.

Graide promises up to 89% in time reduction and 7.2% more feedback, meaning students can get faster and more direct suggestions around how to improve and teachers can save valuable time.

 

MagicSchool.ai

 

 

Magic school is an AI platform that helps teachers plan and deliver memorable lessons. Currently being used in over 160 countries worldwide, the platform comes with 3 key products:

MagicSchool for educators: An AI teaching assistant that helps with lesson planning to combat burnout.

MagicSchool for students: Helping to provide more personalised learning and support.

MagicSchool for schools: Better management of whole-school data, operations and logistics.

 

Sparx Learning

 

 

Sparx is like an AI-homework assistant, generating tasks for students to complete at home based on their personal abilities.

Covering subjects like maths, reading and science, it allows students to get personalised homework, whilst simultaneously allowing teachers to see data around student improvement.

Currently used by over 2,600 schools, Sparx is making learning more personalised for students worldwide.

 

Kuraplan

 

 

Kuraplan is an AI lesson planner designed to help teachers plan lessons based on the National Curriculum. The platform allows teachers to easily create lesson plans, units, homework and more – helping them cut down on planning time.

And with just one click, teachers can then turn these lessons into worksheets that are ready to print and share, meaning they spend less time formatting and more time teaching.

 

Firefly Learning

 

 

Firefly is a company designed to help provide an easier space for students and teachers to share resources online. It’s a space that provides a centralised portal for tracking progress of students, sharing lessons and updates.

This not only encourages student engagement, but helps teachers manage everything in one place. Started by 2 GCSE students, Firefly has now been implemented in hundreds of schools nationwide, helping streamline access to content.