AI Tools for Teachers: An Independent Comparison

Teachers searching for AI tools face a market that changes monthly and a marketing language designed to impress rather than inform. Every tool claims to "transform teaching" and "personalise learning." Few explain what they actually do, what they cannot do, or how much they cost when the free trial ends. This guide provides a vendor-neutral comparison of the AI tools most commonly used in UK schools, tested against the criteria that matter: what they do well, where they fall short, whether they align with UK curricula, and what happens to pupil data.

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General-Purpose AI Tools

These are the large language models that teachers use for planning, resource creation and draft feedback generation. They require specific, well-structured prompts to produce classroom-ready output.

Tool	Best For	Limitations	Cost	Data Processing
ChatGPT (OpenAI)	Lesson planning, resource creation, draft feedback, explaining concepts	No UK curriculum awareness by default; requires detailed prompts; free tier uses data for training	Free (GPT-4o mini) / $20/mo (Plus)	Global. Free tier: data used for training. Plus/Team: opt-out available.
Google Gemini	Research, summarisation, integration with Google Workspace	Weaker on creative tasks; output quality variable; Google Workspace integration limited in free tier	Free (basic) / included in Google Workspace for Education Plus	Global. Workspace for Education has stronger data controls.
Claude (Anthropic)	Long document analysis, nuanced writing, careful reasoning	No image generation; smaller ecosystem than ChatGPT; less widely known among teachers	Free (limited) / $20/mo (Pro)	Does not train on user inputs by default.
Microsoft Copilot	Integration with Word, PowerPoint, Teams; schools already using Microsoft 365	Requires Microsoft 365 subscription; output quality depends on context provided; educational features still developing	Included in Microsoft 365 Education (basic features)	Data processed within Microsoft tenant. Strong GDPR compliance.

For most teachers, the choice between these tools comes down to which ecosystem your school already uses. If your school runs Google Workspace, Gemini integrates most naturally. If your school uses Microsoft 365, Copilot is already available. If neither, ChatGPT offers the broadest capability but requires the most careful data management.

The critical point: all general-purpose tools require you to provide the curriculum context, year group, exam board and assessment criteria in your prompt. Without this, the output defaults to generic American English content that is not classroom-ready. For guidance on writing effective prompts, see our articles on AI lesson planning and AI marking and feedback.

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Education-Specific AI Tools

These tools are built specifically for UK education. They understand the national curriculum, align with exam board specifications, and handle data within appropriate jurisdictions. The trade-off is narrower functionality and ongoing subscription costs.

Tool	Focus	Key Features	Pricing
TeacherMatic	Resource generation	80+ AI generators for lesson plans, worksheets, rubrics, retrieval quizzes. UK curriculum aligned.	Free tier (limited) / from £5/mo
Marking.ai	Essay marking and feedback	Rubric-based assessment, batch processing, editable feedback. UK-built, data processed in UK.	School subscription
Diffit	Differentiation	Adapts any text to multiple reading levels. Generates tiered activities from a topic or source.	Free tier (generous) / Pro from $10/mo
SchoolAI	AI tutoring spaces	Create guided AI learning spaces for pupils with teacher-set guardrails and monitoring.	Free tier / Pro from $5/mo per teacher
Century Tech	Adaptive learning	AI selects questions based on prior answers. Maths, English, science. Diagnostic reports.	School subscription (annual)

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Subject-Specific Tools

The most reliable AI tools for marking and adaptive practice are those designed for a single subject. They understand the assessment framework, the common misconceptions and the progression model for that specific discipline.

Subject	Tool	What It Does	Best Used For
Mathematics	Sparx Maths	Personalised homework paths matched to class teaching. Auto-marked with method tracking.	Homework, independent practice, gap identification
Mathematics	Hegarty Maths	Video explanations + auto-marked quizzes. Diagnostic data on topic-level understanding.	Flipped learning, revision, diagnostic assessment
Science	Educake	Auto-marked science quizzes aligned to AQA, Edexcel, OCR. Teacher-customisable question banks.	End-of-topic quizzes, homework, retrieval practice
Science	Tassomai	Algorithm-driven daily revision quizzes. Identifies weak topics and prioritises review.	GCSE revision, spaced practice, knowledge retention
Cross-curricular	Seneca Learning	Adaptive revision for all GCSE and A-Level subjects. Spaced repetition scheduling.	Revision, homework, independent study
Cross-curricular	Carousel Learning	Retrieval practice platform with spaced repetition. Auto-marking with diagnostic reports.	Low-stakes quizzing, knowledge retention, homework

Subject-specific tools require less teacher effort because the curriculum knowledge is built in. You do not need to specify "AQA Combined Science Trilogy, Paper 1, Topic 4.1" in a prompt; the tool already knows the specification. The trade-off is that they only do one thing, so you still need a general-purpose tool for planning, differentiation and feedback generation.

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Choosing the Right Combination

Rather than searching for one tool that does everything, most teachers benefit from a combination of two or three tools matched to their workflow. Here are three common setups based on what UK teachers report working well.

Workflow	Planning	Marking	Differentiation
Budget-conscious	ChatGPT (free tier)	Educake (free tier for science) or manual	Diffit (free tier)
Microsoft school	Copilot (included)	Subject-specific tool + Copilot for feedback drafts	Copilot + manual review
Full investment	TeacherMatic + ChatGPT Plus	Marking.ai + subject-specific platform	Diffit Pro + Century Tech

The budget-conscious setup costs nothing. It requires more teacher time for prompt writing and output review, but it provides genuine value. The full investment setup costs approximately £200-400 per teacher per year but saves 3-5 hours per week in preparation and marking time. Most schools start with the budget option and add paid tools as specific needs become clear.

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The GDPR Checklist

Before using any AI tool with pupil data, run through this checklist. These are legal requirements under UK GDPR, not optional best practices. For a fuller treatment of the ethical framework, see our guide to AI ethics in education.

Check	What to Look For	Red Flag
Data processing location	UK or EU servers, or UK adequacy agreement	"Data may be processed globally" with no specific jurisdiction
Training data use	Explicit opt-out or exclusion of education data	"Inputs may be used to improve our services" with no education exemption
Data retention	Clear retention period, automatic deletion	No retention policy or "indefinite" storage
Age-appropriate design	Compliance with the Children's Code (ICO)	No mention of children's data or age verification
DPIA completed	Your school's DPO has reviewed and approved the tool	Tool deployed without DPO review

A simple safeguard that applies to all tools: remove pupil names and identifiable information before uploading any work to an AI system. Use candidate numbers or initials. This reduces the data protection risk without affecting the quality of AI output.

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What to Look For in a New Tool

New AI tools for education appear weekly. Most will not survive 12 months. Before investing time in learning a new tool, run it through five evaluation questions.

1. Does it solve a real problem? "This tool uses AI" is not a reason to adopt it. "This tool marks 30 vocabulary tests in 10 seconds, freeing 45 minutes of my evening" is. Start with the problem, then evaluate whether the tool addresses it.

2. Does it work with UK curricula? Many tools are built for the US market. An AI planning tool that does not understand Key Stages, the national curriculum or UK exam board specifications requires so much manual adjustment that its time-saving advantage disappears.

3. What is the total cost? Factor in: subscription fees, training time, integration time, and the cost of the workarounds needed when the tool does not do what you expected. A "free" tool that takes three hours to learn and produces mediocre output is more expensive than a £5/month tool that works immediately.

4. What happens when it fails? Every AI tool produces incorrect output some of the time. What does the tool do when it makes an error? Can you easily edit the output? Is there a fallback? A tool that produces beautiful resources but does not let you modify them is a liability.

5. Will it still exist next year? EdTech has a high failure rate. Before building your workflow around a tool, check: how long has it been operating, who funds it, and does it have a sustainable business model? A tool backed by a major publisher or with a clear subscription model is more likely to persist than a venture-funded startup offering everything for free.

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Tools to Approach with Caution

Not all AI education tools deliver what they promise. These categories warrant particular scepticism.

AI detection tools: GPTZero, Turnitin AI Detection and similar tools claim to identify AI-generated text. Research consistently shows false positive rates of 10-20%, making them unreliable as evidence of misconduct (Weber-Wulff et al., 2023). For more on this, see our guide to AI and academic integrity.

"AI tutors" without teacher oversight: Tools that put pupils directly in conversation with an AI chatbot without teacher monitoring or content guardrails risk exposing pupils to inaccurate information, inappropriate content, or cognitive overload from unstructured interaction. SchoolAI's guided spaces model, which allows teacher-set boundaries, is a more responsible approach.

Tools that promise to replace teachers: Any tool marketed as a teacher replacement is either dishonest or misunderstanding what teaching involves. AI handles information processing. Teaching involves relationships, judgement, motivation, behaviour management, pastoral care and hundreds of other human capacities that no current AI approaches. Use tools that extend your capability, not ones that claim to replicate it.

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Getting Started: A Practical Approach

If you have not used AI tools before, start with one general-purpose tool and one task. The recommendations below give you a structured first month.

Week 1: Create an account on ChatGPT, Gemini or Claude (whichever your school permits). Use it to plan one lesson, providing your year group, subject, topic and learning objective in the prompt. Evaluate: was the output useful? What did you need to change?

Week 2: Use the same tool to generate a differentiated resource: three versions of a worksheet at support, core and extension levels. Evaluate: did the AI produce genuinely different resources, or just shorter versions of the same thing?

Week 3: Try a subject-specific tool alongside the general-purpose one. If you teach science, try Educake for a quiz. If you teach maths, try Sparx or Hegarty for a homework. Compare: how much time did the subject-specific tool save versus the general-purpose prompt approach?

Week 4: Write a brief note for yourself: what works, what does not, and what you want to try next. Share it with a colleague. This is the beginning of building collective expertise in your department, which is the foundation for the CPD approach that sustains AI adoption long-term.

For a broader overview of AI in teaching, see our hub guide to AI for teachers.

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Further Reading