SchoolAI
SchoolAI is a UK-built AI writing assistant for teachers and school administrators. Seven purpose-made modes cover emails, marking, lesson plans, quizzes, reports, brainstorms and SEND differentiation, with a stated promise never to train models on customer data.
What is SchoolAI?
SchoolAI is an AI writing assistant built for one audience only: the people who work in schools. It is published by Backbeat Ltd, a British company incorporated on 12 July 2021 (Companies House 13504930, SIC code 62012, software development). The schoolai.co domain was registered on 18 December 2022 and first archived by the Wayback Machine on 7 January 2023. The product is a Bubble.io web application served behind Cloudflare; there is no mobile app and no browser extension.
The home page promise is blunt, save hours writing for schools with powerful AI, and the positioning line is custom, private AI for education, described as the original AI-powered writer for schools. Work happens in seven modes: Email/Letter, Mark and Grade, Lesson Plan, Quiz, Reports, Brainstorm and Specialised Learning, the most recent, which adapts material for pupils with additional needs. General and Resource modes exist alongside them. The loop is deliberately short: choose a mode, describe the document, click Write, copy the result into a word processor or email client, and get on with the day. A Personalise dashboard stores name, school, term dates and language, then feeds them back into every generation, while a Time Saved Writing counter totals the minutes recovered on the current piece and across the whole history. Results can be saved, copied to the clipboard or downloaded as a Word document.
Usage runs on writing credits, and a free account receives credits that renew every month. The commercial argument rests on confidentiality: SchoolAI states that customer data is never used to train an AI model, and that the AI is constrained to produce only content suitable for schools. Around the tool sit a free CPD video series, AI for Educators, with an opening episode on starting the journey and a second on demystifying how AI works, plus a blog of 53 articles on AI literacy, SEND, assessment and school policy.
The limits are stated by the publisher rather than hidden. The knowledge base has a cut-off date, answers can be inaccurate and every fact produced must be checked by a human. Sign-in is by email and password or a Google account, and only one session may be active per account at a time.
What it does
- Draft emails and letters to parents, staff, pupils or governors, with a chosen audience, tone and length
- Mark and grade a pupil's work against an A-F scale or a pasted rubric, with suggested improvements
- Build a full lesson plan aligned to a stated curriculum standard, such as the UK national curriculum, CCSS, IB or TEKS
- Generate a quiz with a chosen number of questions and the answers grouped in a separate section
- Write pupil reports from a list of strengths and areas for development, in sections and at an adjustable length
- Differentiate an existing document for the needs of a named SEND pupil, using a stored pupil profile
- Brainstorm ideas for assemblies, school fairs, end-of-year productions and other school events
When to use SchoolAI / When not to
A quick filter to help you decide if SchoolAI is the right fit.
When to use SchoolAI
- Primary and secondary teachers who write emails, lesson plans, quizzes and pupil reports every single week
- School leaders and office staff drafting parent letters, staff memos, newsletters and governor briefings
- SEND specialists who need an existing document differentiated for one named pupil's needs, from a reusable profile
- Schools that have ruled ChatGPT out on confidentiality grounds and want a supplier with a stated no-training policy
- Anyone producing short to medium pieces such as emails, reports, lesson plans and idea lists rather than long-form work
When not to use SchoolAI
- Writers of long or complex pieces: the publisher itself says the tool is less effective for research papers and essays, and results are capped at roughly 2,000 words
- Teams that need an API or a link into a school information system: there is no public API and no documentation of one
- Users who want a native mobile app or a browser extension, since SchoolAI is a browser-only web application
- Schools expecting connectors to Google Classroom, Teams or Word Online, because the workflow is copy, paste and Word export
- Pupils and anyone under 18, since the terms of service restrict accounts to adults and the tool is designed for staff
How to use SchoolAI
A typical end-to-end flow, from setup to results.
- Create an account with an email address and a password of at least eight characters including a number and a capital, or sign up with Google
- Confirm the email address through the link sent to you, using the Resend button if it does not arrive; signing up also accepts the terms and the privacy policy
- Fill in the Personalise dashboard once with your name, your school, your term dates and your output language
- Open the writer and choose a mode from the drop-down list
- Complete the fields shown for that mode: description, audience, tone, length, year group or grade, subject, number of questions, lesson duration, grading scale or rubric
- For Mark and Grade, paste the pupil's text and the assignment title, then keep the default A-F scale or paste your own rubric
- For Specialised Learning, create a pupil profile with an anonymised name or ID plus the needs, and reuse it across several documents
- Click Write and wait while the result is generated; each generation consumes one writing credit, free credits being used first
- Read the result, then save it, copy it to the clipboard or download it as a Word document
- Paste it into your word processor or email client for final editing, and check every fact before it leaves your desk
Pros & Cons
Pros
- An unqualified no-training commitment: the site states that customer data is never used to train AI, ever, and backs it with a claim of GDPR compliance and an announced SOC 2 Type II standard
- Real school specialisation: the modes match the tasks a teacher actually performs, rather than generic writing use cases
- Lesson plans can be aligned to a chosen standard, including the UK national curriculum, CCSS, IB and TEKS
- A dedicated SEND mode with reusable pupil profiles, which is uncommon among general-purpose writing tools
- A permanent free plan with monthly renewed credits and no payment card, a low entry price for unlimited use at GBP 10 a month or GBP 100 a year, and one-off credit packs whose credits never expire
- Clear commercial terms: refunds within 14 days on monthly plans and 30 days on annual plans, and cancellation available at any time from the account
- Anonymisation advice built into the interface where other tools give none, free CPD training videos and a substantial blog, and nothing to install beyond a browser on a computer, tablet or phone
Cons
- No postal address for the publisher anywhere on the site, the only address published being the ICO's, and a single mailbox handling support, legal, GDPR and incident reporting alike
- No data processing agreement, no sub-processor list and no Article 27 GDPR representative, although the target market is schools that need all three to document their own compliance
- SOC 2 Type II claimed with no report, no attestation and no named auditor, and no data hosting location disclosed anywhere
- No API and no connectors, so the workflow stays copy and paste, with no native mobile app and no browser extension
- The site contradicts itself: 18 in the terms of service against a 13 threshold in the privacy policy, 5 free monthly credits on the home page against 15 on the writer page, and a Now FREE to use banner sitting above a full paid price list
- Legal documents unchanged since 2023 while the footer shows a 2026 copyright, and expired promotions still present in the page code (SPRING24, SUMMER50)
- One active session per account, which is awkward on a shared staffroom machine, marketing consent bundled into sign-up with no separate tick box, an output ceiling of roughly 2,000 words, and no public price for the school offer
Pricing & Plans
A permanent free plan is available: it provides writing credits that renew each month and requires no payment card, so there is no time-limited trial to start or to expire. The lowest paid entry point is the Unlimited subscription at GBP 10.00 per month, or GBP 100.00 per year, both displayed against struck-through prices of GBP 26 and GBP 312. One-off credit packs are sold on a pay-as-you-go basis at GBP 2.49 for 10 credits, GBP 4.99 for 30, GBP 9.99 for 75 and GBP 19.99 for 200; purchased credits never expire and free credits are consumed first. School, multi-academy trust, district and college licences are quoted on request by email, with no public price. All prices are shown in pounds sterling only. Refunds are granted within 14 days on monthly plans and 30 days on annual plans, requested by email and processed within 10 working days, and prices may be changed with 30 days' notice. Two caveats: a Now FREE to use banner sits on the same page as the paid price list, and expired promotional codes remain visible in the page source.
- free writing credits every month
- presented as perfect for light use and a way to try new features without commitment
- the allowance is stated as 5 credits a month on the home page but 15 on the writer page
- GBP 10 per month or GBP 100 per year for unlimited use
- cancellation at any time and priority access to new features
- one-off pay-as-you-go purchases of 10 credits for GBP 2.49
- 30 for GBP 4.99
- 75 for GBP 9.99 and 200 for GBP 19.99
- with credits that never expire
- unlimited use across a school
- multi-academy trust
- district or college
- priced on request by email
- with priority access to new features
Data, GDPR & hosting
A consolidated view of how SchoolAI handles your data.
GDPR overview
GDPR compliance is claimed outright, both in the site FAQ and at the head of the privacy policy, which is effective from 2 January 2023 and was last updated on 21 December 2023; the terms of service take effect on the same date and were updated on 13 April 2023. Rights of access, rectification, erasure, objection and restriction are listed, exercised by email to hello@schoolai.co, and the supervisory authority named is the UK ICO. The privacy policy also claims SOC 2 Type II compliance. Several standard building blocks are missing: no Article 27 representative, no named data protection officer, no data processing agreement and no sub-processor list. Backbeat Ltd is a British company, so the ICO route falls under UK GDPR; the site never distinguishes UK GDPR from the EU regulation.
Who owns the data?
Backbeat Ltd operates SchoolAI and holds everything typed into it. Generated text is saved inside the user account and, according to the site, is accessible only to that user; pupil profiles created for Specialised Learning are stored the same way, with the pupil name held in the account but not sent to the AI. Ownership of the output is the gap. The terms of service list ownership provisions among the clauses that survive termination, yet no ownership clause is written anywhere else in the contract, and neither the terms nor the privacy policy states who owns generated text. Nothing on the site assigns the results to the user in writing.
Reuse rights
The privacy policy describes three data sources: what the user types in, automatic collection (usage data, IP addresses, cookies and trackers) and information received from third parties. Three legal bases are invoked: consent, legitimate interest in delivering the service, and legal obligations. Data may be shared in five situations, namely with the user's consent, with service providers acting on Backbeat Ltd's behalf, for legal reasons, with affiliates, and in a merger or acquisition; the policy undertakes not to pass personal information to third parties for marketing purposes. The central commitment is that customer data is never used to train an AI model, and that promise is the site's explicit argument against general assistants. In Specialised Learning, a pupil name is stored in the account but not sent to the AI, while a substitute first name is neither stored nor used for training. On the user's side, nothing in the terms restricts what is done with the text produced, so it can be reused, edited and published without asking permission, but no clause grants formal ownership of it either. One point deserves attention: opening an account is itself treated as agreement to receive marketing from Backbeat Ltd, with unsubscribe available afterwards.
Data retention & training
Hosting summary
No hosting location is published. The site names no country, no region and no infrastructure provider, and the privacy policy refers only to service providers acting on Backbeat Ltd's behalf, without listing any of them. What can be established is jurisdictional rather than technical: the publisher is a British company, the terms are governed by UK law and the supervisory authority named is the ICO, so any complaint route runs through the United Kingdom. On security, the policy claims protection against accidental loss and unauthorised access and states compliance with the SOC 2 Type II standard, without publishing a report or naming an auditor. Two technical observations sit outside the publisher's own statements: the domain resolves to a Cloudflare anycast address (104.19.240.93), which identifies a CDN edge and says nothing about where data is stored; and the application code calls third-party model providers that are declared as processors nowhere in the privacy policy. For a school that must document where pupil-related material is processed, this is the weakest part of the file, and the answer should be requested in writing before any deployment.
Things to keep in mind
Risks and trade-offs to weigh before adopting SchoolAI.
- Marking and grading by AI moves an act of judgement to a machine while the teacher keeps every bit of the accountability, for the grade awarded and for equal treatment between pupils
- Delegating routine writing erodes the craft over time: the more reports, feedback and parent letters are generated, the harder it becomes to notice a bland or plainly wrong output, and the site itself asks you to check every fact produced
- SEND needs typed into a pupil profile are sensitive data even when the name is anonymised, and the site recommends anonymisation without enforcing it
- For a school buyer the paperwork is thin: no data processing agreement, no sub-processor list, no Article 27 representative, no hosting location and no publisher address make it difficult to document your own compliance
- The SOC 2 Type II claim is unverifiable as published, with no report, no attestation and no named auditor
- Ownership of the output is left undefined: the terms make ownership provisions survive termination while no ownership clause exists anywhere in the contract
- Contradictions and stale content undermine confidence: 18 against 13 for the minimum age, 5 against 15 free credits, a Now FREE to use banner over a paid price list, expired promo codes and 2023 legal documents under a 2026 copyright, plus one active session per account and marketing consent bundled into sign-up
Setup & Integrations
Technical difficulty
Very low for an individual teacher. Nothing to install: it runs in a browser on a computer, tablet or phone. You sign up with an email address and password or a Google account, confirm the address through the link sent to you, optionally fill in a few personalisation fields (name, school, term dates, language) and start writing. There are no API keys, no configuration and no administration console. Institutional deployment is another matter: no single sign-on, no account management and no provisioning are documented, so a school rolls it out one teacher at a time. Free CPD videos support adoption.
Deployment
Supported languages
Behind SchoolAI
Social
Resources
All the official URLs gathered for verification and reference.
Alternatives
Tools that compete with or complement SchoolAI.
Frequently asked questions
What is SchoolAI for?
How does it actually save time?
Can it mark pupils' work?
Is it private and secure?
Is SchoolAI GDPR compliant?
Why pay for this when ChatGPT is free?
What are its limits?
Will two teachers using the same prompt get the same text?
Is there a free plan, and who is allowed to sign up?
Is there an API or any integration with school systems?
Should you pick SchoolAI?
SchoolAI is an unapologetically narrow tool. It does a small number of things, but it does them for a clearly identified job, and the seven modes read as though someone who has actually written a parent letter, a stack of reports and a differentiated worksheet designed them. Its strength is that specialisation, together with the no-training promise, rather than the raw power of the model underneath.
Its weakness is contractual. Schools buy compliance as much as software, and the paperwork here is thin: no data processing agreement, no list of sub-processors, no published address for the publisher, no Article 27 representative, and terms and a privacy policy that have not moved since 2023 while the footer shows 2026. SOC 2 Type II is asserted without evidence anyone can read.
The company behind it is small, Backbeat Ltd being a British firm incorporated in 2021 with a single controlling owner, and the site carries the usual marks of a small team moving fast: expired promo codes still in the page, a free banner above a paid price list, two different free-credit figures on two different pages, and an age requirement of 18 in the terms against 13 in the privacy policy.
The cost of finding out is negligible. The free plan with monthly credits costs nothing, the unlimited tier is GBP 10 a month or GBP 100 a year, and refunds run to 14 or 30 days.
The verdict: a sound choice for an individual teacher or a small school that wants hours back on short-form writing and is prepared to check every output. Before a whole-school rollout, ask for the data processing agreement, the sub-processor list, the hosting location and the SOC 2 report, and treat the answers as the real decision point.
- Choosing a selection results in a full page refresh.
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