The body of work

The problem

In chemistry, students have to balance the symbolic, macroscopic and microscopic all in their head, no easy feat, physical practicals and static diagrams only go so far for for some of the most difficult topics. Understadning requires scaffolding from an expert and plenty of practice.

The approach

These simulations allow the stundets to get to grip with the microscopic details of chemistry and are perfect for walking them through difficult concepts in class, or for homework to explore and complete virtual labs or practice calculations.

The six simulations

• Electronic Structure - build shell structures for the first 20 elements
• Ionic Bonding - electron transfer and ion formation
• Dot and Cross Practice - covalent and ionic diagrams
• Dynamic Equilibrium - Le Chatelier's principle in action
• Rates of Reaction - concentration, temperature and catalysts
• Moles & Stoichiometry - column-method calculations

The problem

Completing practice questions and thinking hard is one of the best ways for anyone to learn, but I was finding I spent more time than I would like on setting quality work, especially when it came to using assessment to plan revision and plug gaps.

The approach

This used to exist as a simple Excel sheet with some poorly written VBA macros. I generated MCQ quizzes for students to complete and quickly collected answers with a scanner app. With the help of AI this is now a user-friendly HTML file that anyone can add their own custom content to, so they can spend more time doing what matters.

Key features

• Auto-generates quizzes by topic, weighted however you like
• Preloaded with over 1000 Chemistry questions, or bring your own
• Drag to reorder, shuffle questions and options
• Exports to a self-marking HTML file students can open anywhere

The problem

Put simply, this problem is, how to get the most out of assesment and has been my favourite problem to contribute to so far. The idea for this came about from a Year 11 parents evening a number of years ago, where using my quiz maker, I tracked each students scores by topic and subtopic and used this to produce a 1 page report for each of them higlhighting strengths and weaknesses which we reviwed on parents evening. This was well recieved as I later found out from a conversation with the head. I wondered how this could be used across more students.

The approach

In mock review sessions, students complete a sheet summarising their marks. This is scanned and combined with teacher generate metadata about the questions and then automatically analysed. All of this happens locally with no AI and a minimal time investment from teachers and heads of departments. The output is an interactive dashboard that can be used to drive departmental improvemnts and individualised reports for each student.

Key features

• Question-level breakdowns by specification point
• Anonymised cohort-level dashboards
• Exportable reports for department meetings

Existing system vs bespoke development

Built initially as an internal tool for one department; available as a bespoke build for other schools on request.

Want to see it in action first? Both tools below are loaded with fake data so you can click around freely:

Try the Dashboard → Try the Report Generator →