Best AI for teachers
Lesson plans, one worksheet at three reading levels, feedback drafts and parent emails, step by step, plus the marking line not to cross.
There are two limits to know before using this guide. MultiChats has no link to Google Classroom, Teams or any other school system, so nothing here syncs with your class lists or hands work back to pupils; you copy text out and paste it where it belongs. And nothing here grades.
You will still plan a lesson, get one worksheet out at three reading levels, draft feedback on work you have already judged, and write the email to a parent. If the school-controlled tools were what you came to compare, our piece on Study Mode, Guided Learning and Gemini in Classroom covers those.
What you are working with
One subscription covers 59 models from 17 providers, 22 of them on the free plan. Why that matters for teaching is narrow: the model that writes a short, warm parent email is rarely the one you want structuring a scheme of work. Of the 59, 46 read an image and 24 accept a PDF. Folders keep Year 8 apart from Year 10; the free plan allows 25.
Step 1. One folder per class, then the plan
Make the folder for the class first, because everything downstream ends up in it. On Pro and Pro+ the folder also has a Files section, so the scheme of work goes in once and every chat in that folder can draw on it. Then open a thread inside it and give the model what a colleague covering your lesson would need:
the year group, the set, and the reading range in the room
the topic, and what they did last week
the lesson length, and what has to be on the board rather than on paper
the two or three things this class reliably gets wrong
the outcome you will accept as evidence it worked
Ask for timings against each phase and a one-sentence objective. The shape that comes back is usually sound, the timings usually optimistic, so cut before you commit. The patterns in our guide to writing better prompts transfer straight to planning.
Step 2. Write the worksheet once, at the middle level
Ask for the middle version only, and be specific about what you would otherwise fix by hand: how many questions, what reading age, whether you want an answer key yet. Then read it as the pupil in the third row, which is where an ambiguous question shows up.
Work the answers yourself. Every worksheet comes back looking finished, including the ones with a wrong answer in the key. Ten minutes on your own sheet beats a lesson spent unpicking question 7 with 30 people watching.
Step 3. Branch to get the second reading level
This is the step worth learning properly. On the reply holding your worksheet, use the branch action. On the web it is the icon under the message, tooltip "Create new thread with alternative response"; on the phone the message menu calls it "Branch here". It copies everything up to that reply into a new thread, answers the same request there, and takes you with it. The year group, topic and format you already agreed still stand. Ask for the lower reading age in that thread.
The same menu carries an "or switch model" row, so the easier version can come from a different model if the first keeps writing above the level you asked for.
The versions do not sit side by side. The branch is a separate thread, parked in the same class folder and titled after the original with "(Alternative)" on the end, and you read one at a time. So copy each version into your document as you finish it rather than gathering all three at the end.
Step 4. The third level, and what to say to get it
Two routes to version three. Branch again from the same original reply, which keeps the stretch version clean of the easier one's wording. Or stay in the thread, switch the model in the picker and ask for the harder version there, which is faster to copy from.
Either way, describe the level in terms the model can act on. "Make it easier" gets you shorter sentences and the same vocabulary. "Reading age around nine, no sentence over 12 words, keep the subject vocabulary but define each term the first time it appears" gets you the sheet you wanted.
Step 5. Visuals, when the sheet needs one
Ask for the picture inside the message. There is no button for it on the web: Intent Detection is on by default for every account, and it hands the request to an image model. If you would rather press a button, turn Intent Detection off under Settings, then Tool Preferences. The phone apps show it either way, labelled Create image.
One image per turn, so a labelled diagram and a header illustration are two messages. Free accounts get two image generations per 30 days in the web app; the phone keeps Create image for subscribers.
Read every word an image renders. Text inside a generated picture is the part most likely to come back confidently wrong, and a photocopied class set is the worst place to discover it.
Step 6. Feedback drafts, written after you have marked
The order is the whole point. You read the work, you decide what it is worth and what the pupil does next, then you ask for help with the wording. Feed it your judgement: "Year 9 essay, argument clear, evidence thin in paragraphs two and three, next target is embedding quotations. Three sentences of feedback, plain language, warm but direct, addressed to the pupil."
46 models read an image, so a photo of handwritten work is a fair upload when the layout matters: the working in a long division, or the page of algebra where the error is in the setting out. Cover the name before you photograph it. Free accounts get one file per message, up to 10MB, three a day.
The line. A model can draft feedback on work you have already read and judged. It does not grade. No mark, no level, no ranking, and never a page of work with "what would you give this" attached. The judgement is yours, and it is what you defend at a moderation meeting or on the phone to a parent.
Step 7. The parent email
Bullet points in, email out. Give the facts you would say out loud, the outcome you want, and the register: "three short paragraphs, no jargon, no apology, invite them to reply with a time to talk". Ask for a word count; the default is always more email than anyone wants. Then cut any sentence you would not say to that parent's face.
Pro and Pro+ accounts can hold standing context as memories, so your year groups and house style stop being something you retype. On the free plan, a short preamble at the top of the thread does the same job.
What never goes in the box
One rule, once. Do not put a pupil's full name next to anything the school treats as confidential: a diagnosis, a safeguarding concern, family circumstances, a behaviour incident, or a mark. Write "Pupil A", use initials, describe the need rather than the child. "A Year 7 pupil reading about two years below age with weak working memory" gets the same differentiated worksheet as the version that names her, and only one of the two reads comfortably aloud at a governors' meeting. Your school's data protection policy outranks anything here.
On retention, the honest version. We do not train on your conversations. What the provider behind a given model does with them varies by model, and the models where we know of a difference carry a notice on their info card in the picker. At our October 2026 check, six of the 60 carried one, so an empty card tells you nothing either way. Anonymise the pupil detail and the question stops mattering.
What stays yours
The reading, the judgement and the knowing of your class stay with you. What goes is the retyping: the second and third versions of a sheet you already wrote, the email you draft twice because the first came out cross. The branch step is the one to learn first; three versions of one worksheet come out of a single conversation and stay consistent with each other.