Is it ethical to use Claude for lesson planning?

Yes — provided you treat AI output as a draft, not a finished product. You bring the professional judgement; AI brings the speed. The plans only go to your students after you've reviewed and adapted them.

Can I use Claude for IEPs and reports?

Drafting yes. Final sign-off is yours. Anonymise pupil data before pasting into Claude unless your school has an enterprise no-training agreement.

Will using Claude make me a worse teacher?

Only if you let it. Used well, it removes the time you spend on admin and gives that time back to actual teaching. Used badly, you turn in generic plans you don't believe in. The professional judgement is yours.

Is Claude approved for use in schools?

Approval varies by district and country. Check your school's AI policy. Most schools are settling on 'AI can draft, you must edit, you sign off, disclose if asked.'

What about student data privacy?

Anonymise everything. Use initials, codenames, redact identifying details. For sensitive work, request your school sign an enterprise agreement with Anthropic that includes a no-training clause.

Should I tell students I use AI?

Yes. Modelling honest AI use is part of your job now. If you used Claude to draft a worksheet and you adapted it, say so. Students follow what teachers do, not what they say.

Home / For Teachers

Claude AI for Teachers

A practical guide from a working special education teacher who uses Claude every day. What works, what doesn't, what to try this week.

Why this guide exists

Most "AI in the classroom" content is written by people who don't teach. They give you bullet lists of "10 amazing AI tools" and call it a day. This is different — it's the workflow I actually use across 10+ years of teaching, refined into a stack you can copy.

The 4 places Claude saves teachers the most time

Task	Time saved / week	Where to start
Lesson planning	~5 hours	Lesson planning workflow
Differentiation	~2 hours	Differentiation prompts
Parent communication	~1 hour	Parent email scripts
Marking and feedback	~3 hours	Marking prompts

The teacher's stack — what to set up

1. A "Teaching" Claude Project

One Project, set up once, used every day. Custom instructions describe your role, class, style, and curriculum. Knowledge base contains your scheme of work, the curriculum doc, your school template, and one example of your best lesson plan.

Step-by-step: how to set up Claude Projects →

2. A prompt library

The 5-7 prompts you'll actually use weekly, saved as a single document inside your Project knowledge. Steal mine — 30 teacher prompts →

3. (Optional) Cowork for printables

Once you're using Claude daily, upgrade to a Pro plan to unlock Cowork. Cowork turns lesson plans into actual PDFs on your school template, batches worksheets, and produces real .docx files instead of text you copy-paste.

The 5 use cases worth learning first

1. Differentiation that actually fits

You write the lesson once. Claude differentiates it three ways. The 30-minute job becomes a 5-minute job. Differentiation prompts →

2. IEP / IUP target drafting

Describe the pupil (anonymised), the area of need, the timeframe. Claude drafts SMART targets. You edit. Done in 10 minutes instead of an hour.

3. The hard parent email

The one you've been putting off. Describe the situation, ask for a polite-but-firm draft, edit, send. The hardest part of the email is starting it — Claude removes that.

4. Whole-class feedback from samples

Photograph or paste 5 student samples. Claude identifies the 3 most common errors and produces a single feedback sheet. Marking prompts →

5. The "translate this for parents" trick

Take any policy doc, professional report extract, or complex update. Ask Claude to rewrite it for a parent without an education background. Same content, plain English. Game-changing for inclusion.

The mistakes new teacher-users make

Mistake 1 — Using it as a search engine

Claude isn't Google. Don't ask "what are good year 7 maths starters." Ask "give me 5 starter activities for a year 7 maths lesson on negative numbers, 5 minutes each, no resources needed, for a class with 4 EAL students." Context = quality.

Mistake 2 — Not setting up a Project

If you re-explain who you are and what you teach in every chat, you're doing it wrong. Set up the Project →

Mistake 3 — Trusting the first draft

The first draft is 80% there. Iterate. "Less formal. Drop the third paragraph. Add a sentence about the upcoming trip." The good output is in the second or third pass.

Mistake 4 — Pasting student names and identifying data

Don't. Anonymise first. Initials, codenames, "Year 7 Pupil A." Treat it like a public space until your school has an enterprise agreement that says otherwise.

Mistake 5 — Going alone

Find one colleague who'll experiment with you. Compare notes. Share prompts. The fastest way to get good is to steal what's working from someone else.

What about the ethics?

Three principles I work to:

AI drafts. I sign off. Nothing goes to a student, parent or colleague without my eyes on it.
I disclose if asked. Honesty is part of the job. Modelling honest AI use is the lesson, not the loophole.
I anonymise. Pupil-identifying data doesn't leave the school's systems unless we have a no-training contract.

Used like this, AI is the same kind of tool as a calculator or a spell-checker. Used carelessly, it's a liability. The professional judgement is the job — that hasn't changed.

Where to go from here

If you're starting from zero:

Read Getting started with Claude (5 min)
Set up your Teaching Project (15 min, one-off)
Steal the 30 teacher prompts (bookmark)
Try the weekly planning workflow next Sunday

That's a 30-minute investment for a permanent 5+ hour weekly saving. Best ROI of anything I've done since I started teaching.

One new teacher-friendly lesson every week

I'm a teacher. I write for teachers. No spam, ever.

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