ChalklineAbout
A teaching tool, kept small on purpose.
Chalkline began as a private tool for maths lessons and was released publicly at version 2.0 as a free tool for schools.
Mission
Make the lesson board as capable as the teacher
Classroom software tends to arrive with accounts, subscriptions and dashboards that teachers never asked for. Chalkline goes the other way: a fast program that opens a file, understands the subject, and gets out of the way.
We think the same approach should extend from maths to the whole timetable — biology, history, geography, chemistry and physics are announced for that reason — while keeping the principles that make it safe to put in front of a class:
- Works offline, on old hardware, without an account
- Teachers own their boards as plain files
- AI is optional, visible and under the teacher’s control
- Plain-language documentation of what the software does and what it sends
Where we are
Honest status
Chalkline 2.0.0 is the first public release. It is a young project with a very small team. We have no user numbers to quote yet; the first pilots are still to come.
What we can point to instead is the engineering: more than 120 automated tests, an end-to-end smoke test of the real application, CI on every change, a documented architecture, a security policy, and a privacy policy that describes what the software actually does.
Roadmap
What comes next
Plans, not promises. Subject to change.
- Done · 2.0
A trustworthy foundation
Key kept out of the page, atomic saves with backups, confirmations for destructive actions, tests and CI, English interface, PDF export.
- Next
Dependable in daily use
Code-signed installers, an update channel, a full accessibility pass, PPTX export, and a performance budget enforced in CI.
- Next
Pilots with 3–5 schools
One term of real lessons on whatever hardware schools have, including old PCs, measured with weekly teacher check-ins rather than telemetry.
- Then
More subject boards
Biology, history, geography, chemistry and physics, in an order guided by what teachers ask for.
- Later
Optional cloud layer
Sync across devices, classes and a lesson library — only with a proper data-protection basis for pupils’ data, and always optional.