For schools
Allow AI, and ask for an attempt first
Most schools either block AI chat sites or leave them open. Headwork is a third option. It leaves the AI sites your school already allows switched on, and puts one step in front of them: before a student's question is sent, a card asks what they think the answer is. You install it and set its rules from your admin console. Students cannot change them.
Early access. The extension is built and being checked. It is not in the browser stores yet, and school pricing is not set. Tell us what you need and we will write to you once.
What a student sees
They type a question on an AI site and press Send
On the first message of a chat, a card opens over the page. Nothing has been sent yet.
They write their own attempt
A guess, a rough draft, or what they already know. At the level most schools would choose, about 20 words, with no way to skip.
The question goes with the attempt
The AI receives both, with a line asking it to say what the student got right and what they missed, or to guide with questions instead of answering.
What you control
On managed Chromebooks and managed Chrome, you install the extension for an organisational unit and set its policy in the same place. These settings can be pushed:
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Level | Gentle (can be skipped), Coach (about 20 words first, no skip) or Strict (Coach plus a wait of 1 to 3 minutes) |
| When the card opens | The first message of each chat, or every message |
| Coach always on | Every question asks the AI to guide with questions instead of answering |
| Set hours | A firmer level during lesson or homework hours, by day of the week |
| Sites | Which of ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, Perplexity and Claude it runs on |
| Lock the settings | The student's settings page becomes read-only and Pause is switched off |
| Licence key | One key for the school, pushed with the policy. No student types anything |
Whether a student can remove an extension is decided by your admin console, not by us. A force-installed extension cannot be removed by the student. Use your console's own setting for private windows as well, because browsers do not run extensions there unless told to.
What it does not do
- It does not monitor students. There is no teacher dashboard and no report sent anywhere. We decided against one for the first version.
- It does not block or filter sites. Keep using your filter for that. Headwork runs only on the AI sites you leave open.
- It does not judge the attempt. It checks that the student wrote something of their own. It does not mark it.
- It does not cover phone apps or AI built into other products.
- Claude is for adults. Its own terms say 18 and over, so switch that site off for student units.
Data, in the terms a school has to ask about
- No student accounts. Nobody signs in to Headwork.
- No student data reaches us. The extension stores a count per day in the student's own browser profile: how many questions, and how many had an attempt. Nothing else is kept. That count is never sent to us or to the school.
- Questions and answers are not stored. The question is read when the student presses Send, shown on the card, and dropped. The AI's answers are never read.
- One network request. A daily check that the school's licence key is valid. It carries the key and a random install number. No name, no email, no page content.
- What goes to the AI company is what the student chose to send, plus their own attempt. That is covered by your agreement with that company, not by us.
We can put this in writing for your data protection lead. Write to support@decisionscalc.com.
Why try first
In a peer-reviewed field trial with nearly 1,000 high school students (Bastani and others, PNAS, 2025), students who practised maths with a chatbot that gave answers scored 17% lower on the later exam than students with no AI. A version of the same AI that gave hints largely avoided the drop. What that trial found, and the full table of 23 studies with their limits.
For one class, with no IT project
You do not need the extension to start. The teachers page has a class routine and a printable worksheet, both free.
Questions
Does it work on managed Chromebooks?
That is what it is built for: installed for an organisational unit, with its settings pushed as policy. We have tested the policy handling in our own code. We have not yet run it inside a school's admin console, which is what early access is for.
Can students get round it?
Not by changing its settings, and not by removing it if you force-install it. They can still use a personal phone, or a device you do not manage. It is a classroom rule with a tool behind it, not a wall.
What does it cost?
Not decided. We would rather ask a few schools what is fair than guess. Early-access schools will not be charged while we work it out with them.
Does it work with the AI tool our school already provides?
It runs on ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, Perplexity and Claude on the web. Other tools with a chat box can be added one site at a time. Tell us which one you use.