AI Lesson Planners – Which One is Best for You?

Author: itc Publications   Date Posted:1 July 2026 

AI should be seriously considered to assist with lesson planning for three (3) reasons:

  1. Time – with the right AI lesson planner, it can generate good lesson plans in moments.
  2. Cognitive overload – at the end of a busy school day, it can be difficult to find the energy to produce high quality and creative lesson plans.
  3. New ideas – even if you do not use the AI generated lesson plan in its entirety, there is usually a few good ideas you may consider for your lesson.

Australian teachers spend up to 5-8 hours per week lesson planning, unit mapping and doing general curriculum administration. As technology develops and we move further into the future, AI lesson planners are rapidly becoming a good way for teachers to regain some of this time.

While these tools offer a great alternative and provide exponential aide to teachers globally, there are few AI lesson planners that successfully target or adhere to Australian Curriculum standards. Often these aides are developed in the United States of America or United Kingdom and as such adhere to their curriculum guidelines, making them of little use to Australian teachers.

So, what resources can Australian teachers use? How do we save some those hours spent on lesson planning? Well, this guide will review the top ten AI lesson planners that Australian teachers are using in 2026. We will cover what each planner does well, where it falls short, what demographic or style of teaching is best complimented by each, the pricing, whether these aides successfully align with the Australian curriculum and how relevant (versus broad) the lessons they generate are.

  1. ITC ThinkDrive (itcthinkdrive.com.au/ai-lesson-panner)

An Australian AI teaching and learning platform that specifically targets the Australian Curriculum, ITC ThinkDrive offers lesson plans, week-by-week unit plans, starting activities and cognitive verb resources. Its main advantage is that it incorporates thinking tools and cooperative learning activities into each lesson plan. Used by over 3,000 Australian teachers across both primary and secondary schools, ITC ThinkDrive is also ST4S (Safer Technologies 4 Schools) certified as of 2025. A dependable tool well trusted within the Australian school networks, ITC ThinkDrive is our first pick for the 10 best AI lesson planners.

Pros

Cons
  • Purpose built for the Australian Curriculum, spanning Foundation to Year 12
  • Incorporates thinking tools, cooperative learning activities aligned to 60+ cognitive verbs (analyse, evaluate, justify, etc.)
  • ST4S certified AI tools (2025) – teacher inputs are not stored, shared or used for model retraining
  • Provides detailed Lesson Intentions and Success Criteria rather than a general lesson objective and better starting and end activities.
  • Provides a carefully curated suite of resources to complement the AI lesson plan, such as as AI unit planner, AI starting activities, downloadable thinking tools with sentence starters and assessment exemplars aligned to 66 cognitive verbs.
  • Australia only focus – does not cater to UK National Curriculum or US Common Core

 

 

Pricing: $8.95 / month or $64.95 / year

Year Levels: F-12

Australian Curriculum v9.0 alignment: Yes

Trial period: 2-day free trial period for teachers, a 30-day free trial for schools.

Ultimately, we consider ITC ThinkDrive the most curriculum-accurate option on this list. With user friendly interfaces, ITC ThinkDrive offers Australian teachers the opportunity to regain some time without losing the quality of their lessons.

 

  1. MagicSchool AI (magicschool.ai)

Globally, MagicSchool is the largest AI aide targeted for teachers with 80+ tools covering lesson planning, IEP drafting, rubrics, feedback and student-facing chatbots. Built for US k-12, MagicSchool can work for Australian teachers well enough, so long as they are willing to manually swap the American spelling and grade levels.

Pros

Cons
  • Generous free tier for individual teacher use
  • Strong differentiation features (IEP generator, accommodation suggestions)
  • Active community and frequent product updates
  • Built to target US Common Core, no native ACARA v9.0 alignment, no cognitive verb framwork
  • Defaults to American spelling and US grade labels
  • Not ST4S certified – some Australian schools will not approve it
  • School pricing in USD; scales by student count

 

Pricing: $155 / year

Year Levels: PreK-12 (US years)

Australian Curriculum v9.0 Alignment: Yes

MagicSchool is able to provide solid tools to generate rubrics, feedback comments, and parent emails; however, given its targeting of the US Common Core, it can become a hassle for Australian teachers, that is why we’ve put it in second place on our list of AI tools for teachers.

 

  1. Kuraplan (kuraplan.com)

Australian and New Zealand focused, Kuraplan offers a clean, minimal interface that is easy for teachers to use and supports both ACARA and the New Zealand Curriculum, making it a solid choice for teachers across the Tasman. Kuraplan is specifically a good choice for Australian primary school teachers who want fast plans without a learning curve.

Pros

Cons
  • ACARA and NZ Curriculum support in the same tool
  • Simple, fast UI – low learning curve
  • Reasonable pricing for individual teachers
  • Smaller resource library than ThinkDrive or MagicSchool
  • No cognitive verb framework or thinking tools
  • No student-facing tools – for teachers only
  • Limited senior secondary depth

 

Pricing: ~$9 / month

Year Levels: Y1-13

Australian Curriculum v9.0 alignment: Yes (AU + NZ)

Ranking third on our list of AI lesson planners, Kuraplan is a good lightweight option for solo teachers, providing them with quick lesson plans. However, Kuraplan falls short in offering long term subject guidance or a full school platform.

 

  1. TeacherGPT (teachergpt.io)

Powered by GPT-4, TeacherGPT is a globally marketed teacher planning assistant. Essentially OpenAI guided by teacher-specific prompts, TeacherGPT is often the first lesson planner offered under the search ‘free AI lesson planner’; however, being an international teacher’s assistant, it’s understanding of the Australian Curriculum is narrow, and the free tier of lesson planning limited.

Pros

Cons
  • Cheap entry price
  • Familiar ChatGPT-style chat interface
  • Quick to generate brainstorms and discussion prompts
  • No real curriculum alignment – output quality depends entirely on your prompt
  • No ACARA mapping, no cognitive verbs, no Australian curriculum codes
  • Not ST4S certified
  • No school licensing model

 

Pricing: ~$15 / month

Year Levels: All (Based on prompt)

Australian Curriculum v9.0 alignment: No

Unless you already have ChatGPT Plus, in which case TeacherGPT can be a great brainstorming tool, we don’t recommend it as a serious planner for Australian classrooms.

 

  1. Chalkie (chalkie.com.au)

Australian made, Chalkie is an AI assistant for teachers that focusses specifically on quick activities, worksheets, and exit tickets rather than full unit planning.

Pros

Cons
  • Australian made and Australian English by default
  • Fast worksheet and activity generation
  • Affordable individual pricing
  • Slide editor function
  • No unit planner to complement the lesson plans – strongest for short, in-class artefacts
  • Does not seem incorporate thinking tools aligned to the cognitive verbs. 

 

Pricing: Individual from $7.95 / month

Year Levels: Primary and lower secondary (F-10)

Australian Curriculum v9.0 Alignment: Partial

Ranking fifth on our list, Chalkie offers a great companion tool for classroom artefacts; pair it with ThinkDrive for full unit planning.

 

  1. Eduaide.AI (eduaide.ai)

A US built planning assistant with a strong assessment generator, Eduaide.AI is popular with international schoolteachers primarily.

Pros

Cons
  • 100+ resource generators
  • Good IB and international school support
  • Slide deck export to Google Slides
  • No ACARA alignment
  • US-centric examples by default
  • School pricing in USD

 

Pricing: Free tier available – Pro ~$15.50 / month

Year Levels: K-12 (US labels)

Australian Curriculum v9.0 Alignment: No

For international schoolteachers in Australia who work closely in IB on Cambridge frameworks, Eduaide.AI can be a wonderful assistant tool well worth considering. However, for most Australian teachers, Eduaide.AI struggles to cover the more in-depth finicky parts of the curriculum, lowering it to our sixth spot on this list.

 

  1. Curipod (curipod.com)

Hailing from Norway, Curipod is an interactive AI lesson tool, generating lessons that students join live with a code; like Kahoot but with AI-generated content.

Pros

Cons
  • Genuinely engaging live student experience
  • Polls, word clouds and AI feedback built in
  • Strong free tier
  • Not a planning tool in the conventional sense – output is a live interactive lesson, not a lesson plan itself
  • No ACARA alignment
  • Limited export – locked to the Curipod platform

 

Pricing: Free for teachers – Pro from ~$11 / month

Year Levels: Years 3-12

Australian Curriculum v9.0 Alignment: No

Ultimately, Curipod is a defining example of the ever-changing abilities of AI and how we might come to use them in the classroom. As it stands, however, it doesn’t provide pre-planning tools for teachers, nor does it align with ACARA, meaning Australian teachers will still need a separate planning tool, thus making Curipod our seventh choice for AI lesson aides.

 

  1. Twinkl AI (twinkl.com.au)

Known for its enormous library of teacher resources, Twinkl AI is capable of generating plans and worksheets, as well as offering is copious library of resources.

Pros

Cons
  • Extensive existing resource library to remix from
  • Australian-tagged content available
  • Reasonable subscription value if you already use Twinkl
  • AI features aren’t built into the Twinkl interface
  • ACARA alignment is partial and varies by resource
  • Generated outputs need editing to match school style

 

Pricing: ~$8 / month

Year Levels: F-12 (resource heavy in F-6)

Australian Curriculum v9.0 Alignment: Partial – tagged on some resources

As our eighth-place choice, Twinkl is a strong pick for primary school teachers who are already familiar with the Twinkl ecosystem. Where Twinkl falls short is in its secondary school planning, with less resources and looser mapping.

 

  1. Canva Magic Write for Education (canva.com/education)

Canva Magic Write is the AI writing assistant within the Canva for Education sight. Not built as a lesson or curriculum planner, Canva Magic Write offers excellent artefacts to support the visual components of lessons but suffers in actually applying those aides to teach unit or lesson plans.

Pros

Cons
  • Free for verified teachers and students
  • Beautiful visual outputs – posters, slides, worksheets
  • Integrates with whole Canva design library
  • No curriculum alignment – Ai is general purpose
  • Not built for unit or week planning
  • Plans need to be assembled manually across multiple Canva designs

 

Pricing: Free for verified teachers

Year Levels: All levels

Australian Curriculum v9.0 Alignment: No

Despite its incredible usefulness as a tool for visual outputs and student-facing artefacts, we cannot recommend Canva Magic Write for Education as your sole unit / subject / lesson planner.

 

  1. Diffit (diffit.me)

Taking a topic, article, or even a YouTube link, Diffit generates differentiated reading material with vocabulary, questions and summaries at multiple reading levels.

Pros

Cons
  • Best-in-class differentiation – same content at multiple reading levels in one click
  • Quick to produce inclusive materials
  • Useful free tier
  • Single-purpose – only differentiation, not planning
  • No ACARA mapping
  • Limited Australian context in source library

 

Pricing: Free Tier

Year Levels: Years 3-12

Australian Curriculum v9.0 Alignment: No

Coming it at number ten on our list of AI lesson planners, Diffit offers a way to summaries resources and cater them to all different reading levels. Diffit is great for handling classes with a cohort of mixed abilities, closing any learning gaps between students with ease. Whilst a useful tool undoubtedly, it doesn’t function as a teacher’s aide, but rather for students.

 

Why We Built ITC ThinkDrive

Built in Australia, for Australian teachers, ITC ThinkDrive aimed to give Australian teachers their own AI lesson planner and unit planner, one that didn’t cater for international curriculums, or suffer from international school structure or language, but instead focused entirely on Australian education and Australian schools.

The previous internation AI lesson planning tools often reference US Common Core or GCSEs. We wanted to focus more on Foundation to Year 12, ACARA V9.0 content descriptions and the cognitive verb language that drives Queensland senior assessment and most other Australian state/territory curriculum.

ITC ThinkDrive aimed to address three key elements that the other pre-existing AI lesson planners or teachers’ aides seemed to be lacking.

First; every lesson should begin with a short, safe and engaging activity, that ideally assesses and activates the students’ prior knowledge. The lesson’s activities should be scaffolded with thinking tools and cooperative learning tools, all aligned to the cognitive verbs of the lesson. The end activity, rather than a simple recap of the lesson, should be an activity to demonstrate that they have meet the success criteria of the lesson. The Thinkdrive AI lesson planner endeavours to generate every AI lesson plan with these vital elements.

Second; the cognitive verbs (analyse, evaluate, justify, etc.) should be utilised in every lesson plan. Assessment relies heavily on these cognitive verbs and integrating them into lesson planning ensures the students are gaining intimate understanding of this terminology, preparing them thoroughly for any assessment possibility.

Finally; student data and teacher inputs should stay private. We understand with the rapid rate that technology develops, online privacy is becoming more and more rare, with information readily available to those who know how to search for it. ITC ThinkDrive aimed to ensure that all teacher and student information remains private and protected, achieving its Safer Technology 4 Schools (ST4S) certification in 2025.

Over 3,000 Australian teachers across primary and secondary schools use ThinkDrive today, and over 4,000 lesson plans have been generated on the platform. ITC ThinkDrive offers school licenses that covers both Teacher ThinkDrive (AI planners, cognitive verb tools, K-12 resource library) and Student ThinkDrive (learning strengths diagnostic, study skills, SMART goals, task verb quiz, and more).

If you teach in an Australian classroom, the question shouldn’t be whether or not to use AI for your lesson planning, but rather whether or not the AI you do use was built for your curriculum… for you.

ThinkDrive was.

Frequently Asked Questions

 

What is the best AI lesson planner for Australian teachers in 2026?

ITC ThinkDrive is the best AI lesson planner for Australian teachers due to its purpose-built adherence to the Australian Curriculum v9.0, its support of 60+ cognitive verbs, and its ST4S certified use inside Australian schools.

 

Is there a free AI lesson planner for Australian teachers?

Yes. Canva Magic Write for Education is free for verified Australian teachers, whilst Curipod and Diffit have generous free tiers, and ITC ThinkDrive offers a free 48-hour full-access trial.

 

Which AI lesson planner supports ACARA V9.0?

ITC ThinkDrive and Kuraplan both support the Australian Curriculum v9.0. ThinkDrive offers deeper, code-level alignment to content descriptions and achievement standards, while Kuraplan provides broader but lighter ACARA tagging.

 

MagicSchool vs ITC ThinkDrive – which should I choose?

MagicSchool is good for breadth with 80+ tools across rubrics, IEPs and feedback; however, choose ITC ThinkDrive if you need depth on the Australian Curriculum v9.0, cognitive verbs, and ST4S compliance.

 

Are these AI tools safe to use with student data?

ITC ThinkDrive is ST4S certified (2025), meaning teacher inputs are not stored or used for model retraining.

 

What about tools for high school teachers Australia wide?

For year 7-12, ITC ThinkDrive has the deepest coverage of cognitive verbs and unit planning. MagicSchool is strong for differentiation and rubrics. Curipod is great for interactive lessons.

 

How do AITSL standards relate to AI lesson planning?

AITSL standards 2, 3 and 5 (content knowledge, planning, assessment) directly apply when using AI to plan lessons. Tools that map to ACARA v9.0 – like ITC ThinkDrive – help you evidence Standar 2.3 (curriculum knowledge) and Standard 3.2 (plan and structure learning programs) in your annual performance review.

 

How much time does AI actually save Australian teachers?

ITC ThinkDrive and other AI lesson planning tools can save teachers from 5 to 8 hours per week on planning and resource creation. Ultimately, the time saved depends entirely on the subject, year level, and how much editing or tailoring your school requires.