Chalk is led by Phil, one of the Poteris team, and emerged from his direct teaching experience.
The problem Phil saw
Like most good ideas, Chalk came from first observing and experiencing a real world problem. As a teacher, Phil noticed something he couldn’t ignore: visual learning resources had an outsized impact on his students’ learning, particularly for those who struggled or had additional needs.
But creating these resources took time he didn’t have, and design skills he hadn’t learned in teacher training.
Once seen, he couldn’t unsee it. The feeling that curricula is unnecessarily text-heavy only grew stronger when he looked into Richard Mayer’s research on multimedia learning, which shows across 60 experiments that students consistently perform better with words and pictures together than words alone.
How could technology better support teachers to create visual learning resources in a way that removed the need for design expertise or taking too much of their already stretched time?
A Chalk created story board visualisation of this case study.
What we built
Having taught students with additional needs, Phil doesn’t really see why there should be a gap. In his view, it’s more about how we teach than the students themselves. He’s seen wildly intelligent students struggle in our education system unnecessarily, and it’s a tragedy. It’s a phenomenal waste of talent.
The students who benefit most from visual learning resources are often the same ones labelled as struggling or disengaged. But when information is presented in a way that works with how their brains process it—combining words and images, using clear structure and visual hierarchy—suddenly they’re not struggling anymore. They’re capable, engaged, and showing the intelligence that was always there.
The assumption was simple. Teachers want support with design. Chalk does just that, helping teachers become better information designers. Based on the uptake at 550+ schools, and feedback statements “Life changing” — Head Teacher, Hartlepool, we think we’ve got that right.
Why this matters
Chalk matters for two reasons. First, it’s saving teachers time in a profession that’s already exhausting and time-consuming. Second, it’s making learning more accessible for students whose intelligence has always been there—it just needed a different information environment to shine through.
We’re not done yet. We’re building towards a future where visual learning is the norm, not the exception, and where creating accessible resources doesn’t mean another evening lost to lesson planning.
Notes
The images shared in this post were generated by Chalk, and represent the visualisation of the Chalk story.
