Tools built for the classroom.

I’m Daniel Southam, a registered primary school teacher in New Zealand who builds free and paid teaching tools in the hours outside the classroom. See my teaching portfolio for my background.

Penline covers Years 0–8, Chalkline covers Years 1–8, and Planline plans for Years 0–8, from new entrants through to intermediate.

The refreshed curriculum groups learning into phases instead of the old levels: Phase 1 is Years 0–3, Phase 2 is Years 4–6, Phase 3 is Years 7–8 and Phase 4 is Years 9–10. Chalkline can show the maths by phase, and Penline’s year plans follow the English phases.

Penline and Chalkline open in your web browser, with no login and nothing to install. Planline also runs in the browser at planline.co.nz, and you sign up to start its free trial. Compass World News is an Android app with no account needed.

No. Penline and Chalkline carry no ads, and Compass World News is ad-free with no trackers.

Anyone is welcome to use them, but they’re built around the New Zealand Curriculum, so year levels, curriculum references and teaching order follow how New Zealand schools work.

No. They’re written by a practising classroom teacher and haven’t been independently reviewed or verified. None of them is a complete teaching programme: use them as a guide, alongside your own professional judgement, the New Zealand Curriculum and your school’s own plans.

Use the email link at the foot of this page. Corrections and ideas from other teachers are how these tools get better.

A teacher’s planner for New Zealand primary and intermediate classrooms. It keeps your weekly plan, unit plans and lesson plans for the New Zealand Curriculum in one place, with Penline and Chalkline built in, and seating plans that seat your class by your rules and show your room in 3D.

Tick the Chalkline maths or Penline structured literacy you’re teaching and it becomes ready-made lessons, with the learning intention (WALT) and success criteria already filled in. You can also start a whole term’s unit plans in one go.

Yes, with a Planline subscription. Set up your classroom in a couple of minutes, add your class, and tell Planline who works well together and who doesn’t. It seats everyone, shuffles on demand, mixes boys and girls if you like, and shows your room in 3D with every name on its seat.

Yes. Bring your school’s plan in straight from Drive and Planline sorts its topics into terms and learning areas, and attach Drive slides, docs and videos to any lesson. Planline only ever sees the file you pick.

Yes. Share a read-only link to your plan, so a reliever can see the day’s lessons while you’re away.

Yes. A School plan covers up to 30 teachers, and an Individual plan suits a single teacher. Both start with the free 14-day trial.

Explicit, systematic teaching of how sounds map to letters, along with spelling patterns, rules and word parts, taught in a planned order and practised until they’re secure. Penline sets out that order for Years 0–8.

Each unit is a week of teaching: word lists, warm-ups, a teaching routine, decodable sentences and texts, dictation and five daily lesson plans.

Yes. It prints four-line handwriting sheets for Years 0–4, along with word cards and termly checks with class recording sheets.

No. It’s designed to feed structured literacy into Planline. You’re welcome to use its resources in your classroom as they are, or as part of Planline.

77 mathematics concepts across Years 1–8 (Number, Algebra, Measurement, Geometry, Statistics and Probability), viewed by year, phase or strand.

Yes. Every concept is placed in the current Mathematics and Statistics learning area, and also mapped to the 2007 curriculum levels and Number Framework stages, so older resources still line up.

Yes. Each concept lists what needs to be secure first and the order to teach it in, with diagnostic checks, materials and worked examples.

Yes. Print any concept, or save it as a PDF to share with your team.

A privacy-first news reader that groups reporting on the same story from across the political spectrum. A lean dial and blindspot mode make it useful for current events and teaching media literacy.

It’s an Android app on Google Play, free to download with an optional one-time Pro upgrade. It shows no ads, has no trackers and needs no account.