What we want to change
Most students who use AI today use it to get answers. That is the fastest way to finish homework and the slowest way to learn. The AI answers the question, the student copies it, and the thinking that school exists for never happens.
Sheaf School turns that around. The tutor's job is to get the student to the answer under their own power. It asks a small question, waits, and asks the next one. The student does the thinking, and the record shows the path they took. We think a school that runs on this will produce students who can reason, and teachers who can see that reasoning as it forms.
You decide where the AI runs
Sheaf School works the same way on any model it is given, because its engine measures whether the models agree with themselves and each other. That leaves the choice of where the AI runs to the school or the ministry. Three ways are supported from day one.
Inside your country, on machines you control.
Many schools and ministries will keep a child's question inside the country and run their schools on models they host themselves. Sheaf School is built from the ground up for this. Every model runs on machines the school, the ministry, or a national provider controls. Where a country has its own language model, Sheaf School runs on it. Where it does not, Sheaf School runs on open models installed locally. Student conversations, records, and grades stay in the country.
Hosted by Sheaf
Sheaf runs the models and the system in a region you pick. Your school keeps the records. The fastest way to start.
With the model providers you already use
A school that already works with one or more of the large AI providers can run Sheaf School on them. The tutor behaves the same, and the same rules and record apply.
Whichever you choose, Sheaf does not train on anything a student or teacher writes, and a school can move from one option to another without losing its records.
How it works in a school
The school closes its ordinary connection to the open internet. Students get what they need from Sheaf School: the tutor, the library, the lesson material, the tools for writing and working. A small number of agents inside Sheaf School can reach the internet for specific jobs, such as fetching a source a teacher has approved. Each of those requests is checked and written to the record. A teacher or an administrator who needs the open internet asks for it, with a password and whatever other controls the school sets.
What a student sees is simple: a tutor that knows the course, remembers where they are, and helps them work.
The tutor asks. The student answers.
Small questions, one at a time
When a student asks for the answer, the tutor asks the question that gets them one step closer. It keeps going until the student gets there. The student's own reasoning is the product.
Test mode
Before a test, the teacher clicks one switch. The tutor is still there to help a student think, and in test mode it never gives an answer. The switch, and every conversation under it, is on the record.
A school with no tests at all
A school that is ready for it can turn tests off. Students are assessed through conversation with the tutor over the whole term, and a teacher signs off on every grade. The student can see the reasons and appeal.
The thinking record
Every conversation leaves a record of how the student got there: where they were stuck, what question moved them, how long it took. The teacher sees the path, and so does the student.
Any word, in the student's own language
A student whose home language is not the language of the class can highlight any word or phrase on the tutor page and see it in their own language, and hear it said. Spanish, Arabic, Portuguese, Vietnamese, French, Chinese, Urdu, Russian and Filipino at the start. The student picks the language once.
Checked, not guessed
Two readers translate the word separately. When they agree the student sees one answer. When they differ the student sees both. A child learning from it deserves that care.
The teacher sees the wall
Every word looked up goes on the student's record and into the day's review. A word looked up three times is a word to teach. In a US classroom with Spanish-speaking students, that is the thing the teacher could not see before.
Safe in a test
In test mode the student can still look up a few words at a time, and every lookup is logged, so a whole question cannot be pulled out through the translator.
The tutors review each other, every day
Once a day, every class's tutor is paired with another class's tutor. Each reads the other's day from the record: where it gave too much, where it missed a student who was troubled, which question moved a student forward, which manner grated. From that, each proposes a few rules of conduct for all the tutors.
Rules that have to fit
Every proposed rule goes through Sheaf's coherence check against the rules already in force and the teacher's notes. A rule that contradicts one is held and the contradiction is shown. The body of tutors improves without drifting.
The teacher decides
Nothing enters the shared conduct until a teacher accepts it. Every proposal, every check and every decision is on the record. The school stays in charge of how its tutors behave.
In force by the morning
An accepted rule is in every tutor's instructions from the next reply. What one tutor learned on Tuesday, every tutor knows on Wednesday.
The tutor tells the teacher, in real time
While the class works, each tutor watches for a student who is stuck, and tells the teacher at once.
Every student in the room is working with their own tutor. When one of them is stuck in a way the tutor recognises, a step they keep missing, an idea they have the wrong way round, the same mistake three times in a row, the tutor sends a short note to the teacher's screen, with the student's name, what the trouble is, and what the tutor has already tried. The student sees nothing. The teacher walks over and helps in person, with the whole picture already in hand.
The teacher decides what counts as worth a note, and can turn it up or down for the class or for one student. When several students are stuck on the same thing, the teacher sees that too, and can stop and teach it to everyone.
What Sheaf's engine adds
Sheaf measures whether a set of statements holds together. In a school that does three things.
- The tutor checks itself before it speaks. Several models read each answer the tutor is about to give. If they disagree on a fact, the tutor says so and asks the teacher, instead of teaching the wrong thing with confidence.
- The rules are enforced, and the record proves it. "Never give the answer in test mode" is checked on every reply by a gate that sits between the tutor and the student. A reply that breaks the rule is stopped before the student sees it, and the record shows it was stopped.
- A student's reasoning is measured too. When a student's answers contradict each other, the tutor sees where, and works on that. A teacher gets a map of where the class's understanding holds together and where it does not.
Country editions
Where a country has its own language model, Sheaf School has an edition that runs the tutor and every check on it, inside the country. Two exist so far, and more follow the same shape.
The tutor and its checks on Fanar, Qatar's own model. Arabic or English. Runs inside Qatar, with the ministry setting the curriculum.
The tutor and its checks on ALIA, Spain's public model. Spanish, Catalan, Valencian, Basque or Galician. Runs inside Spain.
Each country sets what is taught
A ministry that adopts Sheaf School sets the curriculum, the languages, the textbooks the tutor works from, and the values it teaches by. Sheaf Labs provides the system and the record of what it was set to do. The country writes the content. A school inside the country can adjust within the limits the ministry sets.
Also in the plan
For teachers
Lesson preparation from the country's own curriculum, marking help that shows its reasoning, a live view of who is stuck and where, and the power to correct the tutor. A teacher's correction changes what the tutor says next time.
For parents
A weekly view of what their child worked on, where they grew, and where they need help, in the family's language.
For every student
Works in the student's language. Adjusts pace for a student who needs more time. Reads aloud, takes dictation, and works with a screen reader.
Safeguarding
If a student writes something that suggests they are in danger, the tutor tells the person the school has named, at once, and the record shows it did.
Runs when the line is down
The school's own server keeps running when the connection to the ministry is down. Nothing a student does is lost.
For the ministry
One view across every school: what is being taught, how students are progressing, and a record of every AI decision that can be audited.
Sheaf School, home edition
The same school, for a family that teaches at home.
Everything above works for one child at a kitchen table. The child gets the same tutor, that asks and waits. The parent gets the teacher's screen: the note when the child is stuck, the thinking record, the switch for test mode, and marking help that shows its reasoning. The family picks the curriculum, from their own country's program or one they choose, and sets the values the tutor teaches by.
It runs on a computer in the home or hosted by Sheaf, and the family's records stay the family's.
A school a community builds for itself
A group of families in one town who share a faith, a language, a culture, or a way of teaching can bring their children together and run a school of their own on Sheaf School. Each child has the same tutor. The parents share the teacher's screen and take turns in the teacher's seat, or hire one teacher for the group. The community sets the curriculum and the values the tutor teaches by, within the law of the country. What used to take a building, a staff, and years of money now takes a group of families and a decision.
One school, many homes
The children work from home or from a shared room. The tutor, the records, and the teacher's screen are the same wherever a child sits. The community sees itself as one school.
The record answers the questions
Every lesson, every conversation, and every grade is on the record with the reasoning behind it. When the authorities ask what the children were taught and how they are doing, the community has the answer ready.
Grows with the community
Start with three families. Add more. Add a teacher. Add a second language. The school changes shape without starting over.
Where we are
The tutor demo is live: start a class and try it. The rest of Sheaf School is in design. The engine underneath it is already built and in use: the measurement that checks whether AI models agree, the gate that stops a reply before it goes out, and the record that shows what happened. What we are building now is the school around it: the tutor, the classroom tools, and the teacher's screen. We are talking with the first schools and ministries now. If you run a school, a school system, or a national education program and this is the direction you want, we would like to talk.
The mathematics behind it
Sheaf School uses two branches, starting with the panel check on every reply: the rule check, the learning check and the wellbeing check are read together with sheaf cohomology. It asks whether the three readings fit into one whole, and a reply goes out only when they do. The rules of conduct go through formal logic. A complete solver checks that a new rule can hold alongside the rules already in force, and names the clash when it cannot.
Students who can think, and a record that shows it.
Talk to us about Sheaf SchoolSheaf School runs on the same engine as Sheaf One.