Education logbooks
Send me one unit
Backstage
by Amy Garside Media
It works for GCSE and IGCSE as well as MYP and Key Stage 3.
Sofia is invented. Everything she does in here is real.
Sofia Lindqvist, 8A
The lesson starts with a knowledge check: a game that shows what she already knows before any writing.
Photos and sketches from the lesson go in next, so the writing has something to point to.
From your teacher
Improve this answer in green pen.
Sofia is one of sixteen in 8A. This is the same question marked for all of them by the same rules, worked out in your browser as you reached this part of the page.
The class list appears here once the page has loaded.
Every student here is invented. On the real staff page you can open any answer, change the band and send a comment.
The whole demo journal is here to try, with an invented Grade 8 class so nothing in it belongs to a real student. Start as a student and play the knowledge check, then open the staff page and see the same lesson the way a teacher does.
Both open in a new tab and anything you type stays in your own browser. The game is easiest with a keyboard.
I built the first journal for my own MYP drama classes and the second example is a devising unit written for Cambridge IGCSE. A GCSE or Key Stage 3 journal is made the same way, from your units and your exam board's mark scheme, so students see the wording you already teach with.
The MYP journal is the one I use with my own classes. The IGCSE journal is a demonstration and hasn't been used with a class yet.
Backstage is one Logbook. This is a sample of another, a science lesson on the heart built the same way: a knowledge check first, then two picture tasks, then writing the marker can read.
A sample to show what is possible. It has not been used in a classroom. Its bands are MYP ones. A real one uses your own grades and the wording of your own criteria.
Idris Okafor, 8C
Science, the heart
The lesson starts with a knowledge check: a game that shows what the class already knows. You are a red blood cell on one loop of the double circulatory system. You travel from the body to the heart, out to the lungs for oxygen, back to the heart and round the body again.
Blood rush
Your job: a muscle in the body is working hard and needs oxygen. Collect oxygen in the lungs, carry it through the heart and deliver it to the muscle.
Loading the game.
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Oxygen
Your job
A muscle in the body is working hard and needs oxygen. Collect oxygen in the lungs, carry it through the heart and deliver it to the muscle.
You have three lives and every hit costs one. Steer round anything in your way.
The game stops while you read a question. Then you fly through the answer you choose.
Paused
Steer with the left and right arrow keys. The game stops whenever there is something to read. Press P to pause. The game has no sound.Steer with the two arrow buttons or swipe left and right. The game stops whenever there is something to read. The pause button is in the top corner. The game has no sound.
This is the same loop one stop at a time, with the same questions. On the diagram the side low in oxygen is coloured blue and the side rich in oxygen is coloured red.
Your job: a muscle in the body is working hard and needs oxygen. Collect oxygen in the lungs, carry it through the heart and deliver it to the muscle.
The picture task comes next. Pick a word, then pick the number it belongs to on the drawing or in the list.
The heart is drawn cut open, as if the person is facing you, so its right side is on the left of the picture.
The left side is coloured red and the right side blue so you can tell them apart. Real blood is never blue.
Word bank
The word bank is empty.
Labels
Blood travels in three types of vessel and each one is built for its job. Pick a card, then pick the vessel it describes.
Cards
The three drawings are not to scale. A real capillary is far too small to see without a microscope.
Explain why the wall of the left ventricle is thicker than the wall of the right ventricle.
Write about 60 words. The marker reads along as you type and you can also see how Idris got on.
This one is only a trial, to show that the same book can hold a different subject. For a real build I work from your exam board's mark scheme and your own units. A teacher from that subject checks every question, because I teach drama and the subject knowledge has to be yours.
Every journal is built by me from your units, so the price is for the build and you aren't paying for each student. Prices are in US dollars because I work with schools around the world.
The first two schools pay half the build fee, in return for honest feedback and a short testimonial if it works for you.
The price covers the whole build. Your lessons are written into the journal and you check every word in a Word document before anything is made, then I build the checks and the marker from your criteria, test it with a pretend class and set it up in your Google Workspace with you on a call.
It takes about four weeks from the day I have your units. The journal is licensed to one school, I keep the engine and you own your units and all of your students' work. If you stop the yearly support the journal carries on working, but updates and help stop.
This is the part to forward to your IT or data protection lead.
I'm Amy Garside, an IB head of department who has taught drama in the UK and in international schools. I built Backstage because marking process journals took up so much of my time. My students were very good at explaining what they did, but they found it much harder to justify a choice or say what impact it had on the audience.
They also struggle to use the terminology in their own writing, so the glossary is built into the journal and sits beside every answer. I've since trained staff to use it. Amy Garside Media is my business and it also builds websites for schools and small businesses.
Yes. I build it from your board's specification and mark scheme. Exam boards have rules about how much feedback a teacher can give on assessed coursework, so I check those rules for your board first and the journal is built to keep to them. The example on this page uses MYP bands from 1 to 8. A GCSE journal uses your board's grades and the wording of its mark scheme.
Your units or scheme of work with the criteria each one assesses and one person in the department I can ask questions. Someone in IT also needs to publish the journal in your Google Workspace, which takes about half an hour with me on a call.
No. The marker follows rules written from your criteria and it only ever suggests a band, so the mark is still yours to decide. I use AI coding tools to help me build the journal, but no student work goes near them.
No. They open a link and sign in with the school Google account they already have.
It can, as long as a teacher from that subject works with me. The science lesson on this page is a trial to show the idea and a real one would start from that department's own units and mark schemes.
Not yet. It runs on Google Workspace today and I'll build the Microsoft version with the first school that wants one.
Tell me which course it's for and paste in a unit outline or just describe it. I'll reply by email and tell you what a journal for that unit would look like.
I work from Dubai with schools around the world. My hours are Monday to Saturday, 9am to 6pm Dubai time.