Blog | “We remain committed to continuous improvement and innovation that directly responds to the needs of educators and students”

In spring 2025, SIL partnered with Running Paper, an innovative AI tool that transforms how teachers mark handwritten assessments. Co-founder Dr Hamza Mughal reflects on how an independently evaluated pilot has shaped the platform’s development and the impact already observed in the classroom.

“The catalyst for creating Running Paper was to support fast, accurate, and personalised feedback, and impact on the challenges within the sector around workload and retention.

We approached this pilot with some big questions:

1.    Would Running Paper genuinely reduce workload?
2.    Would teachers trust AI supported marking and feedback?
3.    Would the feedback still feel personal and meaningful to students?

Above all, we wanted to understand how our tool performs in real classrooms, with real teachers, working under real‑world constraints - and whether it truly lived up to our mission.

The pilot involved seven secondary schools across the Liverpool City Region, chosen to reflect a range of contexts, including faith schools, single-sex schools, academies, maintained schools, and selective settings.

Teachers used Running Paper across multiple subjects, and in different classroom setups.

SIL led the recruitment, evaluation design, and data capture, while we worked directly with schools on onboarding, support, and iteration.

 

Results of the pilot

One of the clearest signals from the evaluation was around time. When comparing Running Paper to hand marking:

•    58 percent of teachers completed marking in under 30 minutes using Running Paper, compared to just 10 percent when marking by hand.
•    92 percent prepared feedback in under 30 minutes using Running Paper, compared to 50 percent by hand

Feedback was consistently described as, ‘clear, tailored, linked to the mark scheme, and specific to individual students’ and teachers shared how it changed the flow of assessment.

At the end of the pilot, 70 percent of respondents felt that Running Paper supported at least one meaningful aspect of their marking and feedback role, such as turnaround time, speed of feedback, workload reduction, or bias reduction.

 

What were the challenges?

This pilot was not perfect. As with all AI tools, ongoing learning and refinement are core to how the technology evolves.

Teachers told us about:

•    Occasional inaccuracies in marking and confidence scoring
•    Difficulty uploading large or complex assessments
•    Issues with scanning PDFs
•    Setup friction for mixed tier classes

Some teachers loved the system. Some were unsure. Some were neutral. And some were frustrated at points.

Our priority wasn’t that everything worked seamlessly – but that we remained open and responsive to feedback.

 

What improvements have been made?

We spent a very focused summer 2025 addressing each issue raised and have completely rebuilt our custom assessment process and upload system.

We now run onboarding sessions for all new users, including teachers and admin to ensure the admin side runs as smooth as possible.

We also added multi model marking to the platform to strengthen confidence score.

Some of the key updates to the platform include:

•    Improved image recognition for image-based questions e.g. graphs, drawings, etc…
•    Introduced AI double marking and moderation to improve reliability
•    Adjusted our marking models to avoid being too generous
•    Redesigned our worksheet builder to support more complex layouts
•    Made feedback age appropriate by reading level
•    Integrated AI generated questions into the builder
•    Simplified onboarding with both Microsoft and Google logins enabled
•    Ability to create custom classes for mix tiered classes.

 

Where are we now?

Since going back live in September 2025, the feedback from new teachers has been incredible.

In the last four months, we have worked with over 40 secondary schools, and the response has been phenomenal: 95% of teachers said they would recommend Running Paper to another teacher.  

For us, this is just the start.

We remain committed to continuous improvement and innovation that directly responds to the needs of educators and students.

We're grateful to every school who engaged in the pilot, and to SIL for holding us to a high standard throughout this journey.

Partnering with SIL has allowed us to unite innovation with educational expertise, and pioneer responsible AI that is making real impact in our classrooms."

Transform how your teachers mark handwritten assessments

With over 25 MIS integrations, Running Paper fits seamlessly into existing systems and supports a wide range of subjects, including long-form and image-based questions. 

For only £500 +VAT, secondary settings can explore and experience the full benefits of Running Paper with a 3-month trial. 

There's no long-term commitment – if it’s not the right fit at this time, there’s no expectation to extend.

Find out more