What is a task?

A task in Satchel One is a piece of work assigned for students. Tasks are usually set as homework, but could also be set and utilised during class to test knowledge.

There are seven different task types, each designed for different learning objectives. Click the links below for detailed guidance on each task type.

Assignment - The most widely-used task type on Satchel One. Using assignments, you can instruct students to submit their homework in class, online via Satchel One or via a third-party platform.
Classwork - Designed for work which students would typically complete during a lesson.
Flexible task - For work which doesn't require a submission from your students.
Quiz - A set of multiple-choice questions that are automatically marked to assess knowledge.
Spelling test - A sound-based test where students listen to words or phrases and are prompted to type their spelling attempt.
Differentiated - Use trays, each containing a different set of instructions, to tailor homework to meet individual student needs, abilities, and learning styles.
Class test - Class tests are for reminding students about upcoming tests / mock exams and sharing appropriate revision materials and past papers.

All of these task types appear separately and in a different colour on students' to-do lists, helping them to distinguish between different types of homework.

In addition, all of these task types appear separately in the reports generated through Task Insights, so staff accessing this area can see how often a particular task type is used.

Set task

🔒 The actions within this section require the My homework tasks permission.

There are two ways of setting a new task from scratch:

1) Click 'Set task' at the top of the navigation panel. Then click 'Create' under the task type you'd like to create.

2) Alternatively, if your school's lesson timetable is visible on Satchel One, you will see 'Today's agenda' on the right-hand side of the screen (on the home Dashboard). Find the lesson you want to set a task for and click the Homework button.

Setting a task via 'Today's agenda' saves time because some of the information on the task-setting form is pre-filled for you (Class groups, Students, Subject, Issue Date and Issue on lesson).

Sidekick

Sidekick is a powerful AI Tool which helps teachers create tasks in seconds using Chat GPT (3.5 Turbo).

Sidekick is available for assignments, spelling tests, quizzes and flexible tasks, but not for classwork, differentiated tasks or class tests. To use Sidekick, look out for the purple box when setting a task.

As with any AI tool, Sidekick's output and effectiveness is largely dependent on your prompt and the additional options you selected.

💡 Top tip: For best results, write a detailed prompt. It may be easier to write your prompt in a word processor and then copy and paste it into Sidekick.

In addition, Sidekick's output is affected by the following fields on your task:

Class groups - The age of the students in the class(es) selected helps Sidekick make the task age-appropriate
Estimated completion time - Helps guide Sidekick on how long the task should take
Subject - Used to give context to the topic
Language - Used on Spelling Tests to dictate which language the vocabulary should be in

💡 Top tip: Remember that generative AI, while very powerful, may occasionally produce misleading information due to its lack of real-world understanding, data bias and inability to verify accuracy. For this reason, always read through Sidekick's output to check you approve before publishing your task. Remember that you still have the ability to edit the task description after Sidekick has created it.

Save as draft

Started but don't have time to finish your task? Click 'Save as draft' to come back to it later.

Your most recently saved drafts can be found on the widget on the right-hand side of the task-setting page.

Alternatively, you can find all of your saved drafts in Homework → Resources → More filters → Select state → Drafts.

Publish

When you have finished creating your task, you can publish it by clicking 'Publish' at the bottom of the page.

Your task will be set live on the selected issue date. On this date, the relevant students and parents will receive an automatic notification and see the task on their to-do list.

FAQ

Question	Answer
Can I change the task type partway through creating a task?	Yes! Just click the 'Type' dropdown menu to select a different task type. Any information already entered into the common fields between the old and new task types will be carried over.
Can I share my tasks with my colleagues?	Yes, by default all your drafts and published tasks can be found and reused by your colleagues. Staff can find and reuse each other's tasks in the Homework → Resources area.
Can I set an automatically recurring task?	No, it's not currently possible to set an automatically recurring task. However, you can easily find and reuse a previously set task through Homework → Resources. 💡 If you just want to send an automatically recurring message which is unrelated to a task, you can do so via the Notice board. Please note that this is not a homework task, and will not appear on students' to-do lists, but will notify the students and parents included.
When I use Sidekick, is any personal data shared?	While using third party tools, such as OpenAI, we may pass some contextual information (eg. a subject name or an appropriate age range) but we never pass on identifiable information regarding the user or school/district. We do not allow third parties to train their models on the data that is sent and all data is deleted by the third party after a maximum of 30 days (unless otherwise required by law).
How do I export a task from Satchel One?	To export a task, click on the task's Description tab. Then click the options menu ( ⫶ ) and Export. The task will be exported in PDF format.

Setting Tasks