We did this for CARL a few weeks ago. Same four questions, different product.
There’s a version of curriculum tracking that works beautifully until the first week that doesn’t go according to plan.
The spreadsheet is colour-coded. The long-range plan is dated. Every outcome has a place. Then a class needs an extra day, an assembly takes Thursday, somebody is away, and the plan and the year quietly become two different things.
What it actually does
Compass shows the curriculum for each class as Taught, Planned, or To Do. You can add a plan, upload or paste something you already have, schedule future work, or Quick Log something that has already happened.
It can suggest curriculum links from a plan, but the suggestion isn’t the record. You review the match and decide what counts.
Scheduled work appears as Planned. When you’ve taught it, you mark it Taught. If you use Compass Plus, Compass can ask after the scheduled date whether the lesson happened. It still waits for your answer. Nothing is marked taught without teacher confirmation.
The result is a coverage picture that can change when the year changes, because the year always does.
Who it’s for
Compass is for teachers who have asked “did we cover that?” while knowing the answer exists somewhere.
It fits elementary generalists holding several subjects at once. It fits secondary teachers tracking different courses or sections. It fits combined-grade classrooms where each grade needs its own curriculum record even when students share an activity.
It’s also for the teacher who already has a planning system but needs the coverage layer to stay current. You don’t have to abandon every document you use. Existing plans can be added, scanned, or logged.
Who it isn’t for
If you need a gradebook or student progress tracker. Compass tracks teaching against curriculum. It doesn’t track individual students, marks, accommodations, or roster information.
If you want coverage claimed automatically. The AI can suggest a match. It can’t decide that a curriculum item was taught. That’s your call.
If you want the calendar to become another source of guilt. There are no streaks, no penalty or lost work after time away, and no empty-state pressure designed to make you check in every day. It’s a record you use when it helps.
If a static checklist already works perfectly for you. Keep it. The value of Compass is that plans and coverage can stay connected as the year moves. If your current system already does that without costing you time, there may be nothing to fix.
When it matters most
Coverage tracking is a background activity for most of the year, and then it isn’t.
Reporting is when a term of teaching has to become a defensible account of what got covered. Compass builds coverage summaries, planning logs and editable report-support drafts out of what you’ve already confirmed, so you’re working from the record you kept rather than rebuilding one from memory in November.
That’s the argument for keeping it current on the weeks when it feels like admin. The person who benefits is you, later.
What stays yours
Every judgement about whether something actually happened.
Whether the lesson you taught covered the outcome or only brushed past it. Whether a suggested match is close enough to count. Whether the version you got through on a Tuesday, with a third of the class at a field trip, is the version you meant to teach.
Compass can hold the record and suggest what might fit. It can’t tell you whether something was taught in the sense you’d defend at a parent meeting, and a tracker that claimed it could would be inviting you to stop paying attention to the one thing the record is for.
How it connects to CARL
CARL and Compass are separate apps, and either can be used on its own. When you connect them, the movement is still teacher-initiated.
Start in Compass and you can choose a curriculum item, ask for Plan Ideas, and copy the one you want to CARL. Its goal, learning objectives, and curriculum links travel with it. CARL builds the full lesson from there.
Start in CARL and you can build the lesson first, then choose Book in Compass, select the class and date, and send it across. Once booked, Compass tracks it as planned coverage. After teaching, you confirm what became Taught.
Nothing moves merely because the accounts are connected.
The bottom line
- Compass keeps Taught, Planned, and To Do curriculum items visible in one place
- Plans can suggest curriculum matches, but teachers confirm what counts
- It tracks classes and curriculum, not students or grades
- It connects with CARL only when you choose to send or import something
- It doesn’t punish you for leaving it alone
The assembly still takes Thursday. Compass doesn’t stop the year moving around, it just means you don’t have to remember where it moved to.
CARL helps answer “what am I teaching?” Compass helps answer “where does the year stand?” They’re related questions, not the same job.
