Day 4: a chart that shows a child's whole learning at a glance

A parent checking their child's progress until now had to read a list of percentages, one competency at a time, and do the mental work of turning that list into a picture. Today that picture got drawn for them.

From a list of numbers to a shape you can read in a second

The parent area added yesterday showed real numbers — how a child is actually doing, competency by competency — but numbers in a list don't tell you where the weak spots are without some squinting and mental arithmetic. A parent glancing at their phone between other things shouldn't have to do that work themselves. So today the advancement report gained a chart that does it for them: one shape, one glance, and the gaps just show up.

It works like a spider's web, or a compass rose — one spoke for each area of maths a child is learning (addition, fractions, geometry, and so on), radiating out from a center point. How far out along each spoke the child's own line reaches shows how solidly they've got that area down. A second, fainter shape marks the full target for their grade. Where the two shapes meet, that area is mastered. Where there's a gap between them, that's exactly where a bit more practice would help most — visible instantly, without reading a single number.

        Number sense
   Problem      Place value
  solving  \   /
            \ /
Reasoning ---*--- Addition  <- child's line reaches further out here (stronger)
            / \
           /   \
   Geometry     Fractions   <- gap between the two shapes here (needs more practice)

None of this meant anything without first answering a smaller, more basic question: on track for what, exactly? A ten-year-old and a six-year-old shouldn't be measured against the same bar. So the app now asks a parent to say which year of primary school their child is currently in, and the "target" shape on the chart is built around that specific year — the things a child their age would reasonably be expected to have a handle on, not a fixed, one-size-fits-all ceiling. Set it once, and change it whenever the child moves up a year.

A preview of the bigger picture, honestly labeled

Right below that chart sits a second, quieter one — the same idea stretched across everything from yesterday's full map of childhood skills, not just maths: language, science, money, music, physical skills, and every other area a well-rounded education actually covers. Maths lights up with real numbers, exactly like the chart above it. Every other area sits there too, clearly marked as "not tracked yet" rather than showing a zero that could be mistaken for a child failing at something.

That distinction mattered enough to think through carefully before building it. A zero and "not tracked yet" look similar at a glance but mean opposite things — one says a child is behind, the other says the app simply doesn't measure that yet. Showing a child's real strengths honestly, and being just as honest about what isn't being measured, felt more important than making the chart look more complete than the app actually is today. Think of it as a preview of where this project is headed — a map of the whole territory, with just one region properly surveyed so far, and markers on the rest to show what's still ahead rather than pretending it's already been covered.

What's actually behind those unlit spokes

That second chart raises an obvious question, though: fine, "not tracked yet" — but what is a child supposed to be able to do in each of those areas, by each age? Pointing at an unlit spoke labeled "science" or "money" without saying more isn't much use to a parent trying to plan. So the parent area gained a second, much plainer addition today: a full written answer to "what should my child be able to do, subject by subject, year by year?" — covering not just maths but the entire map from yesterday's chart, spelled out in plain language.

Open it and every subject is listed by name — reading, science, money, cooking, first aid, music, a second language, and everything else a well-rounded primary education might reasonably cover — each one collapsed to just its name, so the list doesn't read as a wall of text before you've asked for anything. Tap on one and it opens out into what a child is typically expected to manage by the end of each year of primary school: concrete, specific things, not vague goals — "swims 25 metres unaided" rather than "is comfortable in water," "reads a bus or train timetable and plans a journey" rather than "understands schedules." Close it again and it tucks itself away, so looking up one thing about geography doesn't leave nine other subjects sprawled open on the screen at the same time.

Maths keeps its own honest label here too, same as on the chart: it's marked as the one subject the app is actually measuring a child's real progress against, while every other subject is clearly flagged as general reference — useful as a map of what's ahead, not a record of what this particular child has or hasn't done yet. A parent can still read, in full, what a solid Grade 3 or a solid Grade 5 looks like across all of it — the app just isn't pretending to be the one keeping score outside of maths, not yet.

Three more ways to practice numbers in your head

Everything above is about seeing progress. The other piece of today's work is about making some — a child practicing addition has, until now, been the only game in town. Today, subtraction, multiplication, and division joined it, so a child working through their daily practice now meets all four basic operations, not just one.

Subtraction shows up as the natural undo button for addition: the same kind of quick-fire questions, building from simple single-digit sums with no regrouping up through bigger numbers that need real borrowing, at whatever level currently suits the child answering them. Multiplication starts with the easy times tables and works its way up to the trickier ones, and division sits right alongside it as its mirror image — the same facts, asked backwards, so a child who's just nailed "6 × 8 = 48" meets "48 ÷ 6 = ?" as something already familiar rather than a brand-new skill to learn from scratch. Each of the three, like addition before them, climbs through five levels of its own, from gentle starting points to a proper mental workout, so a child is never stuck answering questions that are far too easy or hopelessly hard for where they currently are.

The experience matches addition's in every other way too: one question at a time, an answer typed in, and an immediate "yes, that's right" or a gentle reveal of the correct answer — never a ticking clock pressuring a child to hurry. Every answer, right or wrong, quietly feeds into the same mastery picture described above, so a child's growing command of subtraction, multiplication, and division will start showing up on their own chart the same way addition already does — one more spoke on the web filling in, level by level.

One session, several kinds of questions

With four operations now on offer, picking just one at a time before starting to practice started to feel like an unnecessary chore — so today that changed too. Instead of choosing a single operation from a list, a child now ticks a box for each one they want in today's session: addition alone, or addition and multiplication together, or all four at once. Whatever's ticked, a session still asks ten questions in total, shuffled together rather than done in tidy blocks, so it feels like real mixed practice rather than four separate mini-tests taped end to end. And each operation keeps climbing its own five steps of difficulty independently — a child cruising through their times tables but still building up subtraction isn't held back waiting for one to catch up with the other; every ticked box moves at its own pace.

While that screen was being rebuilt, one small bit of housekeeping came along with it: those five steps of difficulty, which used to go by an internal word ("tier") that never actually appeared anywhere a parent would notice, are now labeled "grade" everywhere a child or parent might see them — the same word this morning's chart already uses for a child's year and for the target it's measured against, rather than two near-identical words doing the same job in different corners of the app. Nothing about a child's saved progress changes; it's exactly the same history, just described consistently.

A table to go with the picture

A chart is the right tool for spotting a shape at a glance, but it's the wrong tool the moment a parent actually wants the number — "no really, what's their multiplication score, exactly?" — and today the advancement report gained the answer to that question too: a plain table sitting right below the charts, one row per skill a child has actually practiced, and one column for each of the five school years, G1 through G5.

A skill a child hasn't touched yet doesn't get a row at all — there's nothing to show, so nothing is shown, rather than cluttering the table with a wall of zeroes for things never attempted. And within a row that does appear, a year the child hasn't reached enough practice at yet is left blank rather than printed as "0%", for the same reason the chart already avoids a misleading zero: a blank means "hasn't been tried enough to say," not "failing." Only once a real score exists does a number show up in that cell. The chart stays the best way to see the overall shape at a glance; this table is for the moment a parent wants to read off the exact figure behind one particular spoke.

Alongside the table, every mastery score in the app — the chart, the summary line above it, and now the table too — got a quiet accuracy upgrade. Until today, a child's score for a given skill and year was based on their 10 most recent answers; from today it's based on their 50 most recent. Ten answers is enough to be thrown off by one unlucky bad morning or one lucky guessing streak; fifty gives a much steadier, more honest read on how solidly a skill has actually settled in, without reaching so far back that an old, since-outgrown mistake still drags today's score down.

A starting point for children not quite in Grade 1 yet

Everything above assumes a child is already ticking along through Grade 1 and up. But plenty of children using this app are younger than that — still building the everyday number sense a Grade 1 classroom will later build on: counting a handful of toys one by one, glancing at three dots and just knowing it's three without counting, telling which of two piles has more, naming the numeral "7" on sight, or knowing that lunchtime comes after morning and before evening.

Today those skills got their own proper home in the app, sitting one step before Grade 1 rather than folded into it or left out entirely. Ten specific everyday skills — counting to twenty, recognising quantities at a glance, comparing two groups, naming written digits, adding and taking away with real objects in front of you, comparing things directly (which is longer, which is heavier, which holds more), knowing the order of a day, naming the days of the week, naming the four basic shapes, and using words like "on," "under," "next to" and "between" correctly — now have real practice behind them, sorted into six focused activities a child can pick from just like any other.

A child sees the exact same practice-then-feedback rhythm as everywhere else in the app: pick an activity, answer a question — sometimes typed in, sometimes just tapped from a couple of picture options — and get an immediate, encouraging "yes!" or a gentle "not quite, here's the answer." A parent, in turn, finds this new starting tier sitting right alongside today's chart and table: choose it instead of a school year in that same selector described above, and the same web-shaped chart redraws itself around these ten skills instead, with the same table underneath filling in real scores as a child actually practices. Nothing new to learn on the parent's side — just one more tier the same chart and table already know how to show.

It's meant as a genuine starting line, not a locked gate. A child is never made to "finish" this tier before touching Grade 1 content, and a child already comfortable with some Grade 1 skills can just as happily dip into this tier for whatever's still catching up. Practice, here as everywhere else in the app, moves at each child's own pace, on whichever skills actually need it.

Time to think is time to learn

Up until today, a child could think for as long as they needed on a question. That's still true — but now a gentle visual timer sits above each question, showing exactly how many seconds remain before moving to the next one. The timer starts at thirty seconds and counts down visibly, so a child can see time passing without feeling like there's a secret clock ticking somewhere off-screen.

Why a timer at all? Speed isn't the goal — fluency is. A child who has to think through "5 + 3 =" every single time hasn't truly learned addition yet; they're computing it, laboring through the same steps over and over. Real mastery means the answer bubbles up automatically, without conscious effort. A timer isn't there to hurry anyone along; it's there to gently nudge practice toward that real, automatic fluency. A child who's ready for a fact shouldn't need thirty seconds to answer it, and if they do, that fact might still need more practice at an easier level before it settles into something they truly know.

The timer also makes sure every practice session is finite. Without one, it would be possible for a child to sit on a single question forever, which wouldn't help anyone — not the child learning, and not a parent trying to see whether real progress is actually happening. Now, if thirty seconds pass without an answer, the app moves right along to the next question anyway, marking that one as a chance to learn rather than as a wrong move that "counts against" them. The data still shows parents and teachers exactly what happened — whether a child chose to skip by not answering in time, or submitted something wrong, or got it right quickly — so the app's picture of mastery still stays honest either way.

Every skill finds its own level, automatically

Since subtraction, multiplication and division joined addition a few days ago, starting a practice session meant answering two questions instead of one: which topic to practice, and which of five difficulty grades to attempt it at. That second question was always a bit of a guess — how is a parent supposed to know their child is ready for grade 3 subtraction specifically, as opposed to grade 2 or grade 4? Today that guesswork disappeared entirely.

A parent now sets only one grade, ever, for a child: whichever year of school they're actually in, chosen right there in the child's own profile. Every topic then starts at that grade automatically the very first time a child tries it — no separate dial to set correctly for each one. From that starting point, each topic quietly finds its own right level on its own: a few strong sessions in a row and it nudges up a notch; a rough patch and it eases back down; anything in between and it just holds steady where it is. Crucially, every topic does this entirely on its own, independent of every other one a child is working on. A child who breezes through addition might end up working a couple of years ahead of their actual grade there, while still building up multiplication much more gently — and that's exactly as it should be. The app was always designed around the idea that a child's skills don't all arrive in lockstep; now the difficulty a child practices at finally keeps up with that idea on its own, instead of asking a parent to guess correctly, topic by topic, every single time.

That change touched two other small but useful spots. The main screen used to show a single "mastery: X%" line for just one topic, addition, while every other topic's progress stayed out of sight until a parent went looking for it in the reports. Now every topic a child has actually tried gets its own small tag right there on the main screen — its name, the level it's currently working at, and how it's going — so a glance at the home screen tells the whole story instead of a quarter of it. And because a single practice session can now shuffle together questions from several different topics at once, each possibly sitting at a different level, every question during a session quietly notes which skill and which level it belongs to — so nobody watching is left wondering whether the question on screen right now is easy warm-up addition or the hard end of division.

That one-grade-per-child setting also got easier to find and use today. A child's grade now sits right next to their name wherever their profile shows up, so a parent glancing at the list of kids can tell at a glance who's in Grade 2 and who's in Grade 5 without opening anything else. And setting it no longer waits until after a profile exists: a parent choosing a grade can now do so in the very same moment they add a new child, right alongside typing in their name — or, just as before, leave it for later and set or change it anytime from the Parent Area.

The practice screen got a small tidy-up too. With ten different activities now on offer — four number operations plus six starting-line basics — listing every single one, every time, before a child has even picked what to practice was more clutter than help. That full list now stays tucked away behind a simple "choose activities" line until someone actually taps it open, and once a few are picked it quietly reports back how many are selected, so it's obvious at a glance that a choice has been made without the whole list needing to stay in view.

Beyond arithmetic: eight new ways to build number sense

Everything practiced so far — addition, subtraction, multiplication, division — is really just arithmetic wearing different hats. But being genuinely comfortable with numbers takes more than knowing how to add and multiply them. Can a child count on confidently past a hundred, then a thousand, then further still? Do they know a number is odd or even at a glance? Can they place "third" and "3" as two ways of saying the same thing? Do they understand what a negative number means — that a temperature of minus five is colder than minus two, not the other way round? None of that was practicable in the app until today, even though a fair bit of it was already sitting there as reference text for a parent to read. Today it became something a child can actually do.

Eight new activities now cover this ground, spread across the school years the way the numbers themselves naturally get bigger and trickier. The youngest of these pick up right where counting and ordering numbers leave off in the earlier grades — counting forward and backward from any starting point, reading and writing numbers that stretch from the hundreds into the millions, counting in twos, fives and tens, telling odd from even, and using ordinal words like "first" and "tenth" correctly. A little further up, children meet negative numbers for the first time, framed in ways that actually mean something to a child — a number line, a run of cold days, who owes more pocket money. And by the last couple of years of primary school, the practice turns to the more grown-up end of number sense: spotting a prime number, finding the factors that divide evenly into another number, recognising square numbers, and — as something of a bonus, since children seem to love it — reading and writing Roman numerals.

Each of these behaves exactly like every other activity in the app already does: it starts at whatever level suits where a child currently is, and quietly gets harder or easier on its own as they keep practicing, the same automatic adjustment described above for addition and the other operations. A child who's flying through counting big numbers but still shaky on odd-and-even isn't held to one pace across both — each skill, as always, finds its own level independently. And every one of these eight new activities shows up wherever a child's other progress already does: the same chart, the same table, the same small tag on the home screen naming the skill, the level, and how it's going. Nothing new for a parent to learn how to read — just more of the whole picture filled in, this time in the corners beyond plain arithmetic.

Why "37" isn't just three-then-seven

Alongside those eight, four more activities landed today, all built around a single idea that quietly underpins nearly everything else a child does with numbers: place value — the fact that a digit's position, not just its shape, is what gives it meaning. The "3" in 37 means something completely different from the "3" in 73, and a child who hasn't really internalised that will hit a wall the moment numbers get bigger than they can just picture in their head. The youngest version of this activity asks a child to pull a number apart into its tens and units, or its hundreds, tens and units, and put it back together again; by the older grades the same skill has grown into reading place value all the way out to the millions, and then across the decimal point into tenths and hundredths. A second activity turns that same understanding into a fast, practical skill — adding or subtracting 10, 100, or 1,000 to any number instantly, the kind of trick that makes mental arithmetic with big numbers actually manageable. A third practises rounding — to the nearest 10, then 100, then 1,000, and eventually to one or two decimal places — including the fiddly judgement call of what to do with a number sitting exactly halfway between two options (the app always rounds those the same way, consistently, rather than leaving a child second-guessing). And a fourth practises multiplying and dividing by 10, 100 and 1,000, the shortcut-spotting skill that place value makes possible once it's properly understood. Like everything added today, all four start at the right level for the child, adjust on their own with practice, and show up in the same chart and table as everything else — one more piece of the whole picture, not a separate thing to check.