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What your child actually does

A plain tour of a practice session — the Daily Six, Fix-It Five, mock exams, and the helper your child can ask when something goes wrong.

The short version Your child opens Strivli, taps their own name, and gets six questions chosen for them — about three minutes. Everything else is there when they want it: a longer mixed set, a single topic, or a full timed mock exam. Every wrong answer can be explained on the spot and put right straight after. There is no ranking, no pass mark, and nowhere your child is compared with another child.

Opening the app for the first time

Pick who is practising

The first screen is Who's practising today? — or Add your first student if nobody has used the app on that device yet. Press + Add a student and type your child's name. That is the whole set-up: no email, no password, nothing for them to remember. Several children can share one device, each with their own name and their own history.
Type in a code, if you were given one

Got a code from your tutor? opens the Type in your code screen. The code comes from Get a join code on your own parent portal, or from your tutor. It links that device to your child so their practice reaches you. The app corrects the capitals as they type, and the code ignores dashes, so there is nothing to get wrong.

If you have no code, skip it. The screen says so itself: "No code? You can carry on practising without one — everything still works and your progress is saved on this device."
Land on the home screen

Three ways to start: the Daily Six, Start a longer set (36 questions across both subjects, about 35 minutes) and Choose a subject. The arrow at the top right opens their own scorecard at any time.

What is deliberately not there No leaderboard, no class average, no ranking, no pass mark. Nothing your child sees is labelled a failure: a wrong answer says "Not quite" and shows the right one, the lowest result heading in the app is "Good practice today", and the topic breakdown reads Needs a little focus next to Your superpowers. At ten to twelve, a child who decides they are "the one who's bad at maths" stops trying, and that decision is very hard to undo.

Doing the Daily Six

Six questions, about three minutes, and the app's main invitation. Press Start today's six and they are chosen for your child rather than picked at random:

Two from a topic they're finding hard — the work that actually moves things.
Two from a topic they're strong at. Not padding: a session that opens with nothing but weak material is a session a reluctant child stops opening.
One they got wrong before, served again to see whether it has stuck.
One from a topic they haven't touched today, for variety.

It is the same six all day, so coming back later in the evening carries on rather than starting something new. Once it's done the card changes to "Done for today — nice work! A new six is waiting tomorrow."

It is never a gate. Finishing the six unlocks nothing and skipping it locks nothing — every other kind of practice stays fully available either way. And on day one, before there is any history to choose from, the six is simply picked across the library, so a first session works exactly like a thirtieth.

Practising one subject, one topic, or a longer set

Choose a subject leads to English or Mathematics, then a topic list. Up to three topics appear at the top under RECOMMENDED FOR YOU — chosen from what your child has actually answered, not from a syllabus — and the full list of topics sits folded away underneath, so forty buttons are not the first thing a ten-year-old has to read. A single topic runs to 20 questions; a whole subject or a mixed set runs to 36.

When they practise the same topic again, Beat Your Ghost appears: a small 👻 in the corner showing what they scored at that topic last time. If they pull ahead mid-session they're told at the moment it happens, and the results screen shows a then-and-now race. The ghost is always their own past self and never another child — and when the ghost wins, the app says so kindly: "Everyone has an off day — have another go whenever you're ready."

Leaving part-way through is safe The × in the corner asks Leave this test? and warns that unfinished answers won't be saved. That is on purpose: an abandoned session never turns into a low score on their record. If they need to stop, they can stop.

Work their tutor has picked out

If your child has a tutor, the tutor can set them a piece of practice — say ten Fractions questions. It appears near the top of your child's home screen as a card saying who set it and what it is, and tapping it starts exactly that session.

It is never shown as a deadline. Your child sees no date, no countdown, and nothing marked late or overdue — a task set three weeks ago looks exactly like one set this morning. That is deliberate: a due date exists only on the tutor's own screen, so they can see who has finished. A child preparing for a selective exam has enough to carry without their practice app telling them they are behind.

It marks itself when your child finishes, and disappears from their home screen. If they do it on a train with no signal, it records when they are back online.

A one-minute Warm-Up, on the days a full session is too much

Under the three practice cards there is a quiet strip: Got a minute? Try a Warm-Up. It is sixty seconds of quick-fire number facts — times tables, division, addition and subtraction — where your child types the answer instead of picking from a list. A right answer moves straight on; there is no button to press.

Each Warm-Up opens with a Trick of the Day — one mental-maths shortcut in a single sentence, with a small animation showing why it works, and then a round built out of the facts that shortcut applies to. That pairing is the point: the shortcut is taught and then used straight away. The trick is the same all day, so if your child mentions it at teatime you are both talking about the same one. Every trick is written by a person, not generated, because a shortcut that is subtly wrong is worse than none — your child would apply it to the next twenty questions.

If a fact catches them out twice, the end screen offers — never forces — an easier way to do that fact, worked through their own numbers. Smarty Pants also says one specific, true thing about the round, like noticing a fact they got right for the first time. Never a score.

It exists for the evenings when a full test is not going to happen. Knowing 7 × 8 without working it out frees up room in your child's head for the rest of a question, and a minute is a low enough bar that they can still show up on a bad day.

It is timed, and we have been careful about that This is the only timed thing in the app besides the mock exam, so: the clock is a soft bar with no numbers, it never turns red and it never ticks. A wrong answer says "Not yet — have another go", and if the same fact catches them twice it simply shows the answer and moves on rather than leaving them stuck on it. The end screen leads with how many they answered — never a percentage and never a mark out of. Stopping early costs nothing at all.

A Warm-Up counts as practice: it fills in that day on the activity squares and keeps a streak going, which is the point of having it — on an evening when a full test is not going to happen, a minute still counts. It deliberately does not appear as a test: it is not in the list of recent tests, not on the score graph, and not in the “tests completed” figure.

The same is true of your weekly email. You will see that Warm-Ups happened — “3 of the last 7 days, including 2 quick Warm-Ups” — but the number of questions answered and the percentage correct are worked out from real practice questions only. Number facts are not exam questions, and we would rather those two figures stayed honest than looked bigger. Nothing about which individual sums your child got right ever leaves their device.

Their best round is remembered so they can beat their own score, and nothing is compared with any other child. If they finish below their best, the app does not mention their best — it names one fact worth another look and invites them to go again. Smarty Pants sits alongside and stays still while the clock is running; a mascot dancing about during a timed minute would just make it harder.

Going back over the ones that went wrong

At the end of any session, anything they got wrong is offered straight back under Fix what you missed — up to five questions, the same ones, while the mistake is still fresh. This is the Fix-It Five.

What makes it land is the summary afterwards. Instead of a disconnected percentage, it ties back to the test it repaired: "You started at 22/36 — fixing 4 questions today brings that up to 26." Getting a previously wrong question right also earns a small "Comeback!" moment on screen, so the effort of going back over something is worth more than grinding easy questions.

If some are still wrong after that, the offer appears again, so they can keep chaining short repair rounds rather than hitting a dead end.

Two supporting details worth knowing:

When a written method exists for that question — the answer key of the past paper it came from, or one your tutor has written themselves — it appears the instant a wrong answer is revealed, under Here's why. No waiting and nothing to ask for.
If a question has been changed in the library since your child answered it, it is quietly skipped rather than re-served, and they're told plainly. The app will never show a child something slightly different from what they actually answered and call it the same question.

Sitting a mock exam

The mock exam does not appear on the home screen straight away. It shows up once three ordinary sessions are behind them, because sixty minutes under exam conditions should not be the second thing a child ever sees in the app.

Start Mock Exam opens an explanation screen first, then Begin exam starts it:

56 questions — 28 English, 28 Mathematics.
One continuous 60-minute clock. It runs on real time, so it doesn't pause if they switch away.
It submits itself at zero, and anything unanswered counts the same as a wrong answer — the same as running out of time on the day.
Feedback is still instant and Smarty Pants can still be asked, exactly as in ordinary practice.
Only settled questions are used. Anything still being trialled in the library is kept out of mocks, because this is the score a child and a parent take most seriously.

It is the most pressured screen in the app That is the point of it, and it is why it is opt-in and tucked behind a warning. Pick a quiet hour rather than the end of a long school day, and treat the number afterwards as one data point among many. Mock results are marked with a diamond on the trend chart and on the printed report so they are never quietly mixed in with relaxed practice.

Asking Smarty Pants when something does not make sense

Once an answer has been checked, a button appears: Not sure why? Ask Smarty Pants after a wrong answer, or Ask Smarty Pants to explain this after a right one — because "I got it right but I don't know why" is worth catching too.

Smarty Pants is a helper that explains rather than marks. It works through the question in short steps, shows the working for maths, quotes only the relevant words for English, points gently at the likely misunderstanding rather than the child, and adds one small memory tip. Your child can keep typing follow-up questions in their own words. If their tutor has written their own method for that question, Smarty Pants builds on that method rather than teaching a competing one.

What is sent, and what your child is told The question, the answer options, what they chose and what they typed are sent to an AI service to produce the explanation. Underneath the box, in their own words, is the line: "Don't type your name, your school, or where you live — Smarty Pants doesn't need them." The full detail is in the privacy notice.

Smarty Pants occasionally says it needs a rest — after a lot of questions in a short space of time, or when the device can't reach the internet. It is always phrased as the helper taking a break, never as your child having done something wrong, and nothing is lost: the correct answer and any worked method are already on the screen.

On the results screen the same character makes one suggestion under SMARTY PANTS SUGGESTS — a single topic worth a bit of attention, with a button that starts practice on it.

Looking at their own scorecard

The arrow at the top right opens Your scorecard. It is your child's view of their own progress, and it is built to be encouraging rather than exhaustive:

Days practised this month, with a streak beside it once there is one worth naming. Days-this-month leads on purpose: unlike a streak, it can only ever go up.
Badges — only the ones they've earned, plus exactly one realistic next target. A wall of locked badges is a wall of things not achieved, so the app doesn't show one.
Their scores over time, with mock exams marked differently from practice. Tapping any point opens Session Replay: that whole test again, question by question, with what they chose and what was right.
Their practice rhythm — a square per day, darker on busier days. Blank days are simply rest days, and the app says exactly that.
Their learning map — Needs a little focus and Your superpowers side by side, never one without the other.

Rest days are built in A streak that resets after one missed Saturday is just another way to tell a child they've failed. Strivli spends up to two rest days a month automatically, without being asked, and only mentions it afterwards, once they're back: "Tuesday was a rest day — your streak is safe." It is never announced during a gap, which would only be an invitation to take another day off.

Further down, Set exam date turns a dreaded date into a week-by-week path. Stops light up because practice actually happened that week, never because time passed — so a quiet week shows as an honest gap rather than a black mark, and the path ends with "You reached exam day!" whatever the outcome. It is entirely optional and nothing nags for it.

Download backup and Restore backup at the bottom save everything to a file, which is how you move a child's history to a new laptop or recover it after a reinstall.

Practising when the internet drops out

Every answer is written to the device first, before anything is sent anywhere, and the results screen is drawn from that copy. So a slow or missing connection can never delay — or lose — the moment your child finds out how they did.

Losing the connection part-way through a session doesn't interrupt it. The questions are already on the device by the time the first one appears.
Nothing is lost. If the device is linked to you, the practice is sent up automatically the next time it is online or the next time your child opens the tab. It happens quietly in the background.
Your child is never shown a sync problem. There is no "could not save" message, because it is not something a ten-year-old can act on — it is something they would only worry about.
With no code ever entered, nothing leaves the device at all. The app is fully usable with no account and no tutor.

Two things do need a live connection: Smarty Pants, which asks an AI service for its explanation, and the very first load of the app itself, which is a web page and has to be fetched like any other. Everything between those two points keeps working.

Printing a report from your child's device

On Your scorecard, 🖨️ Print report opens your device's usual print box — so it can go to a printer or be saved as a PDF to email on. There is no print button in the parent portal; this is where the report comes from.

One page, and it holds:

Overall accuracy, tests completed, and English against Mathematics.
Accuracy over time, with mock exams marked separately from practice.
Your superpowers and Needs a little focus — up to three topics each.
Worth a second look — a handful of questions they got wrong, with the correct answer and, where the question came from a past paper, that paper's own worked method.

Under two completed tests it prints a short "Just getting started" page instead of a chart built from too little to mean anything. The footnote says in plain words that "Needs a little focus" isn't a grade — it just shows where a bit more practice will help most — which matters when the page is going to a grandparent or into a school bag.

If your child learns with a tutor Your tutor can print the identical report from their own console, and it carries their business name and colours. Both are built by the same code from the same figures, so the two can never disagree about a number.

Questions people ask

How long should a session be?: The Daily Six is about three minutes and that is a complete, worthwhile session. A fortnight of small squares on the calendar beats one enormous Sunday — regular turning-up is what moves results at this age, and it is the part a child can control.
Is there a pass mark?: No. There is no threshold anywhere in the app that a child can fall below, and no message that tells them a score was not good enough.
I have two children on the same laptop — can they see each other's scores?: Each child taps their own name and has their own separate history, and the scorecard only ever shows the child whose name is selected. There is one exception to know about: once two or more names exist on a device, a ☰ button appears in the top bar that opens a side-by-side Compare your students view. It is there for a tutor working from one laptop. If you would rather your children never met it, give them a device or a separate computer login each.
Could my child delete their own progress by accident?: Only deliberately. The bin icon on the Who's practising today? screen deletes a name and its saved tests, and it asks for confirmation first and says how many tests are at stake. It cannot be undone from inside the app, so if that worries you, take a Download backup now and again — or link the device to your portal, where a copy is kept for you.
A question looks wrong to me. What do I do?: Tell us, please — a wrong question is worth more to us than a polite silence. If your child learns with a tutor, tell the tutor: they can hide a question from their own students themselves. Otherwise email hello@strivli.co.uk with roughly what it asked and the topic it was in.

For your side of it — the portal, the weekly email, join codes and your data — see Following your child's progress.

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