Thinking, reading and maths for curious kids

It started at our kitchen table. I built it for my daughter, who is in Year 3. Watching her work through the usual practice books, two things kept happening: they drilled things that did not matter, and when she got a question wrong, nothing explained the thinking she had missed. Every lesson here began as an answer to something she genuinely struggled with. She is still the first tester of everything in it.

Roughly 8 to 10, or Years 3 to 6. The reading level assumes a confident reader. Some lessons stretch above that deliberately, because a child who finds school easy needs somewhere to go, and a practice round mixes easier and harder questions rather than sitting at one level. For context on the timing: the Opportunity Class test is sat in Year 4 and the Selective High School test in Year 6, so the same material suits a child working towards either one, or towards neither.

A Learn deck of short slides that builds the idea up with worked examples, then a Practise round of about eighteen questions. Every question offers a hint if it is wanted, and an explanation afterwards whether the answer was right or wrong. The explanation says why the right answer is right and why the tempting wrong one was tempting, which is the half that practice books tend to leave out. Questions a child gets wrong are kept so they can be tried again later, and a lesson can be repeated as often as you like.

From the official papers rather than from other people's practice books. We read every released paper and worked through it question by question, recording what each one actually asks rather than what prep material assumes it asks.

That matters because much of what is sold as preparation is built on an older version of the test, or on guesswork. Some topics that fill coaching books turn out not to appear in the real papers at all, and some question styles that are barely mentioned turn out to carry real weight. Reading questions about poems, for instance, ask what an image does to the reader rather than asking a child to name it.

So if a topic does not appear in the real papers it is not in the practice questions, however common it is elsewhere, and the topics that carry the most weight get the most lessons. The papers are published free by the Department, so none of this has to be taken on trust.

The content sits inside the NSW primary curriculum, and it is aligned to what the Opportunity Class and Selective High School tests assess. Aligned means matched to the real format rather than drilled against it: the same question styles, in the same proportions the papers actually use.

It is a skill builder rather than a cram course. The Department itself says intensive coaching is not necessary and that too much of it can harm a child's wellbeing, and we agree. Nothing here promises a place in a school, because nothing honestly could. The tests are used as a benchmark for what to cover and to what standard, and the skills underneath them are worth having whether or not a child ever sits one.

No. Everything described on this page is free, there is no account to create, and nothing asks for payment details. A paid version is planned, and it does not exist yet: it would add an AI tutor, printable progress reports for parents and sync between devices. The offline app stays free, and anything a child has already been working through does not move behind a paywall part way.

No. Nothing a child does in the app is collected: it all lives on your device, there are no accounts, and there is no server to send anything to. Profiles simply let each child keep their own scores and medals, and you can save a backup file whenever you like. This website is a different thing: like most websites, it counts visits.

The planned paid version would be different, and it is worth knowing before you start: the features it adds need a server, so it would require an account and would collect a parent email address and each child's progress. It would be opt in, it would be described in full before it ships, and none of it applies to the free app. See privacy for the detail.

Through the contact form. It is the only way to reach us, and it is deliberately not an address inside the app: a child using LearningKit should never be one tap from a message box. The form is hosted by Tally rather than by us, so whatever you type into it goes to them as well.

No. It runs in a browser. If you want it on a home screen you can add it like an app, and it keeps working with no connection once it has been opened, so a car trip or a waiting room is fine. There is nothing to download from an app store, no updates to approve, and no permissions to grant.