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Friends features

Everything you need to know about the Friends section

Kelly Antonowicz avatar
Written by Kelly Antonowicz
Updated over a week ago

To access Friends, children just need to log in to Doodle, click/tap on the arrow icon in the top left-hand corner of the Learning Zone and select Friends.

What Is the Friends Section?

The Friends section gives children access to three fun and motivating features:

  • Newsfeed – See recent achievements and progress.

  • Leaderboard – Track how they’re doing compared to others.

  • Secret Files – Unlock fun facts and surprises as they learn!


How to Access Friends

To open the Friends section:

  1. Log in to Doodle.

  2. Tap the arrow icon in the top left-hand corner of the Learning Zone.

  3. Select Friends from the menu.


Who Can Children See?

  • School Subscription:
    Children will see the avatars and achievements of classmates in their linked Doodle class.

  • Home Subscription:
    Children will only see siblings connected to the same parent account.

🛑 Note: Classmates cannot see each other’s siblings, and siblings cannot see classmates. These groups are kept separate for privacy.

Is It Safe?

Absolutely! The Friends section is not a messaging or social media platform. The only interaction available is sending a thumbs up 👍 to celebrate another child’s achievement.


Teacher Controls

Teachers can manage this feature and choose to disable parts—or all—of it for individual pupils, classes, or the whole school.


Newsfeed

The Newsfeed gives children a chronological view of their achievements in Doodle.

These may include:

  • Completing an exercise

  • Achieving a new high score in a game

  • Mastering a times table in DoodleTables

  • Reaching their weekly target (entering the green zone)

Giving and Receiving Likes

Children can celebrate their friends’ progress by tapping the thumbs up icon next to an achievement.


They can see how many likes they’ve received on their own accomplishments, but not how many others have received—keeping the focus on encouragement rather than competition.


Leaderboards

In the Leaderboards section, children can view:

  • The number of stars they've earned over the past week

  • Their current streak


Secret Files

From this section, children can view their personal records, including the total number of stars they've earned and their longest streak. They’ll also see an image of their robot or passport collection from DoodleMaths and DoodleEnglish, celebrating their progress and achievements.


Editing Friends Settings

For Parents:


The Friends feature is always active for parents. However, achievements from siblings will only appear if they are linked under the same parent email address.

For Teachers:


Teachers can manage the Friends settings for their pupils, including enabling or disabling the Newsfeed, Leaderboards, and Secret Files. To do this:

  1. Log in to the Teacher Dashboard.

  2. Go to Manage > Students.

  3. Tick the box next to the names of the students whose Friends settings you want to edit.

  4. From the Action menu that appears above, toggle Newsfeed, Leaderboards, or Secret Files on or off.

  5. Click Update to save your changes.

Default Friends Settings for New Users

  • For schools: Any new students added will have all three Friends features (Newsfeed, Leaderboards, and Secret Files) disabled by default.

  • For home users: Any new students added will have all three features enabled by default.


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