Doodle is a great tool to help you and your child with your home educating journey. Here's how to get started and how to support your child along the way!
Getting Started by getting the level right
When your child first starts using Doodle they will be asked to complete a baseline assessment. This is Doodle's way of identifying your child's current level of learning, by identifying gaps in their knowledge, and then using this information to create a personalised work programme for your child.
Children will see a purple baseline icon in their Learning Zone. When they tap on this the baseline assessment will begin.
When they start they will be asked to confirm their month and year of birth and how confident they feel in the subject. Children will then be asked a series of questions, which will be broken into sets of questions. Children do not need to complete all the sets in one go, they can be completed over a number of days.
Encourage children to work independently through the questions and have a go at anything they’re unsure about. Helping them may cause the programme to become too challenging.
Questions are unlikely to be at the right level to begin with, so don’t worry if they’re finding them too hard or too easy. The purpose of the assessment is to find their correct level. You can find out more about the baseline assessment here.
A child's work programme in the Learning Zone
When a child has completed their baseline assessment, they will see several different types of exercise that they can complete to earn their DoodleStars. Different exercise types will appear when the app feels that the child is ready for them. These include:
A-day: a daily set of 5 to 10 personalised questions (a child can do as many of these as they like each day)
Power Up: a set of up to 15 questions in a topic a child is finding challenging as identified and set by Doodle
Tricky: a set of questions a child has saved to come back to later (we recommended that a parent/teacher checks a child's Tricky Questions each week and works through them with the child
Assignment: a set of 15 questions in a topic set by a child, parent or teacher
New: an introduction to a new topic containing short explanations and interactive elements
Encourage children to use Doodle ‘little and often’, and aim to stay in the green zone. Each child is set a weekly star target by Doodle which is designed to keep them on track in their learning. Once they’ve met this target, they’ll be in the green zone.
Supporting your child
There are a number of ways that you can support your child and their learning:
Tricky Questions
If your child is struggling with the questions it is really important that they use the in-app Help features. If after having a go at using the in-app help features, your child is still really struggling, encourage them to save the question to their Tricky Questions.
Once saved to their Tricky Questions, you can find a time to go through these questions with your child, working through the questions together. Helping a child with their Tricky Questions will not impact their work programme, but will help to support areas of learning where they need it.
Assignments
To support your child's learning or revise tricky topics you can add extra work in topics they'd like to practise a bit more. These are known as Assignments.
The Assignments that you can set cover all areas of the curriculum. Find out more about Assignments and how to set them here. If you would like to set an Assignment that is specifically tailored to your child's needs you can create a your own Custom Assignment, you can find out how to this here.
Here are some tips for best practice when adding Assignments:
Use Assignments in addition to a child's main work programme
Set one/two Assignments per week
Preview the questions before setting for a child, as Assignments require an accuracy of 75% or more otherwise they have to be repeated
Baseline Assessment
After the initial baseline assessment we recommend doing a baseline assessment a couple of times each year, just to make sure that a child is working at the correct level. The level may go up or down after a baseline assessment either jumping forward a little or covering some topics again that a child might be struggling with.
Monitoring
There are two ways to keep track of your child's progress: The Parent Dashboard or the DoodleConnect app.
DoodleConnect
DoodleConnect presents a simplified overview of your child's Doodling activities. Here you can view your child's daily Doodling efforts and see whether or not they are working within their target green zone. It is great tool for a quick check-up on your child's work.
Parent Dashboard
The Parent Dashboard is an online hub where families can keep track of their child or children's activities and progress within Doodle.
You can access your Parent Dashboard account here.
On the homepage of the Dashboard, you will receive notifications from Doodle HQ, ensuring you stay up-to-date with exciting news. You'll also be able to see a live newsfeed celebrating your child's achievements in Doodle.
You can analyse your child's effort, understanding and progress across the Doodle subjects, set Assignments for your child and create personalised Rewards to motivate and engage your child in their learning.
We recommend checking your Parent Dashboard account weekly.
Find more in depth information about the Parent Dashboard and DoodleConnect here.
Reporting
If you would like to download and print a record of your child's work on Doodle, you will be able to do this on the Parent Dashboard. To download these reports please log into the Parent Dashboard.
It is possible to download three different reports on the Parent Dashboard, one showing effort, one showing understanding and one showing progress.
You will find information on how to download reports for your child here.
✨ We are committed to helping you get the most out of the apps so if you ever need any help along the way, rest assured we have a friendly team to offer help and advice to get you back on track, just contact our Customer Success team by tapping on the chat bubble in the bottom right corner ✨