A home education app built for real children, not a year group
Most apps sold to home educators are school software with the school removed. Fixed year groups, fixed sequence, a dashboard of green ticks, and an assumption that your child moves through it at a standard rate. That assumption is the thing home education exists to escape.
What the app actually does
- Builds a structured curriculum on almost any topic, with week-by-week checkpoints you can follow, adapt or ignore.
- Generates printable worksheets, tests and practice as PDFs, with answers.
- Gives each child a conversational AI tutor that explains rather than handing over answers.
- Keeps a learning log and produces education reports per child, for any date range.
- Covers 16 subject areas from ages 2 to 16+, including a Learn to Read phonics programme, a narrated story library and a reading library.
The design decision that matters most
Working level is set per subject, not derived from age. A twelve year old can be secure at eight-year-old level in writing and reading at fifteen-year-old level, and the app treats both as normal rather than flagging one as a problem. If your child is even slightly uneven, and most are, this removes more daily friction than any other feature. It is also the thing school software structurally cannot do, because a classroom has to group by age and aim at the middle. In practice that means you stop translating. You are not converting your child into a year group so software will accept them, then converting the output back into something that suits them. You describe where they actually are in each subject once, and the worksheets, the curricula and the tutor all work from that.
Your values, and your child’s way of working
You set your family’s worldview, faith position or secular approach per child, and it carries across subjects. A Biblical Christian family, a Science-Focused family and a Freethinking family get genuinely different framing on the same material. None of them gets ours. Accessibility is built in rather than bolted on:
- Dyslexia-friendly fonts and adjustable text size.
- Multiple colour themes and a high contrast mode.
- Voice input and voice output, so work can happen without reading or writing.
What we will not claim
Practice in arithmetic, maths, calculus, chemistry and physics comes from 200,000+ hand-verified questions, read and checked by a person. Other subjects are AI-generated, and on very niche or specialist topics AI gets less reliable. We would rather say that than have a child quote something invented.
Parents can read their child’s tutor conversations. That is a more effective safeguard than any filter, because you know your child and no automated system does.
Devices, price and trial
It runs in any web browser and there is an Android app. An iOS release and a Google Play release are on the way. Data is encrypted in transit and at rest. Parent Only from GBP 9.99 a month covers worksheets, curriculum building, planning and reports. Parent + Child from GBP 9.99 per child a month adds the child’s tutor. Available in GBP, USD, EUR, AUD and CAD. 14 days free, no credit card required, plus guest mode with no sign-up.
Common questions
Is this a replacement for a full curriculum?
It can be, or it can sit alongside one you already use. Many families generate curricula for some subjects, use it only for worksheets and records in others, and keep a bought programme for maths. It is designed to fill gaps rather than demand you throw anything away.
Does it work offline?
Partly. Worksheets are printable as PDFs, so paper work continues without a connection. The tutor and curriculum generation need to be online.
Who built it?
Emily, a neurodivergent home-educating mother of seven, because nothing available handled very different children, uneven ability, strong interests, family values and the record-keeping all at once. It was built from inside the work.
Learning that flexes around your child
Different Drums builds curricula, worksheets, tests and learning records around almost any topic, shaped to your child's pace, interests and your family's values. Core practice in maths and science comes from 200,000+ hand-verified questions. Ages 2-16+, used by families worldwide.
No credit card required. There is also a free guest mode with no sign-up.