Common questions, answered plainly.

SoloCogs is an AQA GCSE Science learning platform that's accessible by design - built for every kind of learner, with particular strength for students with ADHD, autism, or dyslexia. It is operated by Portsdown Tuition (a sole trader based in Portsmouth) under the trading name SoloCogs.

It has three product surfaces:

• SoloLab - interactive lessons, Required Practicals, knowledge resources
• SoloCognition - confidence-rated baseline assessment
• SoloSight - dashboards for parents, tutors, and schools

The platform covers AQA GCSE Science at both Foundation and Higher tier, for Combined Science Trilogy (8464) and Triple/Separate sciences (Biology 8461, Chemistry 8462, Physics 8463). Students switch between tiers from Account settings, and Triple content is clearly badged where it goes beyond Combined.

Go to register.html and follow the prompts. You will register your own parent account first, then add your child(ren) to it. You will need:

• Your email address (used for sign-in + account emails)
• A password (at least 8 characters)
• Your child's first name, year group, and (optionally) school

If you are a tutor working with multiple students, use register-tutor.html instead.

Sign in to your parent dashboard and click "+ Add another child". Fill in your child's first name and year group (the rest is optional, but the support profile checkboxes help us set up the right defaults for them).

When you click "Add child", we automatically create their account and show you a username + password they can use to sign in. Save these credentials immediately - we do not store the plain password, so if it is lost you will need to reset it.

Your child can then sign in at login.html using "Student" account type and their username + password.

Cell Biology is our free sample - anyone can work through the whole unit without an account, so you can see exactly how SoloCogs teaches before paying for anything.

Every other unit (the rest of Biology, all of Chemistry, all of Physics, and the KS3 topics) is included with a subscription. They are all built and tested - they just need you signed in.

If you are seeing only Cell Biology, you are most likely signed out. Sign in and the rest will be there.

Yes - SoloCogs was designed from the start around how those learners actually study. The founder is a qualified science teacher who is herself ADHD and autistic, and a parent to a neurodivergent child, so the design choices come from lived experience rather than a checklist.

What that means in practice:

• Atkinson-Hyperlegible + optional OpenDyslexic fonts, dyslexia-friendly line spacing, off-white pages that reduce visual stress
• A "plain language" toggle that swaps dense text for shorter, calmer versions across every lesson
• Motion-sparing options - the mascot can be muted, and any decorative animation can be turned off
• Cogs the mascot as a regulation cue rather than a "correct/incorrect" score - no jarring buzzers
• Confidence-rated questions so a shy student can flag "I'm not sure" without being wrong
• Coloured overlays for Irlen / visual stress

When you add a child to your account, you can optionally tick checkboxes for ADHD, autism, dyslexia, dyscalculia, visual stress (Irlen), visual / hearing impairment, or English as an additional language. These are the only SEND categories the platform asks parents about.

Based on what you tick, SoloCogs automatically turns on sensible accessibility defaults for that child - dyslexic font, calmer pacing, coloured overlays, slower read-aloud rate, etc. Your child can still change anything from the accessibility panel.

The legal SEND register codes (K/E, EHCP, Pupil Premium, Looked-After-Child) are NOT asked of parents - those are recorded SENCo-side via the school dashboard, with stronger privacy controls.

Yes. From the accessibility panel (top-left on every page):

• Mute Cogs - stops all mascot sound effects
• Dark mode - lower-contrast alternative
• Colour overlay - pale wash across the page (Irlen support)
• A- / A+ - font size scaler
• Dyslexic font - swap Lexend for OpenDyslexic

The platform also honours your system's "reduce motion" setting on animations that are purely decorative. Motion that carries actual learning content (like dye migration in chromatography, or fizz bubbles showing reactivity) stays on, because turning it off would remove information.

Every lesson section can be viewed in either "Standard" or "Plain language" mode. Plain language uses shorter sentences, everyday vocabulary before the technical term, and no idiom - what a strong SEN teacher would say to a child who's struggling with the standard textbook.

Flip it globally from the accessibility panel, and every lesson section you open next will use the plain version by default. Per-section buttons still let you flip an individual section back if you want to see the standard version once.

No. Written answers go through SoloSpell, which uses fuzzy matching to accept small spelling mistakes when the intent is clearly right. "mytocondria" and "mitocondria" both count as "mitochondria".

SoloSpell also gently nudges TikTok euphemisms (like "unalived" or "shrooms") back to the scientific term, which most students find funny - the correction is friendly, not punitive.

SoloCogs can generate an evidence log of the accessibility supports your child uses in the platform (extra time on questions, reader use, plain-language toggle, dyslexic font). That log helps a school SENCo or an exam centre demonstrate normal way of working when applying for Access Arrangements (extra time, reader, scribe, separate room).

We can't apply for the arrangements themselves - that's an exam-centre / SENCo job. But the evidence log removes one of the friction points.

If your child finds Cogs distracting or overwhelming, mute them from the accessibility panel and dial down motion. You can also switch off idle animations from the More options menu. Cogs is designed to help, not perform - if a child prefers a quieter interface, the mascot steps back completely.

On the sign-in page, click "Forgot password?". Enter the email you registered with - we send a reset link that expires in 1 hour. Click it to set a new password.

If the reset email does not arrive, check your spam folder. If it is still missing after 5 minutes, email hello@solocogs.co.uk from the address registered on the account.

Sign in to your parent dashboard. Select the child whose password you want to reset. There is a "Reset password" button on their profile area which generates a fresh password and shows it to you the same way it did when you first added them.

Hand the new password to your child and they can sign in immediately. We recommend they change it to something memorable from Account settings → Change password on their first sign-in.

Two-step verification (MFA) adds a 6-digit code from an authenticator app to your sign-in. To turn it on:

1. Install an authenticator app on your phone (Microsoft Authenticator, Google Authenticator, 1Password, etc.)
2. Go to Account settings while signed in to SoloCogs
3. Find "Two-step verification" and click "Set up two-step"
4. Scan the QR code with your authenticator app
5. Type the 6-digit code your app shows to confirm

From your next sign-in, you will be asked for the code after your password.

Sign in, then go to Account settings. The "Change password" section lets you set a new password without needing the current one (because you are already signed in). The new password takes effect on your next sign-in.

Sign in and go to Account settings. There is a "Delete account" option at the bottom. This permanently removes your account and all data we hold about you, in line with UK GDPR Article 17 (right to erasure).

If you are a parent, deleting your account also deletes all of your linked child accounts. There is no way to recover deleted accounts.

A small amount of data is kept for legal reasons (safeguarding records per KCSiE, financial records per HMRC). See our data rights page for details.

See our pricing page for current plan details. SoloCogs offers tiered subscriptions for families, school/tutor, and bulk school deployments.

Once subscriptions go live, payments will be processed by PayPal (PayPal Europe S.a r.l. et Cie, S.C.A.). You can pay with a credit card, a debit card, or your PayPal balance.

We never see or store your card details - everything financial happens inside PayPal's PCI-compliant environment. You can read PayPal's privacy notice here.

Sign in and go to Account settings → Subscription. You can cancel at any time. Your access continues until the end of your current billing period (no early-cancellation refund).

Cancelling does not delete your account or your child's progress data - it just stops the next renewal. You can resubscribe later and pick up where you left off.

See our Refund Policy. In short: we offer a full refund within the first 14 days of your first subscription, no questions asked.

Beyond that, refunds are at our discretion. If something has genuinely not worked for your child, get in touch and we will sort it.

No hidden fees. The pricing page price is the total you pay - no add-on for premium features, no per-unit charge, no extra for the SEND accessibility tools.

SoloCogs is a study platform, not an exam-entry service. Exam entry is booked and paid for by your child's school in the usual way (mainstream schools include it in school fees or the pupil premium). If your child sits GCSEs as a private candidate, the exam centre invoices you directly - that fee is separate to SoloCogs and typically £200-£410 depending on how many papers.

Yes - the Family plan covers up to 2 children on one parent account. Each child has their own login, their own progress, their own dashboard, but you only pay one subscription. See pricing for current family rates.

For more than 2 children, get in touch - we set up multi-child family accounts on request.

Cancel at the end of a billing period, resubscribe when you're ready. Your child's progress, XP, HoLL discoveries, and Atomic Vault stay saved - nothing is lost during a gap. When you resubscribe, they pick up exactly where they left off.

A dedicated "pause" button (skip a month without cancelling) is on our roadmap - email us if you'd like to be notified when it lands.

Yes, in a few situations:

• Annual billing - two months free (14% off), built into the pricing page.
• More than one child - the Family plan works out materially cheaper than two single-child subscriptions.
• Occasional codes - we sometimes issue discount codes, for example to a home-education community or a setting running a pilot with us. These are occasional and at our discretion rather than a standing offer, so we cannot promise one, but it is always worth asking if you think it might apply to you.

No influencer codes or referral chains. We would rather people found us because a teacher or a parent actually recommended us.

SoloLab is the lessons + resources side of the platform. Each science unit has multiple sub-units, each with: an objectives list, key words, lesson content (with a plain-language toggle for Higher-tier content), interactive activities, knowledge checks, and exam-practice questions.

Required Practicals get their own virtual-lab environment where students can run experiments safely + generate a PDF evidence report for school.

SoloCognition is our confidence-rated baseline assessment. Students rate how confident they feel about a topic before answering, then we compare their confidence to their accuracy. This produces a "calibration" pattern - finding the places where they think they know it but actually do not, and the places where they know it but lack confidence.

Used at the start of a unit, mid-way, and at the end - tutors and parents can see exactly where attention is needed.

SoloSight is the dashboards side - separate views for parents, tutors, and school staff. Each view shows the right level of detail for that role:

• Parent dashboard - your child's progress + how they are feeling + alerts if something needs attention
• Tutor dashboard - all your assigned students with comparison views + mastery heatmaps
• School dashboard (closed beta) - SEND register coverage + cohort analytics + DPIA-ready reports

By default, every account starts on Foundation Tier - which is the route our accessible-by-design approach is optimised for. To switch to Higher:

1. Sign in, go to Account settings
2. Find "Working tier" and select "Higher"

Higher Tier is additive - all the Foundation content stays available too. You will see Higher-only content sections (with a Higher Tier badge) and Higher-only questions inside SoloCognition.

These are the gamified progression features:

• Hall of Legends (HoLL) - a collection of scientists you discover by clicking bold names in lessons. There are 200+ scientists across all the units, including under-represented and modern figures.
• Atomic Vault - a periodic-table-themed XP system. As you earn XP, you unlock elements one by one - starting with hydrogen and working upwards. Hit milestones to unlock avatar items and Cogs reactions.

Neither is required for progression. They are there for students who like that style of motivation.

Three different ways of looking at your child's grade picture:

• Working - the grade they'd score if they took the exam today, based on the average of their recent SoloCognition quizzes.
• Predicted - a projection of where they're heading, factoring in their recent scores plus whether their trend is going up or down. It's not a promise - see the disclaimer below.
• Target - the grade they're aiming for. Set by their teacher (for school pupils) or by you (from Account settings).

For KS3 children (Y7-9), there's no meaningful GCSE grade yet - they haven't covered enough of the specification. Instead of a number, the "Working" cell shows their trajectory word (see next question).

The trajectory chip compares your child's projected end-of-Y11 grade to their target. Five words we use:

• Steaming ahead - projected grade is at least a full grade above target.
• On track - projected grade meets or comfortably approaches the target.
• Nearly there - projected grade is within one grade of the target - a little push closes the gap.
• Below target - projected grade is more than a grade below the target. Worth a conversation about what's getting in the way.
• Building picture - not enough quiz data yet to say either way.

For KS3 children the same words appear in the "Working" cell of the dashboard - since there's no useful current GCSE grade, the word describes where they're heading rather than where they are.

Effort is deliberately not about being right. It's about showing up, trying, and building good habits. A child who repeats a hard quiz five times to nail it scores higher on effort than a child who breezes through once and disappears for a week.

It's a composite score out of 100, weighted from five signals we can measure:

• Sign-in streak - consecutive days logging in.
• XP level - lifetime experience earned across the platform.
• Recent activity - quiz attempts in the last 7 days.
• Spread - how many different days they were active over the last fortnight (short-and-often beats binges).
• Required Practicals - AQA lab skills attempted.

The label maps to bands: Great effort (70+) · Good effort (45+) · Building routine (25+) · Getting started (10+) · Just beginning (below). We never say "low effort" - the worst label is "Just beginning", because that's what it is.

AQA GCSE Science has two tiers of exam paper:

• Foundation covers grades 1-5 (a "5" is the top grade available). In Combined Science that is 5-5 down to 1-1.
• Higher covers grades 4-9 (9-9 down to 4-4 in Combined Science). There is a safety net just below: a student who narrowly misses the bottom grade can still be awarded an allowed grade 3, or an allowed 4-3 in Combined Science. Below that safety net the result is unclassified, so there is more risk on Higher.

Schools pick which tier each child sits, usually in Y11. The chip on the dashboard suggests which tier suits your child based on where they're currently working:

• Higher-tier ready - working consistently at grade 6+. Higher is the right paper.
• Stretching towards Higher - working around grade 5, showing potential. Either tier could work - discuss with school.
• Foundation-focused - working below grade 5. Foundation gives them the best shot at a strong pass.
• Not enough data - not enough quizzes done to say yet.

The grade 5 borderline is genuinely hard to call, and it is the one teachers agonise over. A student sitting consistently at a 5 could go either way, and the school is weighing two different risks.

If that student is showing they can handle Higher-tier material, a teacher may enter them for Higher in the hope they reach for a 6 or a 7 - a ceiling they simply cannot reach on Foundation. But if the grades are not yet consistent, the same teacher may choose Foundation to protect the result, because Foundation guarantees a straightforward route to a strong pass with no risk of an unclassified.

AQA's own guidance is a useful tiebreaker: the safety net exists to catch a solid Higher-tier student having an off day, not to be relied on from the start. If a student would be counting on it before they even sit the paper, Foundation is usually the better entry - they often have a better experience and sometimes come away with a higher grade. It is also worth knowing that around 60% of the marks on a Higher paper are aimed at grade 6 and above, so a student who is not working near that level can find it a discouraging paper to sit.

Neither tier is "better" than the other. A grade 5 on Foundation is worth exactly as much as a grade 5 on Higher for college / sixth-form entry. Foundation-focused isn't a criticism - it's a route.

This decision belongs to the school, who see your child across every lesson and assessment. The chip on the dashboard is there to help you have an informed conversation with them, not to overrule it.

Because we're not an exam board and we're not fortune-tellers. A predicted grade on your child's dashboard is our best mathematical projection from what they've done so far - not a guarantee of the grade they'll actually get in August.

Real GCSE results depend on things we can't see or model: how they perform on the day, whether the exam paper suits their strengths, how the boundaries land that year, whether they revise properly, and any number of life events between now and the exam.

The real world matters too, and it cuts both ways. If your child has worked really hard, put the revision in, and walks into that exam hall on a good day feeling on top form, they can outperform everything anyone expected of them - us, their teachers, and even themselves. Equally, if they are feeling unwell, or the room is loud and stuffy and they are struggling to concentrate, they may not do as well as any of us hoped. We always hope for the first one.

Predictions are a tool for spotting patterns and starting the right conversations. "Where should we help?" is a great use. "You're getting a 6, guaranteed" is not.

Sign in and go to Account settings → Your child → Target grade. Pick a number 1-9 (Foundation caps at 5; Higher caps at 9). Save.

The dashboard updates immediately. If your child's school has set a target, that one takes priority - you'll see it displayed as "set by school" and the field will be locked.

If your child is in KS3 (Y7-9), a target grade is what you'd like them to achieve by the end of Y11. The dashboard uses that to work out whether their current trajectory is on track.

AQA. Every unit, every lesson, every Required Practical, every practice question is aligned to the current AQA GCSE Science specifications:

• Combined Science Trilogy (8464)
• Biology (8461)
• Chemistry (8462)
• Physics (8463)

We picked AQA because it's the specification most UK state schools use and because the 2027 reforms are drafted against it - meaning our platform is being built to be reform-ready without a rewrite.

Yes. Every unit has both Foundation and Higher content. Foundation is the default because our accessible-by-design approach is optimised for that route, but Higher is fully written, badged clearly, and available from Account settings → Working tier → Higher.

Switching to Higher is additive - you keep all the Foundation content and see Higher-only sections layered on top.

Yes. All three separate sciences (Biology 8461, Chemistry 8462, Physics 8463) are covered on top of Combined Science Trilogy. Content that appears only in Triple carries a "Triple" badge so students on Combined don't get thrown by it.

Yes, but with a caveat. The three main GCSE Science exam boards (AQA, Edexcel, OCR Gateway) overlap by roughly 85-90% - the science is the same, but the wording of the specification points, the sequence of topics, and some specific Required Practicals differ.

We built AQA first because it is where most students are. AQA is the most-used board for GCSE Science by some distance - around 80% of entries in Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Combined Science. Starting there meant the largest number of students got an exact match to their specification rather than a close approximation.

What this means for a non-AQA student:

• Lessons, key words, and practicals will match ~90% of their spec
• Command-word practice (Mastery Exam Technique unit) works for any board
• SoloCognition confidence work is board-agnostic
• The ~10% mismatch is usually specific facts unique to one spec (e.g. an OCR-only case study)

Ecology and Physics have the biggest board-specific variations. If most of your child's science practice is AQA-friendly with a top-up from their school textbook for spec-specific facts, SoloCogs is a strong fit.

Edexcel and OCR content is on its way. We are building dedicated material for both boards so non-AQA students get the same fit rather than a close approximation. Watch this space - and if you would like to be told when your board is ready, email hello@solocogs.co.uk and we will let you know.

Not by itself, no. SoloCogs is the study side - the lessons, practice, diagnostic, and progress tracking. The exam still has to be sat at an approved exam centre that accepts private candidates. Home-educators typically arrange this via:

• A partner exam centre (often a further-education college or a private centre)
• Distance-learning exam-booking services like Tutors and Exams

SoloCogs pairs well with any of these - use us for the learning, book the exam via a centre. Roughly, you'd budget SoloCogs (from £14.99/month) plus exam fees (£200-£410 for a three-paper combined Science, paid direct to the centre). That's the honest total cost for a private-candidate route.

No - SoloCogs is a study platform, not a tutoring service. Your child studies with us independently, and the parent (or school, or existing tutor) sees their progress via SoloSight.

If you'd like a human tutor and SoloCogs, there are two easy routes:

• You already work with a tutor - they can sign up on the Tutor tier and use SoloCogs alongside your sessions. Share your child's progress with them via SoloSight so they see the same data.
• You'd like to add a tutor - we can't hire one out to you, but Portsdown Tuition, the tutoring practice behind SoloCogs, offers 1:1 GCSE Foundation Science in the Portsmouth area and online.

Yes - once the school is signed up. Teachers use the SoloSight staff dashboard to assign specific lessons, Required Practicals, or Knowledge Checks to a class, a group, or an individual. Assigned work shows up on the student's home page marked "Set by [teacher name]".

Family accounts don't have this because there's no "teacher" - but a parent can encourage the same behaviour by clicking "Add to today" on any lesson from the parent dashboard.

School deployments go through a brief sales conversation rather than self-service signup, because we need to scope the right tier (per-pupil pricing vs whole-school) and confirm DPA + MIS integration details with your data lead.

The easiest route is to book a 30-min scoping call at a time that suits you - we'll cover pricing, MIS integration, DPA, and anything specific you'd like to focus on.

Prefer email first? Send a note to schools@solocogs.co.uk with the school name, rough pupil count, and your role. We respond within two working days.

It depends on the route. Two common patterns:

Pattern 1 - SoloCogs is part of your tutoring service. You sign up for the Tutor pack (£49/month, up to 20 students). Your students sit on your seats; their families don't separately subscribe. Use SoloSight to manage their progress between sessions.

Pattern 2 - SoloCogs is a recommendation alongside your tutoring. The family signs up themselves for the Family bundle or single-child plan, and you use SoloSight as a "shared dashboard" link the parent forwards to you. They pay, you reference.

If you have a student whose siblings ALSO want to use SoloCogs but aren't being tutored by you, the family bundle (up to 2 children on one parent account) is usually the cheapest route - and the siblings get access without needing their own tutor seat.

A tutor referral programme - where you recommend SoloCogs to families OUTSIDE your tutoring practice and earn a referral discount - is on the roadmap. We'll email you when it launches.

Our standard Data Processing Agreement (DPA), based on the ICO's controller-to-processor template, is pre-signed and available on request. Email hello@solocogs.co.uk for a copy.

You can also review our internal data-protection framework before signing:

• Privacy Policy with sub-processor list
• Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA)
• Safeguarding Policy
• Incident Response Runbook
• Data Subject Rights process

Content-Security-Policy headers, multi-factor authentication on admin accounts, row-level security on every database table, encrypted backups, and an incident-response process aligned to the UK GDPR 72-hour notification requirement.

If you need our full security evidence pack for a procurement review, email hello@solocogs.co.uk and we will send it over.

The minimum we need to run the service. Specifically:

• First name (legal + preferred), year group, generated username
• Date of birth - entered when the child account is created
• Optional support-profile tags if you ticked any when adding them
• Learning activity - quiz answers, lesson completion, confidence ratings, mastery patterns
• Wellbeing check-ins (Zones of Regulation) if your child uses that feature
• Sign-in timestamps and session data

We do NOT collect: home address, photos, location, or contact lists. We never sell or rent data, never use children's data for advertising, and never train AI models on student input.

Full detail in our Privacy Policy.

If a student types something into a free-text field that suggests they might be at risk (mentions of self-harm, abuse, suicidal ideation, etc.), our safeguarding system logs it and alerts the Designated Safeguarding Lead.

For school accounts, the school's DSL is contacted. For family accounts, the parent is contacted unless contacting them would put the child at greater risk - in which case external safeguarding services (NSPCC, social services) are notified per the Safeguarding Policy.

See our Safeguarding Policy and Safeguarding Flow for the full process.

UK GDPR gives you several rights including the right to a copy of your data, the right to correct it, and the right to delete it. The simplest way to use any of them:

1. Email hello@solocogs.co.uk with subject "Data rights request"
2. Tell us which right you want to use + the email or username on the account
3. We respond within one calendar month (usually much faster)

Full step-by-step guide on our data rights page.

Yes. The ICO's Age Appropriate Design Code (AADC) is the UK's standard for online services children use. SoloCogs is built specifically for children and complies with 14 of the 15 standards (the 15th, about connected toys / IoT, does not apply to us).

Our internal audit against each of the 15 standards is documented and updated annually.

Latest versions of Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Safari on desktop. Latest versions of Safari on iPad / iPhone, and Chrome on Android. We test on a representative range of school-issued devices.

Internet Explorer is not supported. Very old Android tablets (running pre-2020 Chrome) may have rendering issues.

Try the following in order - most issues are fixed in the first two steps:

1. Refresh the page (Ctrl+R or Cmd+R)
2. Hard-refresh to clear the cache (Ctrl+Shift+R or Cmd+Shift+R)
3. Try a different browser (Chrome if you were on Safari, etc.)

If the problem persists, email us and we will pick it up: hello@solocogs.co.uk. It helps enormously if you can tell us what you were doing, which browser you were on, and send a screenshot if you are able to.

SoloCogs needs cookies and JavaScript turned on to work. The cookies are minimal: a sign-in token, your preferences, and (if you opted in via the cookie banner) anonymous analytics.

If you have strict cookie / script blockers turned on, you may need to allow solocogs.co.uk and rbeejpfrofhtuombbgrj.supabase.co specifically.

Yes - SoloCogs is a Progressive Web App (PWA). On Chrome, look for the "Install" icon in the address bar. On Safari iOS, tap the share menu and choose "Add to Home Screen".

The installed app can show static content offline (cached lessons), but anything requiring sign-in needs a network connection.