The PACE approach — Playfulness, Acceptance, Curiosity and Empathy — with each child learning at their own pace, Bloom’s taxonomy taking them to mastery, on the established British Cambridge curriculum to IGCSE.
Three ideas shape everything on The Learning Ladder. PACE is how we treat a child: with playfulness, acceptance, curiosity and empathy, and at their own pace. Bloom’s taxonomy is how we take them from knowing a fact to mastering it. And the British Cambridge curriculum, ending in IGCSE, is what they master — an established, tested curriculum rather than one we made up.
PACE
PACE stands for Playfulness, Acceptance, Curiosity and Empathy. It was described by clinical psychologist Dan Hughes as the way of being with a child that helps them feel safe — and a child who feels safe can take the risk of getting something wrong, which is where learning happens. Each letter is something the app does, not just something we believe:
The four parts of PACE
P
Playfulness
Learning should feel like a game worth playing.
In the app
17 kinds of question — drag to match, put in order, sort into groups, build a sentence, tap the picture, talk it through.
A ladder to climb and badges to collect, and a 60-second sprint on facts a child already knows.
A
Acceptance
Every child is welcome exactly where they are, and mistakes are part of the climb.
In the app
Every step is open: a child starts where they are, not where their age says they should be.
A wrong answer shows the right one, usually with why — never a buzzer — and the Comeback badge rewards getting one wrong, then the next one right.
C
Curiosity
Questions that ask why, not only what.
In the app
Questions climb from recalling a fact to analysing, judging and creating — Bloom’s taxonomy, below.
Science and Reasoning sit beside English and Maths, and the youngest answer talk tasks out loud to a grown-up.
E
Empathy
Built around how a child feels while they learn.
In the app
Every lesson teaches before it asks; difficulty moves one gentle step at a time from recent answers; many Foundations questions can be read aloud.
No clock at Foundations, a dyslexia-friendly font and high contrast, and never a price or an advert in front of a child.
At their own pace
A child climbs when they are ready, not when the calendar says so. Every step is open; you choose where each child starts and can change it at any time. Difficulty follows their last dozen answers on a topic, one level at a time, so it never lurches. Skills come back for review just before they would be forgotten, and a topic counts as mastered only on sustained accuracy. You decide when each child moves up a step, and the parent view shows the topics worth another look first.
Bloom’s taxonomy
A ladder for thinking, all the way to mastery
Bloom’s taxonomy orders thinking from remembering a fact up to creating something new. Every one of the app’s 2,035 written questions is tagged with the rung it asks a child to reach — and 53% of them ask a child to analyse, evaluate or create.
Every lesson climbs
Each written lesson must reach a minimum of the upper rungs for its step, rising as the steps rise — the app is not built until every lesson does.
Practice climbs too
In most practice topics, as a child gets it right the questions move up from routine practice towards analysing and judging.
Mastery, not a lucky run
A topic counts as mastered only on sustained accuracy over many questions, and it comes back for review just before it would fade.
A certificate earns its name
A step certificate needs Create-level work actually done in that step — not just correct answers lower down.
The parent view shows the same six rungs for each child, so you can see what kind of thinking a month of practice asked for.
6. Create
242 questions
Write, explain or make something of their own.
From the app:Explain to someone younger why knowing 6 × 7 = 42 also means you know 42 ÷ 7.
5. Evaluate
334 questions
Judge whether something is right or good, and say why.
From the app:Obi says "run" is always a verb, because running is something you do. Is he right?
4. Analyse
497 questions
Look for clues, reasons and patterns.
From the app:"My ears were making a rushing sound." What does this tell us about how Tunde felt?
3. Apply
325 questions
Use a rule or method on something new.
From the app:Build the sentence in the past tense.
2. Understand
394 questions
Explain the meaning, put it in order, say it another way.
From the app:"Rest them on paper to drain." What does drain mean here?
1. Remember
243 questions
Recall a fact or find it in the text.
From the app:What time do the lorries arrive from the farms?
The curriculum: British, Cambridge, to IGCSE
In English and Maths we follow the Cambridge curriculum, used by schools around the world, using its current programme codes. The early steps build the foundations through Cambridge Primary and Lower Secondary, and the final step prepares for Cambridge IGCSE First Language English and Mathematics (Core). Science follows the same ages and topics, and Reasoning — verbal, non-verbal and quantitative — is our own addition. The curriculum tells us what to teach and in what order; the lessons, questions and explanations are our own, and we are not affiliated with or endorsed by Cambridge.
Step One (ages 7–9) — Cambridge Primary Stage 3 · English 0058 · Maths 0096
Step Two (ages 9–11) — Cambridge Primary Stages 4–6 · English 0058 · Maths 0096
Step Three (ages 11–14) — Cambridge Lower Secondary Stages 7–9 · English 0861 · Maths 0862
Step Four (ages 14–16) — IGCSE practice · First Language English 0500 · Mathematics 0580 (Core)
Teach first, then test
A child who does not yet know column subtraction learns nothing from a hundred column subtractions. Soevery written lesson opens by teaching — short “learn first” cards, one idea at a time, or a worked example — and 103practice topics open with a worked example. What we write is the method — the steps, their order, and the mistake each one warns about. The wrong options in the practice that follows are built from those same mistakes, so a child meets the warning, then the trap.
One right answer, every time
Every question, written or generated, is checked before the app is built. Two options that could both be right, an answer key that misses an item, a picture that is missing — any of these stops the build. The question generators are tested across hundreds of seeds each, so a generated question meets the same bar as a written one.
Phonics with pure sounds
Early reading follows systematic synthetic phonics: the pure sound of each letter or letter group, then blending sounds into words. All 44 English sounds are voiced as sounds, never as letter names — sss, notess — because a child taught cuh-a-tuh blends cat wrongly.
A curriculum that feels like home
Word problems are set in Nigeria: a shared cast — Amina, Obi, Zainab, Funke and more — markets, beads and buses, and prices in naira. Names are pronounced the way they are said at home, not the way an English voice would guess.
Honest about what is still growing
The ladder has 244 written lessons and 155 practice topics today, and it is still growing — the higher steps most of all. We add to it continually, and every figure on this site is read from the app itself when the site is built, so it is never out of date.