One competency
Four weeks on a single ability — telling a story, giving reasons, weighing options. At the end, a report naming what changed. Not a score: a thing they can now do.
How it works
Three steps, start to finish
No entrance exam and no long form — the first session tells us most of what we need.
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A short diagnostic, free
About twenty minutes, in three short parts: a vocabulary task, two speaking prompts, and a listening and reading check. We report all three separately. A child who reads well but freezes when speaking is not one level — they are two.
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Three competency cycles
Every student follows the same three cycles, in the same order. Within each cycle they choose the topic — a trip that went wrong, social media, life in the city. The subject changes; what is being taught does not.
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A report every month
At the end of each month you get a description of what your child can now do — hold a story together, give reasons for an opinion — not a single letter and a number. Every three months we re-assess properly against the same rubric as the diagnostic.
The rhythm
One month, one thing they can do
Two 60-minute sessions a week. Each month covers one competency, and ends with your child demonstrating it — so there is something concrete to show for every month you pay for.
A full round, then a re-check
Three months covers all three competencies once. Then we re-assess against the same rubric as the first diagnostic — far enough apart for real movement to show.
The same cycles, harder
The three competencies repeat with more demanding material, longer expected answers and a higher bar. Same skills, deeper each time.
How long until they are fluent? Moving from A2 to B1 takes most learners somewhere around 180–200 hours of guided learning — so at two sessions a week, roughly a year. We would rather tell you that than imply it happens in a term. What we promise per month is smaller and checkable: one competency, demonstrated, with a report.
What they learn to do
Three cycles, three real abilities
Each cycle names one thing your child should be able to do by the end of it — and one cycle is one month.
Telling the story
Moving from a list of events to a proper account — what happened, in what order, how they felt about it and why.
- Put events in a clear order without being prompted step by step
- Signal sequence so a listener can follow along
- State a reaction and give a reason for it
- Describe around a missing word instead of stopping
Saying what you think, and why
Moving from "I like it" to a position backed by real reasons, and disagreeing with someone politely rather than going quiet.
- State a position and support it with two distinct reasons
- Tell a position apart from the reasons behind it
- Respond to what someone else actually said
- Disagree without sounding blunt
Weighing up alternatives
Explaining a problem, comparing two options and their trade-offs, and keeping a longer turn going without help.
- Explain a problem, its cause, and who it affects
- Present two options and name a real trade-off
- Acknowledge an opposing point before answering it
- Sustain a longer turn and self-correct rather than stop
Inside one cycle
Absorb, Connect, Express
The three stages are not three separate courses. They share one goal per cycle, so what your child takes in early on is what they have to produce by the end.
Taking it in
Guided work on listening and reading. Students work out what a text or recording means and how it is organized, and meet new vocabulary in context.
- Following longer, connected material
- Picking out the main point from the detail
- Vocabulary learned in context, not from a list
- Grammar explained where it helps comprehension
Between lessons In development
The stage that keeps the week going between sessions. We are still researching how this should work and would rather say so than promise something unproven.
- Practice shaped by your child's most recent lesson
- Designed for a phone, in short sittings
- Stays out of assessment until it has been tested
Saying it yourself
Speaking sessions using the week's ideas and language for real: organizing a message, responding to a person, and keeping going unaided.
- Connecting points instead of listing them
- Explaining opinions and giving reasons
- Recovering from a missing word rather than stopping
- Judged on being understood, never on sounding native
Next: who your child works with, or what the plans include.