What's new in Kākā Math

• Questions with an accepted range now show on iPhone and iPad. Quick Review, topic recaps and weekly plan practice were quietly leaving out some questions, mostly estimation ones where an answer close enough counts. The server sent the accepted range in a form the iPhone app could not read, so the app skipped the question. It now sends it in the form both apps expect. Nothing to update: the questions are back already. Android was not affected.

• Less reading before the maths. Many questions said the same thing twice, told a story that added nothing, or opened with a lesson introduction that taught the whole lesson up front. Each year level now has a word limit for questions and introductions. Lessons are being trimmed a few at a time, wordiest first, starting with four on 6 November. Only the wording changes: the maths, the answers and the step-by-step teaching stay the same.
• Guided questions no longer give the answer away. The first card of a guided question used to repeat the question and often work out the answer before the steps did. It now sets the scene and leaves the working to the steps and to your child.
• Older students get fewer stories that do nothing. From Year 7, a character stays in a question only when they make the numbers mean something. Younger years keep their short stories, and statistics questions keep the context they ask your child to read.

• Practice only covers lessons your child has started. Each day's practice and the weekend check used to draw on every lesson in the week, so a child could get questions on something nobody had taught them yet. Now a lesson counts once your child has answered a question in it. If they haven't started any of this week's lessons, the This week card lists them and says practice opens when they start one. From the next update of both apps, a lesson they haven't finished also sits under "Still to do" below the practice. Until then, the card shows the lessons as it does on a session day.
• The suggestion no longer skips a lesson. If your child never started one of the week's lessons, Kākā Math now suggests One more week rather than Move on. The choice is still yours.
• You and your child get matching practice. If you learn alongside your child, each day's practice now picks the same questions for you both wherever it can, so you can work through them together and compare answers. A question one of you got wrong still comes back for that person, and a question one of you has already had is swapped for another, so your sets can differ by a few.

• You can talk a weekly plan through with Kākā. From the next update of both apps, tap Talk it through with Kākā in set-up and say what your child needs, such as a test coming up or something they are stuck on. Kākā asks a few questions, then drafts a plan from real lessons, taking the parts of earlier topics your child actually needs rather than starting each from the top. You see the plan on the usual screens and can remove anything before you tap Start plan. Nothing starts until you do. Kākā looks at your child's recent Cheeky Checks and practice, and says so. A family can have 5 of these chats a day and 30 a month, and searching for a topic yourself is always there.
• A plan can start today, or on the day you choose. From the next update of both apps, choose Today or another day under First session, up to four weeks ahead. Your session day stays as it is: start on a Tuesday with Saturday sessions and week 1 is a short one, with your first weekend check on Saturday. If the session day is less than three days away, week 1 runs to the one after, so your child has time to practise first.
• Worksheet diagrams are read before they are solved. On a sheet of triangles or shapes, the answer depends on which side or angle the diagram marks. Kākā used to lose that detail and could give a confident wrong answer, or say "if your diagram shows..." and offer two. It now reads where the unknown sits and what each measurement labels, and works from that. Photos taken sideways or upside down are turned the right way up first.
• If Kākā can't read a diagram, it says so. That question shows that Kākā could not read the diagram and has not guessed, and suggests snapping it on its own for a closer look. The rest of the sheet still works.
• Question numbers match the sheet. On a sheet laid out in columns, question 11 in Kākā is now question 11 on the page.

• The apps' green is a little darker. From the next update of both apps, buttons, links and highlights use the same deeper green as the website and the lesson diagrams. White writing on a green button, and green writing on a white card, are now easier to read, and meet the accessibility standard for text contrast. Themes from The Hollow keep their own colours.
• Green writing is easier to read in dark mode. From the next update of both apps, green words, icons, progress bars and the selected tab use a lighter green when the phone or tablet is in dark mode, so they stand out against the dark background and meet the same accessibility standard. Green buttons with white writing keep the deeper green, and light mode looks exactly as before. A theme from The Hollow gets a lighter shade of its own colour in dark mode in the same way.
• The Android app icon matches the iPhone's. From the next update of the Android app, its icon on the home screen is Kākā on the same pale green-to-blue background as on the iPhone, instead of on dark green. If your phone or tablet uses themed icons, Kākā keeps its glasses there too. Icons from The Hollow are unchanged.
• Six questions that marked right answers wrong are fixed. In Years 3, 6, 11 and 12, six questions could not be answered correctly: a comparison checked against a different number from the one it showed, two boxes in a matching question had the same volume, and four ordering questions gave every item the same value, so only one of many right orders was accepted. Each now has different numbers and one right answer, with an explanation of how to get it.
• Twenty-nine more questions accept the right answer. From Year 1 to Year 11, 29 more questions could mark a right answer wrong: ordering questions with two items of the same value, matching questions with two boxes that said the same thing, and comparisons whose answer could not be picked or whose labels had been cut off. Each now has one right answer, and the hints that simply told your child the answer now help them work it out instead.
• Questions no longer show the answer they ask for. In 44 questions from Year 2 to Year 13, a comparison box showed the worked result instead of the sum to work out (9 instead of 15 - 6), or an ordering item gave its place away in brackets, such as "Scalene (0 equal)". They now show only the question, and the working is left to your child.

• Android matches the iPhone in a few small ways. A Cheeky Check that was left waiting while the app was in the background now moves on to its result as soon as the "ready" notification arrives. Each topic on the Topics screen has its own picture, as on the iPhone, and the Topics screen no longer carries a sign-out menu: signing out is in Explore and in Settings, and a child switched in by a parent goes back with Back to Parent. The summary boxes on your child's page and the rows on the lesson summary have their small pictures, a lesson shows a leaf beside its Feathers, and picking a lesson back up where your child stopped no longer shows the "Let's learn together" or "Your Turn" card again. Tapping the answer box on a long question brings it back into view above the keypad.
• Screen readers describe question pictures. From the next update of both apps, VoiceOver on iPhone and TalkBack on Android read a short description of a question's picture, such as "Kākā at a whiteboard pointing to a column sum". Until now they skipped it. The description never gives the answer away.
• Android remembers your password. From the next update of the Android app, Google Password Manager suggests a strong password when you create your account, offers to save it, and fills in your email and password when you sign in, as the iPhone already did. It also fills in a new password when you reset a forgotten one.
• The privacy policy lists all four AI services. It used to name two. Anthropic's Claude, and Google's Gemini when we switch a task to it, are the only ones that see anything your child types or photographs, and the policy now says exactly what each is sent. OpenAI draws question illustrations, Gemini draws Kākā and the rewards, and ElevenLabs reads lessons aloud. Those three work from our own lesson material and are sent nothing about your child.
• About 2,000 questions have their own example again. In 351 lessons from Year 3 to Year 11, Example Question on a question's Help sheet had lost the example written for it, so your child was offered the lesson's examples to pick from. Each of those questions now opens straight into the example that shows its method. Where none in the lesson did, the missing example is back under Example Questions, checked and rewritten: 86 in all. A further 233 questions, from Year 3 to Year 12, opened an example for a different method, such as one that rounds up for a question that rounds down. Each now opens an example that shows its own method: 61 more under Example Questions, most of them brought back and rewritten, and 17 written new where the lesson never had one.
• Every question explains its answer. After your child answers, Kākā Math shows how the question is worked. On 2,756 questions from Year 1 to Year 13 that explanation was only a scrap of working after "To solve this problem:", such as "All = 2. Equal." Each one now shows the method and the answer in a sentence or two, pitched at your child's year level.
• Nothing to buy on iPhone during the beta. From the next update of the iPhone app, the subscription screen no longer lists plans or a Subscribe button while Kākā Math is free. It says there is nothing to buy until the beta ends, as the Android app and the pricing page already did.

• Flock invitations can be accepted. The Join button in a flock invitation email didn't work, and the iPhone app had no way to accept one. From the next update of both apps, tapping Join opens the app, shows whose flock it is and joins your family in one tap, and your children appear on the flock's leaderboard straight away. If you read the email on a computer, paste its link into Leaderboard, Flocks, Join a Flock on your phone instead. Only a parent can accept.
• Weekly plans. From the next update of both apps, you can pick a goal topic on your child's page and Kākā Math lays out the lessons to get there, two a week, starting with the basics if they need them. Each week has the same rhythm: you do the lessons together on a session day (Saturday unless you choose another), your child does a short set of questions on the other days, and a weekend check of 8 questions tells you whether to move on, spend one more week or step back. You make the call and the app suggests one. You choose the day and the number of questions a day, and you can pause or end the plan at any time.
• A parent's own learning profile. Turn on Learn alongside and you can do the same lessons on your own profile, with your results beside your child's each week. It doesn't count as one of your five children.
• An email the evening before each session. It says how the week went, which mistakes are worth talking about, and links to a prep page with the next lessons, a worked example and a few questions to try yourself. For a child on a plan it replaces the Monday email.
• Quick Review steps aside on a plan. Today's practice already brings back earlier work, so the Quick Review card is hidden and the Daily Forage becomes finishing today's practice or doing the weekend check.
• Topic Recap no longer uses up questions for your other children. A recap used to take its questions out of every child's pool, not just the child doing it. Each child now has their own.
• Search looks inside topics. From the next update of both apps, the search box on the Topics screen also matches lesson titles, so "hypotenuse" finds the Pythagoras topic through its "Finding the Hypotenuse" lesson. Each topic in the results lists the lessons that matched.
• Year 10 bearings no longer needs trigonometry. Two lessons in Location, Navigation & Bearings asked for sine, cosine or tangent, which Year 10 doesn't cover and Kākā Math first teaches in Year 11. Those questions and hints now use scale drawings and Pythagoras only, in line with the 2026 curriculum. A new worked example shows how to find the distance after a trip with three or more legs.
• Worksheets tell you when they're done. A Cheeky Check of a single question has always sent a "Cheeky Check Ready" notification, so your child can tap Go Back and carry on. A worksheet now sends one too, when its last question is marked, or says so if Kākā couldn't read the photo. A check you run for your child comes to your phone.
• Your own learning profile isn't offered as a child. From the next update of both apps, Cheeky Check's "Whose homework is this?" and a wish's "Specific Children" list only your children. With one child and your own profile, Cheeky Check picks your child without asking. On Android, a child with no nickname now shows by name in that wish list, not as "Student".
• The help centre, checked against both apps. Every article was checked against the iPhone and Android apps this week and corrected where it had drifted. New pages cover finding your way around the app, your settings and your child's, and the list of notifications behind the bell. The weekly plans page now has pictures from both apps.
• Fairer Feathers when a question comes back. Tries and hints now count afresh each time a question comes back in Quick Review, a weekly plan or a lesson done again. A question your child already got right pays a quarter of its reward when they get it right first time, where it often paid an eighth or nothing at all. One they missed in an earlier session pays in full if they get it right first time now.
• Feathers badges count Feathers earned. The Tūī, Kererū, Pūkeko, Kea, Huia, Feather Fortune and Feather Empire badges now go by every Feather your child has earned, so spending in The Hollow or on a Wish no longer holds one back. A child who has already earned enough gets the badge after their next answer, and no badge already earned is taken away.
• Your child can no longer sign the family out on Android. While you were switched to your child, the Android app still showed Sign Out at the foot of Explore, and it signed out the whole family account with no PIN. From the next update it shows only Back to Parent there, as the iPhone app does. A child signed in on their own Android device still has Sign Out, and is now asked to confirm first.
• Deleting an account you made with Apple or Google. The delete screen told you to leave the password blank if you never set one, then refused the blank password. It now accepts it. If you set a password later with Forgot Password, enter that one.
• Deleting your account cancels a card subscription. A subscription you took out by card on the website used to carry on after the account was deleted. It is now cancelled straight away, so you aren't charged again. Apple and Google Play subscriptions still have to be cancelled in the store first.
• The right warning for an invited adult. From the next update of both apps, an adult who joined someone else's family is told that deleting their account removes them from that family, and that its children and their progress stay with the owner. The warning used to say every child profile would be deleted.
• The Android app catches up on four small things. From the next update, a question's Help button on Android offers Example Question, a similar question worked through step by step, as the iPhone app does. The sheet after a third wrong answer is titled Need a Hand?, your child's page lists the badges they've earned rather than only counting them, and the flag for reporting a worked example has moved into the bar at the top of the screen.
• Pick up an unfinished lesson from the Nest. From the next update of the iPhone app, a lesson your child started and left part way shows under Continue Learning on the Nest, with how far they got, as it already does on Android. Tap it to carry on.
• Delete a Cheeky Check from inside it on Android. From the next update, an earlier check opened from Previous Snaps has a bin at the top, as on iPhone, as well as press and hold in the list.
• Granted Wishes say Granted. On iPhone, a Wish you have granted was marked Done in your list. It now says Granted, as it does on Android.
• The same notification settings on both apps. From the next update, each switch has the same name on iPhone and Android, in the same order, with a line under it saying what it is for. On iPhone, Weekly Summary now shows even with Push Notifications off, because it also turns the Monday email on or off.
• Problem Questions show the solution on Android. From the next update, opening a hard question on your child's page shows its worked solution under the answers, as it does on iPhone.
• When each device was last used. Your child's Active Sessions list now says when each device was last active on Android too, and both apps word it the same way, for example "Active 3 hours ago".
• Recent Activity names the game. A round of Kākā Munchers or Connect the Dots used to show up as Times Table Challenge on your child's page and in their Explore tab. It now shows the game they actually played.

Fixes from the next update of both apps, most of them reported by a family using the iPhone app.

• Starting a lesson is the default. When a lesson builds on earlier topics, the app used to ask "Want to build up first?" on almost every topic and made catching up the big button. Now "Start the lesson" is the main button and practising earlier topics is the smaller option. The question is asked once per topic for each child, and not at all once they've started that topic. On Android it no longer appears on every lesson tap.
• Search on the Topics screen. Type "trig" or "fractions" above the topic list to find a topic in the year you're looking at.
• Revise this topic goes to the topic. After a Cheeky Check on iPhone, tapping Revise this topic sometimes left a screen stuck on "Preparing...". It now closes Cheeky Check and opens the topic. The button no longer shows on a check a parent runs, where it had nowhere to go.
• Glossary words open first time. On iPhone, tapping a sentence with several glossary words could open an empty list the first time. It now lists the words straight away.
• No more blank screens in lessons. On iPhone, moving between a lesson, its practice and earlier topics could leave an empty grey screen, or send you back out of a lesson you'd just come into.
• Tidier screens on iPhone. The "Correct" message in a Maths Check-In now shows over the number pad instead of pushing it up the screen, and a worked example's title bar says "Example" instead of showing raw maths symbols.

• A sharper eye on photos of homework. Cheeky Check now uses Anthropic's Claude, rather than Google's Gemini, to read a photo of your child's working and mark it. In side-by-side tests on real worksheets it read every answer on a crowded, sideways page that the old reader gave up on, and it was more likely to give the right answer alongside each mistake. The privacy policy now says photos go to Anthropic (Claude) or Google (Gemini).

• The Help page is now a help centre. Thirty-six articles in six topics, from adding a child and the family PIN to Cheeky Check, Wishes and cancelling a subscription, each written from the app as it is today. Search finds the right section of the right article as you type, and every article says when it was last checked.
• Help from inside the app. The next update of both apps adds a Help Centre row to Settings, next to Contact Support, that opens these pages.
• See your child's check-in and practice-test results on iPhone and iPad. From the next app update, your child's page has Maths Check-In and Numeracy Practice rows, as on Android, listing every check-in and practice test they've finished with the full results for each. Tapping the "finished a practice test" notification now opens that test's results.
• Every practice test for parents on Android. From the next Android update, your child's Numeracy Practice row lists every type of practice test with how many attempts they've finished, where before it showed NCEA Numeracy only. A test your child is still part-way through no longer appears there, and tapping the "finished a practice test" notification, on your phone or in the app's notification list, opens that test's results.
• Change your family PIN on iPhone and iPad. Once a PIN was set, the iPhone app had no way to change it. From the next app update, Set Family PIN on the Profile tab becomes Change Family PIN: enter a new PIN twice and it replaces the old one. You don't need the old PIN, so this also works if you've forgotten it. Android already worked this way.
• Remove an adult from your family on iPhone and iPad. You could invite another adult from the iPhone app but not remove one, and deleting your account told you to remove them in a "Family settings" screen the app didn't have. From the next app update, the Profile tab has a Family button listing your family's adults. The owner can remove anyone else there, as on Android, and the delete-account message now points to it.
• Pictures from both apps. Where a screen is easier to show than describe, the article shows it as it looks on iPhone and on Android, side by side.
• Out-of-date answers corrected. The old page still called the Android app "coming soon" and mentioned a web dashboard that doesn't exist. Both are fixed.
• The privacy policy says which AI sees what. It used to say only Cheeky Check photos went to an AI service. In fact, when your child's typed answer is marked, or they ask for a hint or another explanation, the question and their answer go to Anthropic (Claude) or Google (Gemini) as well. The policy now says so, and that neither is sent your child's name or email address. It also gives the right place to delete your account: the Profile tab.

The weekly progress email has been rebuilt, and it now says something useful even in a week when nobody practised.

• This week's question. Every Monday email now carries a real question from the topic one of your children is working on, rotating between children. Tap an answer to check it on kakamath.nz, no sign-in needed, and see the worked solution and whether your child got it right first time.
• A quiet week still tells you something. Instead of "no activity", you'll see when your child last practised, what they were working on, and the next lesson with roughly how long it takes.
• More from a busy week. Each child's section now shows their strongest topic, how many questions they solved with no hints, one question worth talking through together, mini-game best scores, Cheeky Check photos and Daily Forages.
• Wishes waiting on you. If your child has spent Feathers on a wish you haven't marked as granted yet, the email reminds you.
• Unsubscribe works. The unsubscribe link at the bottom of the email used to go nowhere. It now turns the weekly summary off for your address, and your email app's own unsubscribe button works too.
• The Monday notification counts the right week. The weekly summary notification on your phone was counting from Monday afternoon to Monday afternoon NZ time. It now covers Monday to Sunday, the same as the email.

• "In a row" now means right on the first try, in a row. The Daily Forage that asks for 5 or 10 in a row used to count every question your child finished that day, including ones they got wrong before getting right, so it could fill up without a real run. Now it only counts questions answered right on the first go, one after another, and a wrong first answer starts the count again. A forage your child has already collected today stays collected.
• Problem Questions show the whole question. Some fill-in-the-blank questions only said "Complete the equation by simplifying the like terms:", so the answers underneath had nothing to refer to. The equation now appears under the question, with the blank drawn as a box, both in the list and when you open a question. A single attempt now reads "1 attempt", not "1 attempts". This is the same on iPhone and Android.
• Recent Activity says what each feather reward was for. Your child's activity list used to show a bare "+6" under a lesson name. Each row now says what earned it, such as "Question answered" or "Daily Forage bonus", and spells out "feathers" rather than just a number. This is the same on iPhone and Android.
• A wrong answer no longer shows a green tick. When your child picked a multiple-choice answer, it was marked with a green tick whether or not it was right, so a wrong pick could sit behind "Not quite" looking correct. Their choice now shows a plain dot until it is marked, then a green tick if it is right or a red cross if it is not. Pressing Try Again clears the cross so they can choose again, and the right answer is not given away. True or false and comparison questions work the same way. This is the same on iPhone and Android.
• A one-day streak now says "1 day", not "1 days". The parent dashboard's Streak stat for each child is the same on iPhone and Android. On Android, the Leaderboard tab at the bottom of the parent screen could also clip to "Leaderboar" on a narrower phone or a larger text setting; its label now shrinks to fit instead.
• Add Child opens on the first tap on Android. Straight after signing up, Android asked whether Kākā Math could send notifications, and that question sat right on top of the Add Child button, so your first tap answered it instead. The app no longer asks when you arrive. To get notifications, open Notification Settings and tap "Turn on notifications". On iPhone the same question only ever came up when you switched notifications on in Settings.

• Check-in results only call a strong area a strength. "Your Strengths" used to list every area, including ones your child found hard. Now it lists only the areas they did well in, and when there are none the heading reads "How You Did". If the check-in covered two year levels, a line at the top now says so, so "Year 3 Mathematics" no longer appears next to Year 4 without a reason. This is the same on iPhone and Android.
• A first visit says "Kia ora", not "Welcome back". The home screen greets a child who has not used the app yet with "Kia ora, Ruby", and switches to "Welcome back" once they have done some maths. This is the same on iPhone and Android.
• Lesson Complete no longer shows two scores. First-try accuracy is the only score now. The row underneath reads as progress, "8 of 11 done", in grey with no percentage, and the lesson list shows the same words instead of "8/11". When your child comes back to finish questions they skipped, the screen says "You finished what was left." rather than praising them on those few questions alone. And on the last question, the button says "See Summary" when there are still questions to answer, because that is where it goes. This is the same on iPhone and Android.
• See how each topic is going. On your child's page, every topic in Topic Progress now says how many questions they got right first time, for example "Right first time: 4 of 10 questions", so you can see which topics need practice without counting Problem Questions. The lesson count now reads "1 of 9 lessons done" instead of a percentage that looked like a score. This is the same on iPhone and Android.
• See the answer your child first gave. On your child's Problem Questions, a question they got on a retry now shows their first answer as well as the one that worked, so you can see what the mistake was. A question they got right in a lesson but missed when it came back later is now labelled "Missed on a later go" instead of showing no reason at all. First answers are kept from today, so older questions will not have one. This is the same on iPhone and Android.
• Create Account and Sign in no longer lose what you typed. Swiping the sign-up sheet down on iPhone, for example to close the "Use Strong Password?" card, used to close the whole form and throw away your name and email. Now, if you have typed anything, Create Account, Sign in and Forgot Password ask "Discard what you've typed?" first, and an empty form still closes at once. On Android, Cancel and the back gesture ask the same way.
• "Show me another way" no longer hangs. If Kākā could not come up with another explanation, the sheet used to say "Kākā is thinking..." with no end. After a short wait it now says so and offers a Try again button. This is the same on iPhone and Android.
• Clearer wording when you sign up and add a child. Create Account now welcomes anyone looking after a child, so a grandparent or caregiver no longer wonders whether it is meant for them. Your child's page explains what Feathers, Altitude and Streak mean and that a higher number is better. On Add Child, the Birthday row now says "Set date" so it no longer looks like a second Add button. This is the same on iPhone and Android.
• An easier way back from your child's screen on iPhone. When you have switched to a child, tap their picture at the top of their home screen and choose Back to Parent. It asks for your family PIN if you have set one. The button at the bottom of Explore still works too.
• No Sign Out while you are viewing as your child. When you have switched to a child, their screens no longer show a Sign Out button, so a child cannot sign the whole family out without your PIN. Back to Parent is the way out, and Sign Out stays on your own screens. A child who signs in on their own device still has Sign Out, and on Android it now asks first. This is the same on iPhone and Android.
• Start Learning goes somewhere. At the end of a Maths Check-In, Start Learning now opens the topic the check-in suggests starting with, instead of just closing. Each topic under Areas to Work On opens that topic when your child taps it. This works on iPhone and Android.
• The check-in counter shows its real length. A Maths Check-In used to count "1 of ~20" and then finish at question 10. It now counts to the number of questions your child will actually get.
• Feathers from Quick Review are kept. Getting a Quick Review question right again could show "+1 feather" without adding it, so the total was the same next time the app opened. The feathers shown are now the feathers added.
• Topics no longer say "No lessons available" while loading. On iPhone, a topic's page could show that message for a few seconds before its lessons appeared. It now shows it is loading instead.
• Screen readers read the maths out. With VoiceOver or TalkBack on, a question like "True or false: ½ + ⅓ = ⅖" was read as "True or false" with nothing after it, and fraction answers as just "A." or "B.". The maths is now spoken in words, such as "1 half plus 1 third equals 2 fifths" or "3 quarters", on iPhone and Android.
• The Family PIN stays hidden as you type it. Setting, confirming or entering the PIN used to show each number on screen, and a screen reader read it out loud. Each digit now shows as a dot, and a screen reader says only how many digits have been entered. This works on iPhone and Android.
• Creating an account goes straight to your dashboard. On iPhone, the Create Account and Sign In screens used to empty themselves as they closed, which looked like the details had been lost. They now close as you left them and your family dashboard opens.
• Try Again always gives another go on Android. If your child earned a badge on a wrong answer, the badge used to pop up as they tapped Try Again and then move them on to the next question. Badges now wait until your child moves on, as they already did on iPhone.
• First Steps arrives when the first lesson ends. The "Completed your first lesson" badge could turn up partway through a later lesson. It is now awarded as a lesson is finished.
• No stray "[6pt]" or backslash on Android. Some worked examples showed "[6pt]" between two lines, and a few money answers showed a backslash in front of the dollar sign. Both now read cleanly, and the screen reader no longer says "6 pt" aloud on Android or iPhone.

• Closing Add child or Edit child asks first. If you have typed something in and then tap Cancel, swipe the form down on iPhone, or go back on Android, the app asks whether to discard it or keep editing. An empty or unchanged form still closes straight away.
• Each child opens Learn on their own year. On a shared Android phone, a child could open Learn on a brother's or sister's year level. Now each child starts on their own.
• Children with more than one year level can always switch. The year choices stay on the Learn screen even when a year has no lessons yet, so your child can move to one that does.
• Switch to Child and Share Link work on iPhone. On the Home tab, both buttons on a child's card now do what they say, instead of opening the child's details.
• The button that starts a lesson works on iPhone. On newer iPhones the menu bar along the bottom could sit over it, so tapping it sent your child back to the list of topics. The menu bar now steps aside inside a topic and its lessons, as it already did on Android, and comes back on the way out.
• Clearer help about the family PIN. Add child now explains that you set a family PIN the first time you tap Switch to Child, and that you need it to get back to your account.
• Back on Android returns to Explore. From Mini Games, the leaderboard, badges, flocks and The Hollow, the phone's back button now takes your child back to Explore instead of closing the app. In the middle of a game it asks before quitting.
• A friendlier message if the Maths Check-In can't start. It now suggests trying again or picking a lesson in Learn.
• The number pad works on fill-in-the-blank questions on Android. On questions like 3/4 = ?/12, tapping a number now fills the gap and lets your child check their answer. Before, the pad did nothing, so some fractions lessons could not be finished.
• Your child's card is up to date when you switch back. After a child session, the Home tab shows the feathers, altitude and streak they just earned straight away. Before, a card could show the old numbers, or zeros for a new child, until you opened their details.
• Accuracy now means right first time, everywhere. Your child's lesson summary and your view of their progress both show the share of questions they got right on the first try, so the two numbers agree. Before, a question put right on a second go counted as correct, so a child who missed some could still see 100%. The question count in Learning Summary now matches the one in This Week vs Last Week.
• Problem Questions shows everything your child found tricky. A question they got wrong first time and then fixed now appears, marked "Got it on a retry", alongside the ones they have not solved yet. Topic Progress now includes topics your child has started, not only ones where they have finished a lesson.
• Problem Questions shows the answer your child actually picked. Opening a tricky question now shows the answer itself, such as "9", rather than a letter that didn't match the order your child saw the choices in. Ordering answers read as a list, and maths is drawn properly on Android instead of showing as code.

Changes to the Add child and Edit child forms in the iPhone and Android apps.

• The Add child button is at the bottom of the form. Fill in the details, scroll to the end and finish there. Edit child ends with Save changes in the same place. The buttons at the top are still there too.
• Names and email addresses are left as you type them. The keyboard used to turn a child's name like Hana into a different word. Names, nicknames and emails are no longer autocorrected.
• Year levels are clearer to tick. The form says you can pick more than one, each level shows an empty or a filled circle, and if you try to untick the last one it tells you a level has to stay ticked.
• Signing in on the same device or their own is explained in plain words. The two options no longer look like buttons. Leave the email blank if your child will use your device, or add it if they will sign in on their own.
• Birthday is optional. It used to show today's date as if it were an answer. It now says "Birthday (optional)", and when you add one the calendar starts about eight years back instead of this month. Adding a birthday still suggests the matching year level. On iPhone, a birthday added while editing a child who had none is now saved.

• Every picture in the worked examples and guided steps has been checked. About 8,000 of them were drawn this month. A few gave the answer away on the step before your child works it out, a few showed the numbers from the question next door, and some labels were cut off at the edge of a phone screen. Those are fixed.
• Some pictures now match their words. A Year 2 route drew "turn right" as a step to the right, a Year 1 bar chart gave each activity the other one's time, and a Year 13 moving-average graph put its points in the wrong quarters. Each one now shows what the step says.
• Sixty-five more lessons now show what they teach. Lessons in Years 7 to 13 about shapes, graphs and data used to explain them in symbols only. About 650 of their steps now have a picture: the prism being measured, the number line with its hops, the triangle, the graph with the line crossing it, the confidence interval on its scale. In the guided questions the picture never shows the answer before the step where your child works it out.
• The numeracy practice tests have been checked question by question. The 51 tests hold 924 questions, and all but two have been through it: every answer worked out again from scratch, hints that gave the answer away rewritten, and the few answers that marked a wrong reply as right corrected.
• Questions copied into the wrong lesson have been replaced. About 1,000 questions in 144 lessons, from Year 2 to Year 13, were copies of questions from somewhere else: the same simple equation turning up in a lesson on sequences or calculus, or a Year 9 question in a Year 11 lesson. Each one is now a new question about what its own lesson teaches, pitched at its year, with its own hints and worked solution.
• Year 11 geometry questions are now Year 11 questions. Six Year 11 lessons on angles, parallel lines, circle theorems, tangents and proofs had 98 questions copied from Year 9. They now ask Year 11 work: two or three angle rules chained together, angles given as expressions to solve, and proofs with a step to fill or a mistake to find. Each one comes with its own diagram drawn to its numbers.
• Māori words keep their macrons. Some questions rewritten this week spelt Kākā as "Kaka" and Māori as "Maori". They are spelt properly again, and new questions keep the macrons.
• More graphs in the guided questions. In Years 9 to 12, about 290 steps that talk about a graph now show it: the point in its quadrant, the line through two points with its rise and run, the parabola with its vertex, the sine wave sliding sideways, the tangent touching a curve. A step only shows a number once its words have reached it, so the picture never answers the question early.
• More pictures in the shape and measurement steps. In Years 7 to 12, about 310 steps that describe a figure now draw it from the question's own measurements: the triangle each sine or cosine rule is about to solve, the ladder against the wall, the box before its volume, the way back along a bearing, two similar triangles side by side. Whatever is still to be found is marked with a question mark.
• Year 4, 7 and 9 number lessons have been reviewed again. Place value, fractions, decimals, percentages, negative numbers and rounding. Ordering questions that listed their items already in the right order now mix them up, hints that gave the answer away now point to the method, and many bare sums now sit in a real setting, like a ferry that is almost half full.
• Three questions now agree with their own working. A Year 7 angle question marked the right answer, 113°, as wrong. Two Year 9 Pythagoras questions walked through the working of a different question. All three are fixed.

• Hints no longer give the answer away. On about 770 questions, from Year 1 to Year 13, a hint used to say the answer outright ("The answer is 12", or just "True") or finish the working for you. Those hints now point to the rule to use and set up the first step, and the last step is left for your child to do. True or false questions now give something to test instead of a verdict. A second pass has since done the same for about 11,000 more questions across every year level, including ordering questions whose hints used to list the items in the right order.
• Some questions marked the wrong answer, and now mark the right one. Eighteen questions from Year 4 to Year 13 either had the wrong answer stored, offered two right choices, or used numbers that did not match their graph. A few true or false statements were only true some of the time. Each one now has a single right answer, and your child's answer is marked against it. We have since checked the answers on about 800 more questions and fixed them the same way: some accepted an answer that was wrong, some offered the same answer twice, and some had a picture that did not match the question.
• Introduction to Trigonometric Ratios now teaches the ratios. Most of its questions were placeholders, and some were not about trigonometry at all. The lesson now shows how to name the opposite, adjacent and hypotenuse from an angle, and why the names swap when you move to the other angle. It shows that the same angle gives the same ratio in a small triangle and a large one, and it uses Pythagoras when a side is missing. Every question is new and is about sine, cosine and tangent as ratios, so nothing overlaps with the next lesson on finding sides.
• 3D Trigonometry and Pythagoras now finds angles in 3D. Before, every question was the diagonal of a box. Students now find the angle a diagonal makes with the floor, the angle up to the top of a pole at the far corner of a field, and the angle of a path climbing across a slope. Each one starts by finding the flat diagonal underneath, and each is drawn as a solid with its hidden right-angled triangle marked.

A lesson called Populating Venn Diagrams had no Venn diagram in it, and a Year 13 lesson on reading a bootstrap distribution had no distribution. The probability, Venn and network lessons across Years 7 to 13, the data and statistics lessons from Year 1 up, and the senior graphing lessons from Year 9 to Year 13 now all draw what they are about.

• Probability trees are drawn, branch by branch. The first stage appears on its own, then the second stage grows from it, then the path being worked out is traced through the tree with its probability at the end. When two paths are added together, both are labelled so you can see what is being added. The bag lessons show the second set of branches changing once a counter has been taken out and not put back, which is the whole difference between the two methods and used to be a sentence rather than a picture.
• Venn diagrams fill a region at a time. The overlap is shaded and counted first, then each circle's own part as the working subtracts it, then whatever is left outside. Which region is shaded is what tells "A and B" apart from "A or B", so the picture now carries the idea instead of the formula carrying it alone. Three-circle diagrams show all seven regions.
• Two-way tables fill in cell by cell. The cell a step works out is highlighted, and when a question asks about one row or one column only, that row or column is shaded, which is the difference between an ordinary probability and a conditional one.
• Networks are real networks. Degrees are counted on the drawing, a loop is shown adding two, spanning trees grow one edge at a time with the rejected edges shown crossing back on themselves, project networks carry earliest and latest times that fill in as the passes run, and pipe capacities sit on the arrows with each route traced in turn.
• Sample spaces, outcome grids and the 0 to 1 probability scale. Year 10 probability now shows the six faces with the favourable ones shaded, the bag of counters, the grid of every coin-and-die outcome, and experimental against theoretical marked on the same scale. The law of large numbers shows the running proportion settling towards its target rather than describing it.
• One Year 5 angle diagram would not draw at all. A stray character in the drawing made it invalid, so that step showed nothing. Fixed.
• Box plots are built up as the steps name each part. The five-number summary lessons in Years 9, 10 and 12 now show the values as dots on a number line with the median and quartiles marked, then the finished plot. Comparing two groups puts both plots on one scale, and the Year 10 rule for deciding whether a difference is real drops one group's median line against the other group's box so you can see whether it falls outside.
• Scatter plots show the cloud, then the line. Positive, negative and no correlation each look like something now. Reading a value off a line of best fit traces the dotted lines across and down to it, predicting inside the data shades the range the data covers, and predicting outside it shades the part where nothing was ever measured.
• Year 13 time series is drawn end to end. The trend, the repeating seasonal shape and the leftover wobble; moving averages with the window that made each one highlighted; the seasonal indices as bars against the average line; and a forecast shown as the trend point lifted by its seasonal index, with the prediction interval widening the further ahead it reaches.
• Residual plots have a shape you can see. The U-shape that means the straight line is wrong, the funnel that means the spread is growing, and the one point sitting far outside the rest.
• A bootstrap distribution is a distribution again. It has a centre, a spread and a confidence interval drawn under it. Overlapping intervals are shown overlapping, which is the whole point of that lesson.
• The junior data lessons show the plot they ask about. Counting dots above apples in Year 1, comparing stack heights in Years 2 to 4, reading shape and range off a dot plot in Year 7, and spotting the value sitting far from the rest in Year 8.
• Lines are drawn, with the rise and the run marked on them. Year 9, Year 10 and Year 11 build a line up the way you would on paper: the two points first, then the steps across and up between them, then the line ruled through with its equation. Finding a gradient, finding where a line crosses the y-axis and working out an equation from a graph all show the line they are talking about.
• Parabolas show their vertex, their roots and where they cross. A step that said "the vertex is at (2, negative 1)" now puts the point on the curve. The lessons on shifting a parabola up or down draw the original curve behind the new one, so the shift is something you can see rather than something you are told.
• Stretching a graph now stretches a graph. The Year 12 lesson on dilations said a curve "stretches vertically and appears narrower" without drawing either curve. Both are drawn now, side by side, with arrows showing where each point moves to.
• The sine and cosine waves are on screen. Amplitude, centre line, range, period and phase shift are each drawn against the plain wave they came from, with the angles along the bottom written in the same way the lesson writes them. Finding every solution to an equation shows three full waves with all the solutions marked, which is what "and so on for ever" actually looks like.
• Calculus has pictures at last. A limit is a curve with one point lifted out of it. An average rate of change is the straight line joining two points on a curve; an instantaneous one is the line that just touches it. Where a lesson reads off whether a curve is rising or falling, the tangents are drawn at the points it names.
• Areas and volumes are shaded in. The Year 13 integration lessons shade the region the integral measures, in a second colour where it dips below the axis, and the volume lessons show the shape being spun with one slice drawn through it.
• The conic sections lessons draw the conic. "The foci are at plus or minus 5" had no hyperbola next to it. Parabolas, ellipses and hyperbolas now come with their foci, their asymptotes and their measurements marked. The satellite orbit example is drawn to scale, which shows what the numbers hide: the orbit is very nearly a circle.
• Every senior geometry lesson now draws its figure. Years 9 to 13. A step reading "the alternate angle is 97 degrees" had no lines and no transversal; a circle theorem lesson named A, B, C and O on a circumference that was never drawn; "a parallelogram has base 14 cm and height 6 cm" never showed which of the two lengths is the perpendicular height, which is the whole lesson.
• The figure is built up as the working goes. The triangle appears first, then the sides that are known, then the one being looked for. The 3D lessons draw the diagonal across the floor, then the brace standing on it. The faces-edges-vertices example counts the faces, then the twelve edges in their three groups of four, then the eight corners, all on one box.
• Shapes are drawn true, not sketched. An angle labelled 58 degrees opens by 58, a hexagon has six sides, a 5-12-13 triangle comes out long and thin, and a cyclic quadrilateral with an 85 degree corner really has 95 opposite it. The triangle a lesson says is not right-angled visibly is not.
• The sine and cosine rule lessons show the triangle they are solving. The ambiguous case draws both triangles the same three facts allow, side by side, which is the only way to see why there are two answers.
• Bearings are real turns. A bearing of 340 is drawn 20 degrees short of a full circle. Back bearings show the North line at both ends, journeys are plotted from their headings, and the compass lesson puts up the four main points first and then the four that sit halfway between them.
• Co-ordinate geometry happens on a plane again. Year 12 had 281 steps of lines and circles written out in coordinates with nothing drawn. A line the working calls a tangent now visibly touches the circle once, and one that cuts it visibly crosses twice.
• The unit circle and the wave turn up in Year 13 trigonometry. A lesson that said "the CAST diagram earns its keep here" had no CAST diagram. General solutions run the wave out far enough that the repeat is something you watch happen.
• Four lessons had figures that could not exist, and now add up. Two shapes listed side lengths that cannot close, a 3-4-5 triangle was said to have angles of 40 and 50 degrees, and a worked proof concluded that 50 plus 60 is 70. All four are corrected.
• Year 1 and Year 2 had no pictures in their teaching steps at all. Not one, across 122 lessons. A five year old learning to share six cones between two teams was shown the words "six cones, two teams" in maths type, and the shares were never dealt out. Every lesson in both years now teaches with a picture: 1,513 of them.
• Counting is done with things you can count. The objects appear on screen and fill in as the count goes, so "one, two, three" has something to point at. Numbers to 120 are built from ten-rods and single cubes, the tens and ones go into a place-value chart, and comparing two numbers stands their towers side by side so the taller one is obvious before the symbol is chosen.
• Adding and taking away are shown, not just written. Ten frames fill up and show the empty cells left over, which is what a number bond to ten looks like. Counting on and counting back are jumps along a number line, labelled with the size of each jump. Taking away crosses the counters out. Making ten to add 8 and 5 shows the two counters moving across to finish the first frame and the three left over starting the second.
• Sharing, grouping and fractions are dealt out and cut up. Counters are shared into rings one at a time, groups of four become an array with its rows and columns braced, and halves and quarters are cut into the actual rectangle, square or circle, with the fold line drawn before the cut. A fraction of a set rings the groups.
• Measuring shows the measuring. Blocks are laid end to end along the thing being measured, rulers are drawn with the object lined up at the zero mark, masses tip a balance or move a dial, jugs and bottles are drawn at the sizes their numbers give them, and perimeter draws the shape with every side labelled before adding them up.
• Clocks, patterns, shapes and data. Telling the time draws the face, with the hand being named picked out and the other faded. Repeating patterns are strips of real shapes and colours with the repeating part braced underneath. Shapes are drawn with their corners marked and their equal sides ticked, and solids are drawn as solids. Tally charts show gates of five, picture graphs show one symbol per thing counted, and the sorting lessons put the counters in the boxes.
• Year 3 and Year 4 teach with pictures too. Before today they had 29 pictures between them across 1,815 teaching steps. Now 1,647 of those steps have one, across all 22 topics. What is left in maths type is mostly column arithmetic, where the columns already are the picture, and that is why two Year 4 lessons on setting out column sums have no drawings.
• Place value is built from blocks. Numbers to 10,000 are made of thousand cubes, hundred flats, ten rods and ones, and an empty column keeps its zero, so 9,007 still looks like nine thousands and seven ones. Comparing numbers lights up the column that decides it. Rounding marks the halfway point on a number line, and the hop to the rounded number only appears once the working has reached it.
• Multiplying and dividing are groups, arrays and rectangles. Times tables are hops along a number line and then an array. 24 times 3 is one rectangle split into 20 times 3 and 4 times 3, with each part filled in as it is worked out. Division shares out tens rods and ones cubes, including what is left over.
• Fractions and decimals are bars, circles and number lines. Equivalent fractions are stacked bars that line up at the same edge. Mixed numbers are whole circles and a part. Tenths are strips, a place-value chart with its decimal point, and a number line counting in 0.1s. While a step is still asking for a missing number, the picture shows a question mark, not the answer.
• Time, angles and measuring show the thing itself. Clocks show 12-hour and 24-hour time side by side, and how long something takes is counted along a time line through the next o'clock. Angles are measured against a right angle. Perimeter is traced round a shape drawn to its real side lengths, area is counted in squares, and volume is built in layers of cubes.
• Maps, shapes and data are drawn. Grid references are found column first, then row, then the square. Routes are walked a square at a time, and slides, flips and turns happen on squared paper. Bar graphs, dot plots, tally charts and tables are all drawn from the numbers each step gives.
• Year 5 and Year 6 teach with pictures now, too. They had 90 pictures between them across 2,964 teaching steps. Now 2,805 of those steps have one, across all 26 topics. What is still in maths type is mostly column arithmetic, a few definitions, and steps that only repeat the answer the picture above them already shows.
• Big numbers, negatives and number properties. Millions sit in a place-value chart grouped into millions, thousands and ones. Negative numbers are hops along a line that crosses zero, or a thermometer, or a depth below sea level. Factor pairs are rectangles of tiles and a factor rainbow, and square numbers are squares that grow by an odd number each time.
• Multiplying, dividing and BEDMAS. Long multiplication is the grid method, filled in one part at a time. Division chunks the number into friendly multiples, or shares place-value blocks out into groups, with the remainder cut into fractions or carried into tenths. Order of operations is a ladder: the part to do next is boxed and its letter shown, and each rung works out one piece.
• Fractions, percentages, ratio and money. Percentages are hundred squares and bars from 0 to 100%. Ratios are rows of equal boxes, one row per part. Recipes and unit rates use a double number line, and finding the whole from a percentage goes through 1%. Multiplying a decimal by 10 or 100 shows every digit moving one or two places while the point stays still.
• Measuring, shapes and angles. Conversions climb a ladder from km to mm, multiplying going down and dividing coming up. Volume is built a layer of cubes at a time. Prisms have their faces, edges and corners picked out in colour and counted, and nets fold into the solid they make. Angles on a line and round a point are drawn at their real size, and 24-hour time sits on a strip that runs from midnight to midnight.
• Coordinates, data and chance. Points on the grid are reached by going across and then up, and slides, flips and turns happen on the plane. The mean is shown by levelling uneven towers until they are all the same height. Probability lessons show the 0 to 1 scale with each event placed on it, bags holding the exact marbles in the question, spinners cut into the right shares, every outcome of two dice in a grid, and tree diagrams.
• In a guided question, the picture never gives the answer away. Until the step that works it out, the missing number, angle or amount shows as a question mark.
• Clocks in every year are easier to read. The minute hand used to cover the number it pointed at, so a clock at quarter to hid its 9. It now stops short of the numbers.
• Thirteen junior lessons were teaching the wrong maths entirely. Telling Time: O'Clock, Comparing Length, Building with Shapes and ten others had worked examples about factorising algebra, which is Year 11 work. A Year 1 child tapping "show me how" on a lesson about reading a clock was shown how to split the middle term of a quadratic. All thirteen now teach what their titles say, with the clock faces, balances, measuring bars and shapes drawn step by step. The review pass that wrote them in has been fixed so it cannot put one lesson's maths into another, and the content checks now flag a junior worked example that reaches above its year level.
• Year 11 trigonometry lessons now teach trigonometry. Finding a Side, Finding an Angle, Angles of Elevation and Depression, and Bearings and Navigation had been filled with the Pythagoras lessons that come before them, questions and all. Each has been rewritten from scratch: sine, cosine and tangent to find a side, the inverse buttons to find an angle, looking up at treetops and down from cliffs, and journeys on a bearing split into how far north and how far east. Every example and most questions draw the triangle at its true angle.
• Four Year 9 examples that said nothing now teach something. The first example in four similarity and 3D-shape lessons was an empty template reading "Step 1." They now work through similar triangles, how area grows when a shape is enlarged, the net of a pyramid, and the three views of a cylinder.
• Year 2 guided help now talks about the question in front of your child. In twenty Year 2 lessons on time, shapes, position and data, the guided questions gave the same three lines every time: find the key numbers, think about the operation, check the answer. A lesson on naming shapes has no numbers to find. Each of those 116 questions now walks through its own example with a picture: the clock at quarter to 5, the cube with its 8 corners dotted, the path that turns right at the big tree, the bar that reaches 8.
• The rest of the graphs, from Year 7 to Year 13, are drawn. 95 more lessons described a graph in words and showed none. Plotting a point now shows the move across and then up. Number patterns are plotted term by term with the step between terms marked. Inequalities sit on a number line with an open or closed circle. The roots of a quadratic land where the parabola crosses the axis, and the answer to a pair of simultaneous equations is where the two lines meet.
• Senior calculus shows what the derivative says. Tangents and normals touch their curve at a true right angle. Rising and falling stretches are shaded either side of each turning point. Every curve that shares a derivative is drawn, with the one through the given point picked out, and numerical integration shades the strips it adds up.
• Statistics lessons show the data they talk about. Each scatter plot's line is the lesson's own equation. Curved models are drawn beside the straight line that cannot follow the bend, and treatment and control groups are compared as box plots. A suspect value stands apart in its dot plot before it is cleaned. Every misleading graph in the report lessons sits beside an honest version of the same numbers.
• Complex numbers and routes through a network. The Year 13 polar-form lessons draw the Argand diagram with its length and angle. The Year 12 lessons on travelling every road once or visiting every town once trace the route along the network, numbered edge by edge.
• Six angle questions were marking right answers wrong. Five Year 7 angle questions and one Year 10 circle question had the wrong answer stored, so a child who worked it out correctly was told they were wrong. One example is a pentagon question that expected 40 when the answer is 80. All six now accept the right answer. Their hints and worked solutions have been rewritten to teach the correct reasoning, and a roof-truss hint that led to an angle of minus 50 degrees has been fixed.

A parent using the app reported a Year 10 question on drawing box plots that never drew one. We went looking for the same fault in the rest of the lessons.

• The box plot worked examples draw the plot, step by step. A step that said "draw the box from Q1 to Q3" used to sit beside the same sentence written out in maths type. It now shows the number line, then the box with the median line, then the whiskers, each stage building on the last. The Year 11 and Year 12 box plot lessons got the same treatment, including the side-by-side comparison of two groups.
• Angle constructions are built on screen. In the Year 5 and Year 6 protractor lessons you now watch the first arm and its vertex go down, then the protractor land on that vertex with zero running along the arm, then the mark and the second arm drawn through it. The arm stays exactly where it was the whole way, so the angle is constructed rather than narrated.
• Shapes are split where the step says to split them. The L-shaped garden bed, the deck with a corner missing and the rectangle that halves into two triangles all show the cutting line and the labelled pieces. The lesson on parallel and perpendicular sides shows the rectangle with its pairs ticked.
• Bearings come with a compass. Routes are now drawn to scale with a north arrow at every turning point, the angle swept clockwise from north, and the line measured back to the start.
• A yacht's two-leg journey had the wrong answer. Its legs meet at a right angle, so the direct distance is 10 km. The lesson said 12 km. Fixed.
• The graphing lessons now draw the graph. The same gap ran right through the coordinate plane. A step that said "plot the four points and rule a straight line through them" showed the list of points, not the line. Plotting a first point in Year 5, reading a pattern off a graph in Year 6, working in all four quadrants in Year 8, drawing a line from its gradient and intercept in Years 9 to 11, parabolas and growth curves in Year 12, and the circles and roots on an Argand diagram in Year 13 all show the picture now. Where a worked example builds a graph up, the axes stay put and the drawing grows a step at a time, so a student can see what each instruction adds.
• The statistics and data lessons draw their graphs too. Bar graphs, graphs that track something over time, choosing the right chart for the data, spotting a misleading graph, lines of best fit and confidence interval bars all used to describe the picture in maths type rather than show it. They now draw it: labelled axes first, then the bars or the points, then the reading being taken off the line.
• Number lines, grids, trees and road networks are drawn as well. Finding 1.3 on a number line now zooms in from the whole numbers to the tenths and marks the point. Percentages shade a hundred square so a quarter and three quarters are something you can see. Reading an inequality shows the closed circle and the shaded direction instead of describing them. The probability trees are real trees with every branch labelled, drawn at an even thickness so a one in a hundred chance is not made to look like half the population. And the shortest route through a set of Waikato towns is drawn as a map, with each town's running total updating and the settled towns filling in as the method works through them, ending with the winning route traced in colour.

• Every lesson we have finished editing now has a question with its own illustration. 707 of them, one per lesson, drawn for the scene each question actually describes rather than a stock picture of a classroom. More arrive as the editing works through the rest of the lessons.
• Kākā is brown everywhere he appears. A handful of scenes still described him as olive-green, which is Kea's colour, and would have drawn the wrong bird.
• Topic introduction pictures are no longer cropped. The app trimmed the top and bottom off each one to fit a fixed strip, so about a quarter of every picture was never seen. They now appear at the shape they were drawn at, on iPhone and on Android.

• All 180 topic introductions have artwork now. Most of them opened on a wall of text, and the 51 that did have a picture were drawn in styles the app no longer uses. Every one has been redrawn in the style that belongs to its year, and every picture was looked at before it shipped.
• Kākā turns up where the story happened. Each topic introduction tells you where its maths came from, and now the picture at the top goes there too. Kākā measures the pyramids with a knotted rope, reads a star chart on a waka, sits with Euclid outside a Greek temple. Topics without a story get somewhere his own: a shearing shed, a bakery before dawn, a boatbuilder's yard.
• The banner is the right shape. Topic headers were square pictures squashed into a wide strip, so the top and bottom of each one was cut off. They are drawn wide now, and you see the whole scene.
• Kākā is brown everywhere. One of his reference drawings still had him olive green, which is Kea's colour. Fixed, so he looks like himself in every year.

Kākā Math questions happen to somebody, and now you can see who.

• A new Characters page. Thirty regulars, from Farmer John and his escaping sheep to Chef Yuki doubling a recipe, with the years each of them turns up in. Find it in the menu, or at kakamath.nz/characters.
• The artwork grows up with your child. Three drawing styles now, not five: warm watercolour for Years 1 to 5, graphic-novel ink for Years 6 to 9, and restrained editorial art for Years 10 to 13. The same faces throughout, drawn to suit the age looking at them. The new page shows one scene in all three.
• Kākā is brown. He always was in the pictures, but the words behind the scenes said olive-green, which is his cousin Kea. Now they agree.

• hello@kakamath.nz is back for anything general. It is on the footer, the contact page and our privacy and terms pages. Use it to ask a question, tell us what you think, or find out whether Kākā Math suits your child.
• support@kakamath.nz is for when something is wrong. It is on the help page and on the pages you see if the site is having a bad day, and it is the address a reply to a support request comes from.
• Both are read by the same people, so neither is the wrong one to pick.

• Writing to us from the website opens a proper support conversation. Messages from the contact form used to land in a mailbox. They now open a tracked support request instead, so nothing gets lost, someone is answerable for answering it, and if you reported something broken you will hear from us again when the fix is live. The form tells you which address we will reply to, so a typo is easy to catch.
• Contact support from your account. If you are signed in to manage your subscription, there is a "Contact support" link right there, and the form arrives with your name and email already filled in.
• The same thing in both apps. Settings now has a Contact Support form instead of a link that opened your email app, on Android and on iPhone and iPad. It arrives filled in with your name and email, it tells you which address we will reply to, and if it cannot get through it hands what you wrote straight to your email app so you do not have to type it twice. It is on the parent side of the app: a reply needs a grown-up's address, so a child's profile still gets the plain email link.

• Kākā says what the photo shows while the explanation is still being written. A Cheeky Check used to show nothing at all until the whole walkthrough was ready, which meant watching a flying Kākā for the better part of a minute. Now the question Kākā has read, and what Kākā makes of the working you have already done, appear within a few seconds, and the steps follow.
• Photos of a whole homework sheet get going straight away. A worksheet no longer waits for an explanation it was never going to use before it starts reading the questions off the page.

• We now see which parts of the website help and which get in the way. As well as counting page visits, we record anonymously how a visit moves through a page: scrolling, clicks, and which buttons get used. It tells us where the site is confusing so we can fix it. It runs on our own analytics server, nothing goes to Google or an advertising network, and it is never done inside the app.
• What you type is masked, and the sign-in and payment pages are left out entirely. The privacy policy now spells out what is recorded, what is not, and why.
• On Android, sign-in and family-invite links open the app straight away. Tapping a sign-in link or an invitation used to bring up a list asking which app should handle it. Android now recognises those links as ours, so they go where you expect.

A pass over every word in the product, on the website and in both apps, and a day spent on the Android app with a child actually using it.

• Plainer writing everywhere. Long sentences held together by a dash have been split up or joined properly, on the website, in the emails we send you, and in the lessons, hints and worked examples your child reads. Nothing changed about what any of it says, only how easily it reads.
• Emails that sound like a person. The welcome email and the one that arrives when you add a child no longer open by telling you how thrilled we are. They tell you what to do next instead.
• The tutor's own writing is held to the same standard. Kākā writes most of the lessons and hints, and now works to the same house rules as the rest of the product.
• Tidier pathway names in Years 12 and 13. Where a year offers a choice, such as Calculus or Statistics, the picker now shows just the pathway name and the full syllabus name reads as a plain sentence.
• The iPhone and Android apps now say the same thing. The two apps had quietly drifted apart: the same screen would greet you with a different sentence depending on which phone you picked up. They have been read side by side and put back together, from the paywall to the practice screen to the notification settings.
• A child who runs out of tutor help on an iPhone is now told so. They used to see "Failed to check answer", which was neither true nor any help. They now hear that Kākā needs a breather and to try again in a minute, or that the tutor is done for the day and will be back tomorrow. Android has said this for a while.
• The apps ask for help in the child's own voice. When a question has beaten them three times, what Kākā says next is pitched at their year level on both apps rather than only on the iPhone.
• Show your working with a photo, on Android too. A question that asks your child to work something out on paper now lets them photograph what they wrote and check it back before typing their final answer, which the iPhone app has always done. The photo stays on the device: only the answer they type is marked.
• The Android app remembers where you were browsing. If your child was looking at a different year level or pathway, it opens there again next time instead of dropping back to their own year.
• Android says so when notifications are switched off. If the phone or tablet is blocking them, the notification settings now tell you, with a button that opens the right page to turn them back on. Before this the switches looked fine and nothing arrived.
• Pull down to refresh your family dashboard. On both apps.
• Pick which part of a photo becomes a profile picture on Android. It used to take the middle square whether that was the face or not.
• Right and wrong feel different on Android. A correct answer, a warning and a mistake now each have their own buzz, instead of sharing one.
• Lessons finish themselves. Android had a "Mark Lesson Complete" button that could tick a lesson off before the questions were done. A lesson is complete when the work is, on both apps.
• A Year 5 averages question works again. One question in "Calculating the Mean (Average)" was stored in a shape the apps could not read, which could stop the lesson loading. It now asks you to compare the two teams' averages and works as intended.
• The Android games no longer crash. Times Table Challenge, Kākā Munchers and Connect the Dots all closed the app the first time it tried to buzz, which in Times Table was the first answer a child gave. All three play through now.
• Choosing a theme no longer closes the Android app. The new colours arrived, the new home-screen icon arrived, and then the app vanished back to the home screen. The icon now changes quietly, once your child has put the app down.
• A finished lesson ticks off straight away on Android. The lesson list and the topic progress rings used to keep insisting the lesson was unfinished until the app was closed and opened again.
• A new avatar appears straight away on Android. Trading feathers for a new Kākā changed nothing your child could see until they reopened the app.
• Earning a badge now shows you the badge. The Android congratulation was words only, with no picture of the thing that had been won, and tapping past it could skip the feathers earned at the same moment. Both are fixed.
• Feathers are celebrated once, not twice. A correct answer on Android told your child what they had earned, then asked them to tap a second box saying it again.
• Worked steps follow themselves down the screen on Android. A step that appeared below the bottom of the screen stayed there, unread.
• A stray symbol in one Year 9 lesson. The description of "Metric Prefixes and Conversions" had an arrow that came out on Android as a large coloured emoji instead of the plain arrow it is everywhere else.

Kākā Math is free during the beta, so nothing changes for you today. This is the groundwork for when subscriptions start.

• A lapsed subscription now offers to renew. If the apps ever can't let you carry on because the family subscription has run out, they take you straight to the subscription screen rather than showing an error with nothing to do about it.
• Children are asked to fetch a grown-up, not asked to pay. A child who runs into this sees a short explanation and is told that everything they've earned is safe. No prices, and no buttons they can't press.
• Nobody gets signed out over it. Needing to renew is not the same as being logged out, and the apps now keep the two firmly apart.

The website now shows the real thing.

• A walk through a lesson. The features page steps through the journey a student actually takes. Pick a topic, read the introduction, work a question, ask for a hint, one step at a time, with the screen beside the explanation instead of seven thumbnails in a row.
• Real screenshots, from real devices. Every picture on the site is captured from the iPhone and Android apps running the curriculum, framed in a Kākā Math phone.
• A hint that actually hints. Two questions in the Year 6 division lesson had first hints that simply worked the answer out for you. They now ask you to estimate first, and the second hint gives you the method rather than the number.

• The single-photo Cheeky Check now teaches. Photograph a whole worksheet and Kākā asks you to predict each step before showing it. Photograph one question and it used to just show its working and the answer. Both paths now teach the same way.

The biggest change to how Cheeky Check works since it launched, plus a name for the place children spend their Feathers.

• Think first, then look. Each step of a walkthrough now opens with a short question about what should happen next, and there's a quick self-check before the answer is revealed. A child can skip either one, and nothing locks.
• Honest marking. A question your child never attempted is no longer marked wrong. Marking only happens where there is actual working on the page.
• Parents get their own Cheeky Check. Sitting at the kitchen table, you can run a check for a chosen child without signing in as them. It stays in your history; their streaks, Feathers and progress are untouched.
• Cheeky Check knows the curriculum. Questions lifted off a homework sheet are matched to the topic they belong to, so the help you get is the help that year level is taught.
• The Hollow and Wishes. The place children trade Feathers is now The Hollow, and the real-world treats parents set are Wishes. "Shop" and "Rewards" were doing too many jobs at once.
• Kākā turns up when things go wrong. Every error page now has a mascot and an explanation in plain English, plus a way back.
• Five children is the limit, and a full family is now told so before the Add Child form opens rather than after it's filled in.

• A pricing page that says what a family subscription will cost.
• Join the beta. Every "download" button on the site used to go nowhere, because the apps aren't published yet. They now open a short form asking your children's year levels and the devices you'd use, and we run the beta off that list by hand.

• Kākā Math runs on Android. A full app, not a cut-down one: lessons, Cheeky Check, the mini-games, The Hollow, badges, flocks, the Maths Check-In and numeracy practice, with push notifications and Google Sign-In.
• Delete your account from inside the app. One action removes the family account, every child profile and everything attached to them.
• Kākā Math tells you when you're offline instead of failing quietly.

• The weekly progress email is now a Monday-morning recap of the week that just finished, at 8am your time, with a chart, each child's week, and the badges they earned. It used to arrive late Sunday, halfway through the week it described.
• A glossary of 1,271 maths terms, Years 1 to 13, so an unfamiliar word in a question can be tapped rather than guessed.
• Lessons remember where you got to properly. Progress through a lesson is now kept on the server, so it's the same on every device and survives a reinstall.
• The leaderboard loads for students at the top year levels, which it previously didn't.

The content build. Every year level of the New Zealand maths curriculum, authored, illustrated and checked.

• Lessons for Years 1 through 13, each with an introduction, worked examples and a bank of questions in New Zealand contexts.
• NCEA numeracy practice. Full practice tests for the Numeracy Common Assessment Activity, drawn from the Year 10 topics it assesses.
• The Maths Check-In. A short adaptive placement test that works out where a child actually is, rather than assuming their school year.
• Topic introductions, so a student meets an idea before being asked about it.
• Sign in with Google, alongside Sign in with Apple.

Everything the app was built around, in one month.

• Lessons and practice. Browse by year level, work through a topic, get a hint rather than an answer, see a worked example when you're stuck.
• Cheeky Check. Photograph a page of handwritten homework and Kākā reads the working, not just the answer, and talks through where it went sideways.
• Feathers, altitude and badges. Earn Feathers for work done, climb from the Forest Floor to Kea Heights, and collect badges named after New Zealand mountains.
• Daily missions, and a daily forage reminder at a time you choose.
• Three mini-games. The Times Table Challenge, Kākā Munchers and Connect the Dots.
• Flocks. Children can join a flock and see a leaderboard of their friends.
• A parent dashboard. Add up to five children, see what each of them has done, set real-world treats, and get a weekly summary by email.
• Read-aloud lessons, for children who'd rather listen than read.
• Sign in with Apple, or a magic link, with no password to remember.