A schoolfriend on the Web

Anxious, pushy parents everywhere will be relieved to learn that they can supplement their primary school-age children's schoolwork by signing up to a website that provides tailor-made tuition.

Schoolfriend, (www.schoolfriend.com), set up last year by husband and wife Amanda and Stephen Argent, claims to be the world's first interactive learning website for five to 11-year-olds.

As the parents of four daughters, aged six to 12, they may be uniquely qualified to understand people's concerns about their children's achievements – or lack of them.

"Working with our own children, it was obvious that they were all coping with schoolwork very differently," Amanda Argent explains.

"Our eldest, for example, was struggling with maths. She would see a problem, solve it, then look completely blank when the same problem was presented a day later.
It became obvious that she needed the chance to go over things in her own time, maybe three times a week. She needed to build a solid foundation.

"Our third daughter finds spelling quite difficult, and we felt that the same applied. It occurred to us that the internet was an ideal medium for carrying this sort of information. Parents wouldn't need to go out and buy the booklets. And we could pitch it at each child's ability level."

Amanda Argent had spent her working life at the computer company Psion, heading the UK sales department. Stephen Argent is an accountant who set up Computer Troubleshooters. In addition, he creates computerised financial models and has been a financial consultant. They were ideally placed to create an internet education site.

Schoolfriend assesses a child's strengths and weaknesses, and then delivers a series of exercises unique to each child's needs. All work is completed and marked offline. Parents and teachers have access to a child's work through a password system. If children need prompting, the exercises have "hint" and "help" buttons to guide them. If they are completely stuck, an in-built tutorial system is automatically sent with the next exercise.

For the moment, the site offers only maths and spelling, but the Argents plan to offer punctuation, English, science, history, geography, verbal and non-verbal reasoning and general knowledge later this year. Schoolfriend charges a mere $3 a week for a year's subscription – with access to all subjects – $3.40 a week for six months and $3.75 for three months. (No discounts are made for additional children.)

How have schools responded? Schoolfriend has been designed to complement the national curriculum and has found schools very receptive. Several hundred across the country have signed up, according to the Argents. Schools are offered maths and spelling free of charge.

In addition, they can subscribe their children to Breakfast Clubs and Homework Clubs. This entitles them to use all the subjects as they become available. As soon as 10 children from a school have subscribed to Schoolfriend, whether through parents at home or through the Breakfast Clubs, the school receives a free PC.

But aren't teachers anxious about parents taking over their role, muscling in on their territory? "Teachers seemed only too pleased to have the parental involvement. They know that Schoolfriend is not intended to replace teachers but to complement them," Amanda Argent says.

"It is incredibly difficult for one teacher to tailor her teaching to the needs or rate of progress of 20 or more children. So all children could do with a little help. There are some who develop a weak area that can colour their whole attitude to a subject. These children are not stupid; they are struggling to keep up. They just need time to reinforce rules and get a solid grounding. On the other hand, a lot of bright children are not being challenged or stretched."

These problems cause enormous anxiety among parents, who often feel that not enough is being done at school to tackle their child's problem. And while they are keen to speak to teachers about ways of dealing with it, they don't want to appear difficult and pushy. Ms Argent said: "You can't go into the teachers every week saying, 'How's she doing?' Parents want feedback, and Schoolfriend is one way of getting it."

It all sounds great in theory, but does it work? Schoolfriend allowed me free use of the site for several months with my six-year-old, who was initially greatly enamoured of the cute graphics, appealing sound-effects and the race against the clock to complete exercises. Once the novelty had worn off she was, predictably, less keen to do the exercises than to play the games that children are rewarded with after finishing a set number of tasks. These were a big hit with my four-year-old as well, and they spent many happy hours together screeching at the computer. Has it helped her schoolwork, though?

As with any other activity that you sign your child up for, Schoolfriend requires dedication and application – on the part of the parent. Just as with piano practice, you can't send them off to do it on their own and hope for the best. The scheme envisages the child doing only three or four exercises a week in any subject, and for a mere 15 minutes a time.

But, as every parent knows, once the thrill of the new has passed, it's a matter of setting a regular time and being firm. And Schoolfriend is no different, despite the fact that it comes via computer, which most children adore messing about on, with snazzy (but thankfully not manic) graphics and sound-effects.