How it works
Setting it up takes about a minute.
No app, no account. It all happens in WhatsApp, and the only thing we ask up front is what grade your kid is in.
01
Save the number and say hello
Message +27 78 680 1366. Agree once, tap your kid's grade from a list, and that's the setup done.
02
Send the question, or a photo of the page
Type it out or take a photo of the page. A bit blurry is usually fine. If we honestly can't read it, we'll say so instead of guessing.
03
Read the card before you speak
Thirty seconds is enough. You get the point of the question, a line to open with, and what to listen out for.
04
Coach. Don't solve.
Hand over one hint at a time, and only when they're properly stuck. They do the thinking. You keep them moving.
Watch the whole thing — 52 seconds, no sound needed.
This is what actually lands in your chat.
A real card for a real Grade 5 division question, exactly as you’d get it. Have a look at what’s missing from it.
You can send a photo of the page instead. We read it to write your card and then it’s gone. We don’t keep homework photos.
Grade 5 · Mathematics · Division
Your goal
They should see 144 ÷ 6 as how many sixes fit into 144 — not a rule to follow.
Say this
“Let’s not do the sum yet. Do you think more than ten sixes fit into 144, or fewer?”
Hints — one at a time
- 1Ask what 6 × 10 is. Let them say 60.
- 2“We’ve used 60 of the 144. How much is still there?”
- 3“Can another ten sixes fit into what’s left?”
Avoid: writing the bus-stop layout out for them. If they copy your method they’ll be stuck the moment the wording changes.
You’re not going mad. They really do teach it differently now.
CAPS does division in a way that looks nothing like what you were taught. Here’s 144 ÷ 6 worked both ways, so you can see where the confusion comes from — and why the card above asks you to say things you wouldn’t have thought to say.
How you were taught
The algorithm — fast, and invisible
- 6 into 14 → 2carry the 2
- bring down the 4 → 24
- 6 into 24 → 4
= 24
It works. But if your kid asks why, there’s nothing in it to point at. It was built to be quick, not to be understood.
How they’re taught now
Building up — slower, and visible
- 6 × 10 = 6084 left
- 6 × 10 = 6024 left
- 6 × 4 = 24nothing left
10 + 10 + 4 = 24
Every step is a real question your kid can answer out loud. That’s the point of it, and that’s why it looks nothing like yours.
Same answer. Different road.
Four words that change what comes back.
Start a message with one of these and a different kind of card comes back. You don’t have to bother with them. A plain question works just as well.
- PREPARE
- Five minutes before they sit down, and you want to be ready.
- COACH
- You're at the table now and need the next question to ask.
- CHECK
- They've written an answer and you want to know where it went wrong.
- CALM
- It's turned into a fight. This one's for the room, not the maths.
How the pieces connect
You send one thing. Four come back, and every one of them is written to you, not to your kid.
The answer. Nothing runs to it, on purpose. Every other piece connects. This one never does — not in the card, not in the hints, and not if your kid grabs the phone and asks us themselves.
The one thing you’ll never get from us.
A finished answer. Ask us straight out and we say no, every time. Send the same question from your kid’s own phone and you get the same no. The card is written to the grown-up and it stays that way.
Try it on tonight’s homework