How a tutoring session works

Every piece of homework happens in the Learning studio. A conversation is saved as a session, so a child can come back to it later, and a linked parent can read it. Here is what one session looks like from start to finish.

#1. Ask a question

The student picks a subject (Math, Physics, Biology, Chemistry, English, or + Other) and asks their question in whichever way suits them:

• Type it in the question box.
• Snap a photo of the worksheet or textbook page with the camera button. On a phone this opens the camera.
• Say it out loud with the microphone button, where voice is turned on. The words appear in the box first, so the student can check them before sending. The recording itself is turned into text and never kept.

Under the box, a short line tells the student: "Sessions are saved. A linked parent can see them."

#Explaining on a whiteboard

When the question is "how", "why" or "explain", the tutor can answer as a whiteboard lesson instead of a chat message. A page of handwriting builds up in front of the child, a piece at a time, with a pen: a title, an everyday comparison, labelled boxes, a numbered flow chart, or the working of an equation. TutorCat reads it aloud, and the words show as captions.

The child can pause, replay, change the speed, mute the voice, hide the captions, tap any part to hear it again, save the board as a picture, or switch to a plain-text view with the Board and Chat buttons. On a phone the board opens full screen. A photo of homework can become a board too: it starts with "Here's what I see", so the child can check it was read correctly.

Boards teach the way the steps do. For a homework problem the board shows the method and never the final answer, which still unlocks the same way (see below). Boards follow the same safety rules as every reply: the child's message is checked first, the board is checked before it is shown, and the text version is what parents see in the transcript.

The Lesson Library. When a child asks about a general topic, such as "how does the heart work?", TutorCat writes the board from the topic alone ("the human heart", for the child's curriculum and grade), never from the child's words, and, once a person on the TutorCat team has checked it, keeps it in a shared Lesson Library so the next learner who asks gets it straight away. Library lessons hold no information about any learner, and every learner can browse them for free in Explore. Personal questions, homework problems and photos always get a board made just for that child. Each child also has their own My lessons page that lists every whiteboard lesson they have had, to search, replay or be quizzed on when they revise.

#2. Work through the steps

The tutor replies with a short introduction and a Steps card. Only the first step is open. The rest are locked until the one before it is done, so the student thinks about one thing at a time.

On the open step, the student can:

• tap Got it ✓ when the step makes sense. It folds away with a tick and the next step opens.
• tap Explain more if they are stuck. TutorCat sends the tutor a follow-up asking for a different explanation with a smaller example, worded so the tutor teaches the step again rather than revealing the answer.
• type any follow-up question of their own in the box ("Ask about this step…").

A step counter at the top shows how far they have got, for example "1 / 3".

#3. Earn the answer

The full answer unlocks once the student has engaged with the steps. In the app's own words, they need to:

1. Open at least one step and read it, and
2. Ask a follow-up, or tap "Got it" on a step you understand.

Until then, the bottom of the Steps card says "Answer unlocks after the steps" next to a Locked button. Tapping Locked asks for the answer anyway, and the tutor replies with a gentle nudge to try a step first. It is a teaching moment, not an error.

Once they have engaged, the card says "Nice work. You have earned the answer whenever you want it." and shows Unlock the answer. The student can keep going through the steps first, or unlock it now.

#4. Keep going, or come back later

• Every session appears in the Chats list, with its subject and when it was last used. Tap one to pick up where you left off.
• The + button next to Chats starts a new session.
• Tap the subject at the top of a session to rename it.
• The speaker button on a tutor reply reads it aloud using the device's own voice.
• When the tutor's reply is still arriving, a new question waits until it has finished.

#When the tutor gets it wrong

The tutor is an AI and will sometimes make a mistake. Encourage your child to check important answers with their teacher or textbook. If you spot a wrong answer, please tell us with Feedback: it is one of the most useful things a beta family can do.