Sumdog: A guide for parents

Sumdog is a fantastic website (and APP) that uses motivating games to encourage children to practice their mental maths skills. The children love it as they are able to play against each other and they can practice any skill with any game. This ensures that Sumdog is never boring and always relevant.

Log in and explore

Each child has been given a unique username and password. This allows them to access their personalised home screen, which includes information about their animal level, earned coins and the Sumdog house. This is where they can scroll through and choose games to play or select which skill to work on.

The first few questions are aimed at finding the right level for the child so they may vary in difficulty at first. Once they have completed the diagnostic test, the children will be given questions suitable for their level and based on a target skill that Sumdog has identified as needing further practice. Each time a child becomes confident at answering questions about that skill, Sumdog automatically selects a new skill to develop.

Each week, teachers have the option to set a challenge of answering a certain number of questions related to a focus area. Different challenges can be set for different children in order to support their progress. Teachers can access useful information about children’s accuracy in answering questions correctly and how much time they have been spending on Sumdog.

We believe Sumdog is a fantastic tool for keeping the children of Cathedral School engaged in maths. We hope that this guide will enable you to be involved too. If you have any further questions, please do contact the office.