FAQs
Find answers to our frequently asked questions about Atom Home and Atom School.
Parents | Atom Home
General
What age is Atom Home suitable for?
Atom Home is suitable for children ages 7–11 (Years 3–6). Our Exam Prep packages are specifically for children preparing for the 11+ and independent school exams.
Is Atom Home tailored to my child’s age?
Yes – the platform uses adaptive technology which means that questions are displayed at an optimal level of difficulty for your child. This ensures they are stretched and challenged without becoming demotivated.
My child is in Year 1 / Year 2 (Key Stage 1). Can we use Atom Home?
Atom Home is an adaptive learning platform designed to support children studying Key Stage 2 (Years 3–6). We generally would not recommend children younger than Year 3 use the platform, although there may be exceptions to this.
Please contact [email protected] if you would like further advice.
My child is in Year 7 / Year 8 / Year 9 (Key Stage 3). Can we use Atom Home?
Your child is welcome to use Atom Home in Year 7 or above. However, our content is only mapped to early Key Stage 3 topics to help children in Year 6 prepare for the transition to Year 7.
If your child is in late Year 7 or beyond, they may not find the content challenging enough. Your child can practise verbal and non-verbal reasoning on Atom Home, although we would expect the tests they sit in Year 7 and above to be more challenging.
What support does Atom Learning provide?
We’re here to support you and your child with your education journey. You can talk with our Education Experts via LiveChat, phone or email. You can also attend our parent webinars for advice on exam prep and school admissions.
What is Atom’s approach to inclusivity?
At Atom, we are dedicated to creating inclusive content that meets international standards for Culturally Responsive Education. The educational content on Atom Home represents the diversity of the world we live in. The questions, examples and illustrations reflect different cultures and ethnicities, abilities, gender identities, and types of families.
Atom Home is safe to be used by children independently. All questions and scenarios are designed to be age-appropriate and relevant.
Education
Is Atom Home mapped to the national curriculum?
Yes - all of the learning resources available on Atom Home, including the learning journeys, worksheets and video tutorials, are created by teachers and mapped to the national curriculum in England for Key Stage 2 and early Key Stage 3.
My child needs support with core subjects. Is Atom Home suitable?
Yes – our English, Maths and Science package is designed to support children in Years 3 to 6 in core subjects. For £39.99 per month, your child will be able to access over 70,000 tailored practice questions across the core Key Stage 2 curriculum.
Do you offer 1:1 tuition?
Yes! You can arrange 1:1 tuition with us on top of your regular subscription. Using your data from Atom Learning, our tuition managers will recommend one of our expert tutors to support your child on a 1:1 basis. Our focused tuition will target weaknesses identified by Atom in order to accelerate progress!
You can choose from either short or long-term packages. Any package includes weekly feedback and comprehensive reports provided by our tuition managers.
You can register your interest by clicking the ‘1 to 1 Tuition’ tab in the blue toolbar on the left-hand side of your account. Alternatively, send us an email at [email protected].
Using the platform
Do I need to help my child when they’re working on Atom Home?
No, our platform is designed for your child to use independently. It’s fun and easy to navigate, with helpsheets and videos to help them build and consolidate their knowledge.
How can I measure my child’s progress on Atom Home?
You’ll see in-depth data on your parent dashboard, including your child’s attainment in every subtopic and the depth of their understanding.
How much time should my child spend on the platform?
The amount of time your child should spend on Atom Home will depend on their individual goals. If your child is using Atom to consolidate their Key Stage 2 learning but not preparing for an entrance exam, it is likely they will spend less time using the platform.
If your child is preparing for an entrance exam, it is important to view this preparation as a marathon rather than a sprint. The little and often approach tends to have the greatest impact on balancing progress with long-term engagement, so we recommend spending 90–120 minutes on Atom Home each week.
Exam preparation
My child is preparing for an exam. Which exam boards is Atom Home suitable for?
Atom Home is designed to support preparation for all major 11+ exam boards for grammar and independent school exams, including CEM, GL Assessments, ISEB, CAT4 and schools' own papers.
Can Atom Home be used for 13+ exam preparation?
The content on Atom Home covers the Key Stage 2 core curriculum, which means that it is suitable for children who are sitting first-stage 13+ exams (pre-tests) while in Year 6. There are also mock tests available for the ISEB Common Pre-Test, which many schools use for 13+ entry. However, the content on Atom Home may not be challenging enough for candidates sitting second-stage 13+ tests (Common Entrance or scholarship exams) in Year 8, as children are normally tested on Key Stage 3 content at this point.
How many mock tests can my child access?
With Atom’s Exam Prep Plus subscription, your child can attempt multiple mock tests and will see completely different questions in every attempt. This means that no two mock tests are identical.
Do I need to set a target school for my child?
You don't have to set a target school or exam date. But when you do, our algorithm is able to help keep your child on track for their exam. You can also compare your child's scores with the average applicant to that school, if the data is available.
Account and billing
How much does Atom Home cost?
There are three subscription options with Atom Home:
English, Maths and Science: £39.99 per month (£383.90 if paid in full for 12 months)
Exam Prep: £59.99 per month (£575.90 if paid in full for 12 months)
Exam Prep Plus: £69.99 per month (£671.90 if paid in full for 12 months)
Can I try Atom for free first?
Yes! All new customers are eligible for a five-day free trial to explore the platform without commitment. If you wish to subscribe, payment for your chosen package will be taken on the fifth day, unless cancelled in advance.
What is your cancellation policy?
You can cancel your Atom subscription at any time in your Parent account. You will still be able to use all the features until the day before your subscription would normally renew.
If you need any support cancelling your subscription, please email us at [email protected].
When will my payment be taken?
Payment for your Atom Home subscription will be taken after the five days of your trial period have elapsed. If you are on a monthly subscription, it will then be taken each month on that date going forward. If you are on an annual subscription, payment will be taken on the same date the following year.
How do I change my subscription?
If you would like to switch your subscription to another plan, please contact our team at [email protected].
Is Atom Home a fixed-term subscription?
No – your Atom Home subscription will automatically renew each billing period (depending on whether you are paying monthly or annually). If you do decide to cancel your subscription, you will retain access to the subscription until the end of the current billing period, after which point your account will be closed.
How do I resubscribe to Atom Home?
If you would like to resubscribe to Atom Home, you can sign back into your Parent account and click ‘Add subscription’ in the top right. Select the child you would like to resubscribe for and follow the steps to complete the sign-up journey.
Your child’s progress data from your last subscription will be saved so that you and your child can pick up from where you left off.
Can I have two children on one subscription?
As Atom Home uses an algorithm that adapts to each child’s progress, each child must have their own subscription. This is to ensure that the content they see is appropriate and accurately tailored to their unique learning journey.
You can add multiple students to your parent portal. To do this, sign in to your parent portal and click the "+" icon in the top right of your screen. If you require more than one subscription, please contact [email protected] so we can provide you with a sibling discount code.
Technology
How does Atom's adaptive technology work?
When you sign up to Atom Home, the platform will ask for your child's date of birth. This means that Atom knows which topics each child will need to cover in their year group — both to stay on track with their school’s curriculum and to challenge and extend their learning.
Once an account has been activated, and so that the technology can start to work its magic, children need to use the platform regularly. Every time a child answers a question, the algorithm uses their answers to measure their progress and display questions at an optimal level of difficulty. This ensures that children are challenged but not demotivated.
Atom derives data from each question answered to produce tailored and challenging content – so it's important that children work independently to answer questions. This performance data is split up by topic and parents can view a breakdown of each via their Parent Portal.
By continuing to use Atom, children benefit from granular insights, individualised content, and engaging learning. If you have questions about Atom’s adaptive technology, please get in touch with our support team at [email protected].
Does Atom Home work on iPads?
Yes, Atom Home works on iPads. We always recommend that you keep your iPad up to date, and use Google Chrome if possible.
What devices are supported?
Atom Home is compatible with all modern browsers and devices, in the UK and internationally. This includes modern desktop and laptop computers and tablets including Chromebooks and iPads.
What technical support does Atom provide?
We offer on-demand technical support, remotely or in person.
Teachers | Atom School
General FAQs
What age is Atom School suitable for?
Atom School is designed for children in Years 3–6 (ages 7–11).
Why is Atom School free?
We’ve chosen to offer the main features of Atom School to schools for free as part of our mission to democratise education. We do have paid products for home learning and managing assessments.
What is Atom Home?
Atom Home is the home platform for students and parents, aimed at bridging the gap between school and home learning. Atom Home is designed to create a tailored learning journey for each child across English, maths, science, verbal and non-verbal reasoning.
Children have access to interactive activities as well as live lessons, mock tests and custom practice sessions. It can be used alongside the school platform as the two question banks are separate and it is proven to reinforce classroom learning, building confidence in less able students, and extending academically confident students. The algorithm allows them to access national curriculum content covering Years 3–6 (and early Year 7), as well as independent and grammar school exam content.
Education
What subjects does Atom School cover?
Atom School covers English, maths, science, verbal reasoning and non-verbal reasoning.
Who writes the content on Atom School?
All of the content you see on the platform is written by teachers, for teachers.
Is Atom School mapped to the national curriculum?
Yes – our content is grounded in the UK Key Stage 2 core curriculum. The verbal reasoning and non-verbal reasoning content is mapped to 11+ exam boards.
Can Atom School help my pupils prepare for entrance exams?
Atom School is a great way to support entrance exam preparation. The platform’s algorithm and content are reflective of entrance exams such as the ISEB.
Technology
How is Atom School adaptive?
Atom’s adaptive question selecting algorithm means that a student will always see questions that are best suited to their ability. Put simply, the more questions the student gets correct, the more challenging their questions become. The opposite also applies: the more questions the student gets incorrect, the easier the questions will become.
How do I know that the algorithm is picking the right questions?
Each new question is assigned a difficulty level based on highly prescriptive specifications for question types. When writing a new question we know the difficulty of all the questions of its type, which have been graded by teachers on a scale of -1 to 5.
Atom’s algorithm takes this grading, then evaluates the responses of every child who encounters this question and accurately adapts the difficulty grading if needed. As a result, we have an enormous question bank that is standardised by the Atom population (approximately 150,000 students) from which the algorithm can choose and assign to students at the level best suited to them, based on their previous answers.
Does Atom work on iPads?
Yes, Atom works on iPads. We always recommend that you keep your iPad up to date, and use Google Chrome if possible.
What devices are supported?
Atom Home is compatible with all modern browsers and devices, in the UK and internationally. This includes modern desktop and laptop computers and tablets including Chromebooks and iPads.
What technical support does Atom provide?
We offer on-demand technical support, remotely or in person.
Contact
Who can I speak to about Atom School?
To contact a member of the Atom School team, please email [email protected].
How do I book a demo of Atom School?
You can book a demo of Atom School by clicking here.