Terms of sale and use

These are the terms that apply when you buy something from SillyMaths or use our website and dashboard. They are written in plain English on purpose — if anything here is unclear, ask us at hello@sillymaths.com before you buy.

1. Who we are

SillyMaths (“we”, “us”) is a trading name of SILLYMATHS LTD, a company registered in England and Wales, company number 17375311. Our registered office is Suite A, 82 James Carter Road, Mildenhall, IP28 7DE.

We publish diagnostic mathematics materials for children preparing for selective entrance exams. You can reach us at hello@sillymaths.com, and that is the fastest way — we do not take enquiries by post.

2. What you are buying

Everything we sell is digital and is used on screen. Your child sits a paper in the browser and it is marked the moment they finish; nothing is printed, downloaded or posted.

Papers are not all the same length. Each topic paper asks every skill in that topic more than once, in a different form each time, so its length follows the topic. Topics with more distinct skills make longer papers. Across the twenty topics they run from about 24 questions to about 51. A shorter paper is not a smaller one: it covers its topic just as completely.

A subscription gives you, for as long as it runs:

• twenty topic papers, which your child can sit as many times as you like;
• the analysis, which names the specific mistakes behind the lost marks;
• practice worksheets, made fresh each time, as many as you want;
• a worked solution for every question your child gets wrong on a topic paper, showing how to do it step by step;
• seven mock papers — six Selective Checks and one Top Set — released on the schedule in section 7.

A mock paper is marked and reported the way the real exam works: you get the result, the level, where the marks went and the skill behind each one — but a mock does not reprint its questions. The topic papers are where every question, your child’s answer and the working are shown.

Once the six included papers are used you can buy more, in two kinds — the Selective Check and the Top Set. Prices are shown before you pay and fall as you buy more in one go. Extra papers are bought on top of a plan, and there is a limit on how many of each kind exist, so they cannot be bought without end.

Your first topic paper is free. It gives one topic paper and the analysis that goes with it, and includes no mock papers. There is no time limit on it — sit it whenever you like. We take no card details, so it cannot roll into a paid plan and nothing is ever charged. Your account and anything your child has done stay where they are, and you can start a plan whenever you like. One free paper per household.

What this is. SillyMaths is a diagnostic. It finds and names the mistakes behind lost marks, and gives you practice aimed at them.

It does not teach a topic from scratch. There are no lessons, courses or tutorials, and it is not a substitute for school, a tutor, or your own teaching. If a topic is entirely new to your child, it is best covered before they sit the paper.

In every case you are buying a licence to use the material, not ownership of it. Section 6 sets out what that licence covers.

3. The exam date, and what we assume

Mock papers unlock as the exam gets closer — one a year out, more as it approaches, and none in the last week. If you have told us the date, we count back from that.

If you have not, we assume the exam is the September your child starts Year 6. That is when most grammar papers are sat. It is an assumption, we say so on the screen, and you can replace it with the real date at any time in your settings.

The countdown and the unlocking schedule are a convenience, built from the date you give us. They are not a notification service and not a substitute for checking with the school — dates move, and only the school can tell you theirs. We are not responsible for a date entered incorrectly, or for anything that follows from one.

If you have not told us which school you are aiming at, we measure against one of the most demanding selective papers in the country (Wilson’s School). That is our own judgement of difficulty, not a statement by or about that school, and no school publishes a difficulty level. You can change the target school at any time in Settings, and everything is measured against your choice from then on.

4. Price and payment

Prices are shown in pounds sterling and include any VAT that applies. Payment is taken at checkout by our payment provider; we never see or store your card details. Your purchase is complete when payment clears, and everything you have bought opens in your dashboard immediately after that.

5. Who can open an account

SillyMaths is used by children, but an account may only be opened and run by a parent, guardian or other responsible adult aged 18 or over. By opening one you confirm that you are such an adult, that you are entitled to agree to these terms for the child you add, and that you consent to us holding their results as set out in our privacy notice.

The account is yours to look after. You are responsible for what happens on it, for supervising your child’s use as you think right, and for keeping your password and any six-digit code to yourself. Tell us straight away if you think somebody else has got into your account.

We may refuse to open an account, or suspend or close one, where these terms have been broken — sharing material, or using it outside one family, being the cases we have in mind. Where we reasonably can, we will tell you first and give you a chance to put it right. If we close an account for a breach, any unused time is not refunded; if we close one for any other reason, it is.

6. Your licence: one family, one child

Every pack is licensed to you, personally, for one child. Accounts are not transferable and may not be shared. You may:

• read everything in your dashboard for as long as your access lasts;
• have your own child sit the paper as many times as you like.

If you have a second child sitting these exams, email hello@sillymaths.com and we’ll set them up on the same account, so you can switch between your children from any page. Each child is the same price. An account tracks one child as standard, because two children’s results under one name would read as one child with a very strange pattern — the analysis stops meaning anything.

You may not:

• copy, share, email, upload or resell any part of a pack — the questions, the answers or the explanations;
• post questions or answer materials to websites, forums, file lockers or messaging groups;
• use the materials in a tutoring business, school or other organisation without a separate licence — write to us and we will sort one out.
• copy out, photograph, screenshot, transcribe or record the questions, answers or explanations, by hand or by any automated means;
• feed any part of SillyMaths into an artificial-intelligence tool, language model or similar service, whether to answer the questions, to train a system, or to produce material of your own;
• use any automated means to collect material from the site, or attempt to reach parts of it you have not paid for.

SillyMaths is online educational software for one family’s own use at home. It is licensed for that purpose and no other. Nothing here transfers ownership of anything to you: you are buying access for a period, not the material itself.

Papers and worksheets are shown on screen with your account’s email address tiled faintly behind them. It identifies the account, never the child, and exists so that a screenshot passed around can be traced back to where it came from.

7. Mock papers, and when they open

Mock papers included with a plan are released on a schedule counted back from your child’s exam date: one is available from the start, and the rest open as the exam approaches. This is deliberate. A mock is only worth anything as a fixed point to compare against later, and a set used up eighteen months early leaves nothing to measure progress with. None opens in the last week before the exam.

Mock papers you buy separately are available immediately and are not affected by that schedule. Both kinds are fixed papers, the same for every child, and each is intended to be sat once.

A mock runs once. Once your child starts a mock paper it cannot be paused, and stopping it early ends it: it is marked on the answers given up to that point, and that paper cannot be sat again. This applies to a paper included with a plan and to one bought separately. It is what makes a mock worth anything — a paper met for the second time measures memory, not readiness. Your child is told this before the paper opens, and again if they press to stop.

What you are buying is the sitting, not the paper. Buying a mock gives your child one opportunity to sit that paper under exam conditions. It does not give you a copy of the paper or any continuing right to its questions, and it is not affected by whether the sitting went well. This is the same for both kinds of mock.

Topic papers work the other way and are not limited in this way. Your child can sit a topic paper as many times as you like for as long as your plan runs, can stop part-way, and will pick up at the question they had reached. Nothing there is used up, because a topic paper is there to find a habit rather than to measure a moment.

We may change which papers are included in a plan, and the number of them, for purchases made after the change. Papers already available to you are not taken away.

8. What the analysis shows you

On a topic paper the analysis shows every question your child got wrong, together with the right answer, what the question was testing and how to explain it. On a mock it shows where the marks went and the skill behind each one, but not the questions — see section 2. Questions they got right are not shown, on any paper, anywhere on the site.

This is deliberate. A topic paper can be sat again and again, and a paper you have already read through cannot tell you anything the second time. Showing only what went wrong is also the only part worth your time.

It follows that if your child gets most of a paper wrong you will see most of it. Where that happens, the analysis says so plainly: a paper with very little right does not show a habit, it shows a topic that has not been taught yet, and the answer is to teach it rather than to look for slips.

9. How long you have access

Everything is read and sat on screen; there is nothing to download. How long you have depends on what you bought:

• The monthly plan runs from month to month and is charged each month until you cancel. Cancelling stops the next payment; you keep everything until the month you have paid for ends.
• The six- and twelve-month plans are a single payment and run for that time. Nothing is charged again automatically. If you buy again before your current time is up, the new period begins when the old one ends, so no days are lost.
• Mock papers bought separately stay available for as long as you have a plan, and each is meant to be sat once.

When a plan ends, your child’s results and analysis become read-only rather than being deleted, and we will email you before that happens. Data is removed only under the retention rule in our privacy notice, or sooner if you ask us to delete it.

We are producing short video walkthroughs of questions, which will appear in the dashboard as they are finished. Like everything else, they will be watched on screen and will not be downloadable. They are an addition to what you have bought, not a part of it — we do not promise a date, and nothing you have paid for depends on them.

10. Delivery and the cooling-off period

Because packs are digital content delivered immediately, when you buy you agree that delivery starts straight away — and UK consumer law says that, by agreeing to that, you give up the standard 14-day cooling-off right for digital content.

11. Refunds

Two different situations, two different answers.

Changed your mind? We do not offer change-of-mind refunds. When you buy, you ask us to give you access straight away and you agree that doing so ends the fourteen-day cancellation right — that is the tick box at checkout, and access opens the moment payment clears.

The reason we work that way is what these papers are. Each one is a fixed diagnostic, meant to be met cold, and it is spent the moment it has been seen — a paper somebody has read is worth very little to them and nothing to us. There is no way to give one back.

Something actually wrong — a question that will not open, an answer key error, something that stops your child sitting a paper? That is on us: email hello@sillymaths.com and we will fix it, replace it or refund it. UK law gives you that right for faulty digital content, and nothing in these terms reduces it.

12. Your account and the dashboard

The dashboard is provided to help you read your child’s results; it is not required to browse the site. You are responsible for keeping access to your email account secure, since that is how you sign in. How we handle the data you enter — especially data about your child — is covered by our privacy policy, which forms part of these terms.

We may improve, change or (with reasonable notice) withdraw dashboard features. What we will not withdraw while your access lasts is the thing you bought: papers your child can sit, and the analysis of the marks that come back.

12a. The Den, the animals and the points

The Den is the part of the dashboard your child sees. It is a room with an animal in it. The animal is chosen in your settings, next to their silly name, so it is your account that decides it — many families pick together. It cannot be changed from inside the Den, and it is always free. Your child can then earn points — shown as △ — and spend them on outfits, backgrounds and furniture for the room. It is there to make the practice worth coming back to. It is not part of the diagnosis.

There is no mystery box, no loot box, no random reward, no daily login bonus and no streak your child can break. Every price is on the item, and what they get is what they chose.

You open the Den by handing the device over, and while it is open your own dashboard is locked on that device — your child cannot reach their results, and nor can anyone else who picks it up. Closing the Den needs an adult.

Points cannot be bought, and nothing in the Den costs money. There is no top-up, no in-app purchase and no way to spend real money inside the Den — not for you and not for your child. Points have no cash value, cannot be exchanged for anything outside the Den, cannot be transferred between children, and are not refundable in money or in kind.

Points are earned by doing the maths, and only by doing the maths: marks won back once a mistake is fixed, a mistake beaten a second time after it came back, a practice sheet finished, a paper sat, a mock sat. Points never go down for a wrong answer. Your child never has to spend anything to keep working, and every animal comes with outfits already owned, so nobody is locked out of the Den by having earned nothing yet.

The points total is worked out from your child’s own results each time the Den is opened, rather than held as a balance. One thing follows from that, and it is worth knowing before you use it: if you delete a paper from your child’s history, the points that paper earned go with it. Anything already bought stays bought — your child never loses an outfit they are wearing — but the amount left to spend can fall. There is no selling back and no swapping; a purchase can be undone only immediately after it is made.

What your child chooses in the Den is cosmetic and nothing else. It has no effect on marking, on their level, on what we recommend, or on anything we tell you. Nothing they choose is visible to any other family: the Den is private to your account, there is no chat, no leaderboard, no sharing and no way for one child to see another.

Silly Hunt

The Den also has a daily puzzle called Silly Hunt. Four colours are hidden in a grid, and each go tells your child which of their colours are right. It takes a few minutes and there is a new one each day.

There is no limit on tries and no way to lose — your child keeps going until they find all four. Nothing is earned for a game that is not finished. Finishing one earns points for the Den, and deliberately fewer than any piece of schoolwork earns, so the game can never be the quick way to a reward. Missing a day costs nothing: there is no streak, and nothing is taken away for not playing.

There are two boards — the ordinary one, and a smaller, harder one with no arrows to help. Your child can play either, or both. A day is worth whichever board they did best on, never the two added together, so playing twice cannot double the points.

Every child gets the same puzzle on the same day. It is worked out from the date and from nothing about your child — not their marks, not their level, not their year group. It is not part of the diagnosis, it never affects marking or anything we report to you, and the only thing kept is which puzzles were solved and in how many tries, so the points add up.

The Den, the animals, the outfits, Silly Hunt and the point values are features of the dashboard rather than something you buy, so section 13 applies to them: we may add to them, change them or adjust what things cost. If we ever withdraw an item your child already owns, we will replace it with one of at least the same value.

13. We will keep improving this

The website, the packs and the dashboard will all change over time. Nearly all of that is improvement, and we would rather set out plainly how it works than have it come as a surprise.

• A paper your child has already sat never changes. The questions they answered, the marks, and the analysis of them stay exactly as they were. We do not rewrite history.
• The packs may be improved. If we correct or improve a pack you have bought, the better version is yours at no extra cost while your access lasts. We will never charge you again for an improved version of something you already own.
• The website may change at any time. We may add, rewrite or remove any page — pricing, articles, sample questions and the rest.
• The dashboard and the analysis will change. We may add features, change how something looks or works, and withdraw features that are not earning their place. As we learn from real results, the way we name and group mistakes will change too — that is the product getting better at its job, not a different product.

What we will not do is take away the thing you actually paid for. For the whole of your access period, every topic will let your child sit a paper and give you back an analysis of the mistakes behind the marks. The shape of that analysis may change. Its existence will not.

And if we ever withdraw something significant that you paid for and cannot offer you a fair equivalent, tell us and we will put it right — normally by refunding a fair share of what you paid for the time you had left. Nothing in this section reduces your legal rights.

14. Intellectual property

All questions, answers, diagrams and explanations, the practice worksheets we generate, the video walkthroughs, the analysis and the way we name and group mistakes, the SillyMaths scale, and the SillyMaths name and logo are our intellectual property, protected by copyright and related rights. The licence in section 6 is the only permission granted.

15. Mistakes, the scale, and the schools we name

Mistakes. Every question and every answer has been checked, and checked again, by hand. We still expect that somewhere in two thousand questions something is wrong. If you find one, please tell us — it is genuinely useful, we will look at it properly, and we will put it right for everybody. What we cannot do is compensate for a marking error beyond correcting it and, where it matters, the analysis that followed from it.

The SillyMaths scale. The level we report is our own measure, worked out by our own method, and it belongs to us. It is not a school grade, not a national curriculum level, not a standardised score, and it is not produced or recognised by any exam board, school or other organisation. It is a guide to where a child is against the papers we set, useful for watching movement over time — not a fact about your child, and never a prediction of what they will achieve.

The schools we name. Schools appear here only so you can tell us which exam your child is preparing for. We are not connected with, approved by, endorsed by or acting for any school, exam board, consortium or test provider, and none of them has any involvement in what we produce. School names and trade marks belong to their owners.

Changes to what we offer. We may add, alter or remove parts of the site and the product where we judge it makes the service better — new papers, new tools, a different way of showing something. We will not take away the thing you have paid for: while your access lasts, your child can sit papers and you will get back an analysis of the mistakes behind the marks. We may also change prices, which applies to purchases made after the change, never to one you have already made.

Availability. We aim to keep the site running at all times but cannot promise it. It may be unavailable for maintenance, or because something we depend on has failed. If an outage stops your child sitting a paper, tell us and we will put it right.

16. What we are responsible for

If we get something wrong, we are responsible for foreseeable loss caused by our breach of these terms or by our negligence, up to the amount you paid us. We do not exclude or limit liability where it would be unlawful to do so — including for death or personal injury caused by negligence, or for fraud.

None of this affects your statutory rights. You have rights under UK consumer law that we cannot reduce or take away, and nothing in these terms is meant to. Where anything here conflicts with a right the law gives you, the law wins. If you would like to know what those rights are, Citizens Advice explains them plainly and for free.

Three honest limits. First, our packs are diagnostic tools, not a guarantee: we cannot promise any exam result, school place or improvement in performance. What we provide is information about where marks are being lost and practice aimed at those mistakes; what happens next depends on the work your child does, the teaching they get elsewhere, and how the exam is set and marked on the day — none of which is within our control. Nothing on this site, including any level, score, chart or recommendation, is a prediction of how a child will perform. Second, we are not responsible for losses caused by events outside our reasonable control, or for business losses — our products are for home use. Third, and at the heart of how SillyMaths works: the dashboard’s read on why a mark was lost is a most-likely explanation drawn from the answers your child gave — not a certain statement of what happened in their head. Like a doctor reading symptoms, it narrows down the probable cause and grows more confident as more results come in. It is there to help you decide what to do next; it is not a diagnosis we guarantee.

17. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms from time to time, for example when we add new features. The date at the top shows the current version. Changes apply to purchases made after the change; they never rewrite the deal on something you have already bought.

That is about this document. How the product itself may change is a separate thing, and it is set out in section 13.

18. Governing law

These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales, and disputes can be brought in the courts of England and Wales. If you live in Scotland or Northern Ireland, you may also bring proceedings in your local courts.

19. If you are unhappy with something

Email hello@sillymaths.com and tell us what went wrong. We aim to reply within three working days and to settle complaints within fourteen. If we cannot agree, you can take the matter to an alternative dispute resolution provider, and none of this affects your legal rights or your right to go to court.

20. If part of these terms does not work

If any part of these terms turns out to be unenforceable, the rest of them still applies.

21. Contact

Questions about these terms: hello@sillymaths.com, or use the contact form.