Games and the league

Games holds short learning games — quiz games, memory games and others depending on your subject and tier.

They are quick, they are meant to be played more than once, and they cover the same material as your lessons in a different shape.

What they are for

Games are not a break from learning that happens to be on the same website. They are built on the material you are working through, and they are good at the part lessons are bad at: recall under a bit of pressure.

Knowing a times table is different from being able to produce it quickly. Reading a definition is different from recognising it in a list of four. Games practise the second kind of knowing, which is the kind an exam asks for.

A few minutes of a game after a lesson is worth more than the same few minutes spent re-reading the lesson.

The league

The league table ranks players by points earned. Depending on how your school has set it up, you may see your class, your year, or the whole school.

Points come from playing well, not from playing often, so grinding the same easy game repeatedly does not climb the table.

Note

The league is meant to be fun. If it stops being fun — if it makes you avoid the subject rather than practise it — ignore it. Nothing else in the portal depends on your position, and your teacher’s view of your work comes from your lessons and projects, not from the leaderboard.

Playing well

Play after learning, not instead of it. A game on a topic you have not met yet is guessing.

Short and often. Five minutes most days beats an hour on Saturday.

Notice what you keep getting wrong. That is the thing to go back to the lesson for. The game is telling you something useful.

Play the harder level. Once a level is easy it has stopped teaching you anything.

Games and your teacher

Your teacher can see participation, and some schools use games as set work. Whether games count towards anything is your school’s decision, not the portal’s — ask if you are unsure.