Our Frequently Asked Questions
Our classes all take place on Zoom. They vary a lot depending on age and subject but they are all interactive. Our teachers are kind and positive and our central ethos is to make learning fun and build children's confidence as learners. Sometimes the children are listening to the teacher, volunteering to share their ideas (although we never ask someone to do this unless they are comfortable), creating something, playing a game, talking with each other in "breakout rooms", annotating the screen or solving problems. We use "ideas boards" with younger children (an A4 whiteboard) and the "chat" feature with older children to share ideas and allow the teacher to assess. Lessons are upbeat and definitely not boring!
After you have purchased the courses, you can click on the "View my timetable" button on the top right of the website. Underneath the timetable, all your Zoom codes and resources for the day are listed. Above the timetable is a button that will take you to your last 7 days of lesson recordings and a button that will take you to resources for the upcoming 7 days.
All of our courses are £2.50 + VAT a week membership per family, apart from our GCSE courses, which are £5 membership + VAT per student per week. Each course includes 42 live lessons, worksheets and printouts, the recording of each lesson and optional extra learning activities for the week. There are no lessons during the 6 week summer break and the Christmas and Easter holidays and payments are paused during these times and renewed at the start of the new term.
You can cancel your subscription or the subscription for an individual class at any time by logging in and selecting your parent profile and then clicking on "Subscriptions" in the menu and then "View" from beside each subscription. If there is only one course in the subscription, all you need to do is click on the "Cancel" button. If there is more than one course in the Subscription, scroll down to just below the "Cancel" button, and click on the X on the left of the course you wish to cancel. You will then be asked to click OK to confirm you wish to cancel this course.
Yes! Our classes are totally inclusive and we will work with you to find the classes that best suit your child's needs and be as flexible as we can with supporting your child's experience within that class. We do need everyone to turn their camera on for a few seconds at the start of the session for our "visual register" but after that, if children prefer to switch their cameras off, that is absolutely fine. Teachers are very aware of the fact that all children are different and different children work at different paces, and we emphasis constantly that it is okay to work at your own pace and that all activities can be continued after the session. Our classes are structured and upbeat but if someone needs to take a break, then they can go and run around or turn the sound off or get a cup of tea - this is home learning, not school! Once you have signed up, we would recommend you add any special needs information that will help the teacher to support your child to the notes section in your profile.
Our teachers are mostly experienced and qualified teachers who are specialists in their field. Some of our teachers are not primary or secondary teachers but industry specialists in their fields, for example our play therapy sessions are run by a play therapist, our singing lessons are run by a singing teacher and our social clubs are run by an early years specialist. Our teachers all have one thing in common, which is that they have been carefully selected because they care about children and they know how to inspire children! All new teachers are trained in teaching in a gentle home ed style and we try to make sure it does not feel like school in any way. All of our teachers have an up to date DBS and have been reference checked before starting with us. Over half of our teachers are home-ed parents who started off as customers and wanted to share their passion for learning with us!
Parents are responsible for the care of their children while we are teaching them. That is because, if your child were to fall over or feel unwell, we obviously cannot be there for them. We keep children safe by taking a visual register at the start of each session. This simply means that each child has to turn their camera on (all at the same time) for a few seconds, so that the teacher can verify that everyone in the lesson is a child. Once the teacher can see everyone, anyone that wants to turn their camera off can do so, although we do encourage children to keep their camera on, because it does improve the experience of the lesson - quite simply - it makes it more interactive. If a teacher had any doubt about someone in the lesson he/she would remove them from the session if necessary. This has never had to happen, but it is a precaution. Our teachers all have up to date safeguarding training and part of what they are doing all the way through the lesson is making sure that they are comfortable that the learning environment is safe for the children.
You can easily access our sessions through a phone or a tablet, but for the best experience, we would recommend a laptop, because it allows your child to see the lesson content and the other children. You do need a webcam, because your child will need to show their face at the beginning of the session. You will need to download Zoom the first time you use it. You will automatically be asked to do this when you try to click on the link to enter the lesson. If you can figure out how to use the interactive pen feature in Zoom (which on a tablet you can use your finger for, and on a laptop, you can use the mouse for), that would be great. You can practise in Zoom before the first session. Naming your child with his/her preferred name, also makes it a lot easier for us to get to know your child and make him/her feel comfortable and welcome. Please make sure you use the name that you registered your child as on the website so that we know who everyone is.
Yes absolutely! All of our courses offer ongoing learning, so there is no specific start or end date. Children can join us at any point and their learning will start from when we welcome them to their first class. We do cover topics in some of our subjects for example History and Geography courses tend to focus on one topic for 6-8 weeks. Within this topic however, each class works as a stand alone learning experience, meaning that anyone can join at any time.
From a learning perspective, we do prefer students to be a part of a course long term because if they do every lesson then they are able to benefit from the full curriculum. We do not insist on a long term commitment however as we understand that all children are different and that they change their minds. For our pre GCSE courses we focus on building the skills and knowledge ready for GCSE but we also try to make it more about loving the subject and having fun while learning.
Be aware that book clubs will cover a book for a set period of weeks (usually about 8 weeks) so unless your child has already read the book or is happy to catch up, it is probably best to wait for the next book after about week 2 or 3.
We don’t usually offer refunds because we ask that if you are not sure, that you choose the “pay weekly” option at first and if the class isn’t right for your child, to cancel it. Every refund actually costs us money because we are charged by our payment provider. If due to exceptional circumstances we agree to give a refund, we will deduct the 30p charge from each refund so that we are not at a loss. Please choose your courses carefully making sure that you do not make a mistake when booking classes as this cannot be refunded as you are holding a place that someone else could have had. Please note that you are paying for membership which includes the live class but also includes the recording and the worksheet and access to the Member's area, so if you are unable to attend a live lesson we would encourage you to get your child to watch the recording. As per our terms and conditions, occasionally a teacher may be sick or have some other reason to be absent. In this situation, the teacher will always provide a recording a few days later, and we ask that your child watches the recording on these occasions.
Learn Laugh Play offers 140+ weekly classes for home educating families. You can choose to build your child a whole timetable, or you can dip in to one or a few subjects. Basically, you can build your own curriculum! If you look on the “what’s on“ tab you will then be taken a timetable of all our classes. You can then select a specific age if you want to narrow it down too. It might be a nice idea to let your child have a look too, so that they can choose some courses that appeal to them! You can choose as many or as few courses as you want.
Each course includes;
A weekly live lesson on Zoom during term times and half terms.
Worksheets or equipment lists as needed.
A link to the recording of each lesson (which expires after 7 days)
Optional extra learning activities each week.
Access to the Member’s area where your child can message the teacher or the other students.
You can choose to pay weekly or 4 weekly and you are not tied into a contract – you can cancel anytime. If you are signing up for more than one course, it is best to add all of the courses to your basket (by clicking on sign up now) so that you only have one subscription, which keeps things simple!
Weekly payments are £2.50 plus VAT (£3) per family per course for any pre GCSE classes and £5 plus VAT (6) for any GCSE level courses paid over the 42 weeks of live lessons only.
Our community is full of lovely children and amazing teachers.
We are looking forward to your children joining us!
It is really up to you and what works for your child.
You might want to think about 3 or 4 subjects a day or possibly 4 subjects a day over 4 days, saving one day for outings.
The joy of home education is that it can be tailored to the needs and learning style of your child. What you do not need to do, is sit your child down for 7 hours a day with a huge pile of workbooks!
Children learn a lot more effectively when they are enjoying learning and in a positive learning environment, so you will probably be surprised as to how much they learn even when doing a lot less hours of “official learning”.
Don’t forget that downtime is also important and that a lot of learning can take place just through living your family life – trips to the supermarket for example could incorporate Maths (budgeting and addition), literacy (reading, analysing persuasive text), art and design (being inspired by packaging) and so much more!
Yes absolutely! All of our courses offer ongoing learning, so there is no specific start or end date. Children can join us at any point and their learning will start from when we welcome them to their first class. We do cover topics in some of our subjects for example History and Geography courses tend to focus on one topic for 6-8 weeks. Within this topic however, each class works as a stand alone learning experience, meaning that anyone can join at any time.
From a learning perspective, we do prefer students to be a part of a course long term because if they do every lesson then they are able to benefit from the full curriculum. We do not insist on a long term commitment however as we understand that all children are different and that they change their minds. For our pre GCSE courses we focus on building the skills and knowledge ready for GCSE but we also try to make it more about loving the subject and having fun while learning.
Be aware that book clubs will cover a book for a set period of weeks (usually about 8) so unless your child has already read the book or is happy to catch up, it is probably best to wait for the next book after about week 3 or 4.
Yes you can. All of our age ranges for courses are only guidelines. All children are different, so if your child needs to join an older or younger group, that is absolutely fine. Just bear in mind that the content and pace of the lesson will be suitable for the age range of children that the class is recommended for.
How do I know what level of class to sign my child up for?
To decide which level of class to start your child on you need to consider what learning they have done so far in this subject and how easy or difficult they found it. Also worth considering is if your child has gaps in their learning. Generally speaking, it is nearly always better to start with the easier lesson, so that we can build your child’s confidence up. It is really easy to cancel and move up to the next level, and as long as we have the spaces, you can do that at any time. If you need help with this, please do get in touch and we will try to advise you.
Our teachers stick closely to the National Curriculum when planning their lessons however we do balance this with our commitment to making sure that the lessons are exciting and inspiring! Lots of our families do choose for their children to take GCSEs so we take very seriously our responsibility to make sure that by the time they start our GCSE classes they have the skills and the knowledge they need.
We are not tied to the National Curriculum in quite the same way as teachers in schools are and we do focus very much on inspiring a love of learning - so we follow it but we are not controlled by it, if that makes sense!
Sometimes we do things very differently to how they are done in schools. For example, for English we separate creative writing into it's own subject and teacher grammar and spelling separately because we believe that trying to focus on all aspects of writing at the same time is stressful and takes away the fun of creative writing!
We do not call it homework because many children have negative school related associations with that word but we offer “Optional Extra Learning Activities” for each lesson. These are shared by the teacher in the last few minutes of each lesson. Generally we find that the children enjoy these activities and many of them love to volunteer to share their work at the beginning of the next lesson. At GCSE level the optional extra learning is part of the GCSE curriculum so it is a good idea to monitor that your child does this when it is set.
We don't expect students to submit pre-GCSE work for marking. What happens instead is that the teacher asks children to volunteer to show their work and the teacher gives feedback, demonstrating to all of the children what was good about the work and what could make it better (and encourages other children to give feedback) on the work.
Children are encouraged to “have a go” and demonstrate their skills throughout the lesson, and teachers will give feedback throughout the lesson too.
There is also a parental responsibility to look over their child's work. Depending on the subject, the worksheet will come with an answer sheet and we encourage you to mark your child’s work yourself and send the teacher a message if your child is struggling with a concept so that the teacher can address this in the lesson.
For GCSE level classes, the teacher will ask the children to send in work (either via email or via the website chat function) and give individual feedback.
Children are never asked to take part unless they want to. We believe that it is very important to be led by the child on this and would never put a child on the spot. Instead, we tend to ask for volunteers to share an idea or an answer and choose someone who is volunteering. Many children watch our lessons without taking part and that is absolutely fine. Other children do not even attend live - they prefer to watch the recordings.
We have a number of our students that feel anxious about having the video on during live lessons. We only ask children to turn their cameras on for approximately 40 seconds at the beginning of each session for our ‘Visual Register’ which is for safeguarding purposes.
After the visual register children are always welcome to keep their camera and microphone off if they find that more comfortable.
We also have a password system which we use for children with extreme anxiety (if they cannot turn their camera on for the visual register). We prefer not to use this if possible, just because it takes the teacher a lot longer to check everyone, but if you think this is the right thing for your child, please let us know by sending us a quick email and we can arrange a quick Zoom meeting to meet you and see your child just once.
Once we have seen your child and set up a password, they can send it as a private message to the teacher during the visual register and they will not be asked to turn their camera on.
Microphones stay off for the lesson unless someone wants to talk because otherwise the noise would be disruptive.
Yes of course. Many children prefer to watch the recordings. Recordings are uploaded to the Recordings page (which can be accessed via the button on the top of your timetable) once they are downloaded, which is typically a few hours after the live class. The recordings expire after 7 days and are not downloadable for safeguarding reasons.
We have a maximum membership of 40 for non-GCSE subjects and 25 for GCSE level subjects. This number includes the families that attend the live classes (and many of them do not participate, preferring to watch the lesson as if it were a TV programme!) as well as the families who prefer to watch the recordings.
This means that in reality there would usually be a lot less than 40 in a class. It is worth noting as well that everyone is muted (and unmuted one at a time) so the atmosphere is very calm and learning focused, even when there are 20 – 30 children in the class!
There is plenty of time for individual feedback and the teachers make sure that they build positive relationships with all of the children that attend live.
What device does my child need?
A laptop provides the best learning environment, because the screen is bigger and they can see more of their peers. If you do not have a laptop however, your child can still access and enjoy the lessons on a tablet or mobile.
Our teachers encourage the children to interact in lots of ways. This includes, volunteering to speak or show, holding up whiteboards, annotating on the screen, typing into the chat, demonstrating a skill, everyone getting out of their seats to race to find something and bring it back first (typically younger children) and jumping up and down and using their bodies as part of their learning (typically younger children!)
No, definitely not! When a class has the same name and age range, it is the same class. It is duplicated because it is a very popular class. Your child only needs to attend each class once a week. The only exception to this is Classical Civilisation GCSE and History GCSE which do different parts of the course in the two classes in order to enable those wanting to cover the curriculum within a year to do so.
All of our courses are £2.50 + VAT a week membership per family, apart from our GCSE courses, which are £5 membership + VAT per student per week. Each course includes 42 live lessons, worksheets and printouts, the recording of each lesson and optional extra learning activities for the week. There are no lessons during the 6 week summer break and the Christmas and Easter holidays and payments are paused during these times and renewed at the start of the new term.
You can cancel your subscription or the subscription for an individual class at any time by logging in and selecting your parent profile and then clicking on "Subscriptions" in the menu and then "View" from beside each subscription. If there is only one course in the subscription, all you need to do is click on the "Cancel" button. If there is more than one course in the Subscription, scroll down to just below the "Cancel" button, and click on the X on the left of the course you wish to cancel. You will then be asked to click OK to confirm you wish to cancel this course.
No you don’t. There are no lessons during the 6 week summer break and the Christmas and Easter holidays and payments are paused during these times and renewed at the start of the new term. Please note that we do run classes during half terms.
We don’t offer refunds because we ask that if you are not sure, that you choose the “pay weekly” option at first and if the class isn’t right for your child, to cancel it. Every refund actually costs us money because we are charged by our payment provider. If due to exceptional circumstances we agree to give a refund, we will deduct the 30p charge from each refund so that we are not at a loss.
Please choose your courses carefully making sure that you do not make a mistake when booking classes as this cannot be refunded as you are holding a place that someone else could have had. Please only choose the "pay 4-weekly" option if you are sure that your child will attend for all 4 weeks.
We have new classes starting all the time. If you want to reserve a space for a class that has not started yet, you can do by signing up in the usual way as if you were booking one of our other courses (by adding it to your basket). No payment will be taken until approximately 5 days before the start of the course.
Please note that when you sign up it will give the first payment date as 6 months time. This is simply our way of making sure that you do not have to pay. Once we have enough children to start the class, we will change the payment date to a few days before the first class.
We will email you to let you know when this is going to happen so that you know that the course is starting and the payment is going to be taken.
We have a whole dedicated page on our website with lots of information on taking GCSEs and Functional Skills with Learn Laugh Play and also about the company that we partner with – Tutors and Exams, who have exam centres across the UK
Taking GCSEs with LLP | Learn Laugh Play
If you need any further help with GCSEs or Functional Skills after looking at this page, send us a message via the website and we will try to help.
Learn Laugh Play are not an exam centre. You will need to find a local exam centre for your child to sit the exam.
There will be up to 90 minutes of extra work to do each week which is provided by the teacher.
The teachers have their own way of marking so it is worth asking on the group. In Maths, the teacher (Lara) provides the answers for self-marking and asks you to send her a message via the website telling her the mark and also any problem areas so that she can cover them in a future lesson. It is best to message the teacher or ask on the Member's area because the teacher will know best. We do provide worksheets for everything we cover, including the independent work, but I know some parents and children like to have a text book. If the teacher recommends extra books, you can find them listed on the website under the description of the course.
To attend lessons your child needs a device (ideally a laptop) with a microphone (ideally) and a camera (unless we have a password set up for them). There are often weekly resources that you will need which can usually be gathered around the home.
The teacher provides this information on the Resources page (that can be found by clicking the button at the top of your timetable) 5- 7 days before the lesson. These resources are important because it helps us to make sure that learning is fun.
For example, if you need to provide porridge oats so that your child can mill them to make Roman flour, the small effort of getting the oats will pay dividends in terms of making the learning memorable and fun for your child!
For many of our subjects we also provide some links on the main page for the subject to optional extra learning resources that you can purchase to complement the course. These resources are optional and you do not have to buy them unless you want to.
The most important thing about Learn Laugh Play is our classes but we are passionate about providing magical and exciting learning experiences outside of the classroom as well.
LLP Community Membership
Learn Laugh Play has a thriving community. Community membership is optional and is £10 a year per family. Included in the community membership is:
Weekly Monday Morning Motivate sessions where children sing happy birthday to anyone who has a birthday that week and “show and tell” whatever they are feeling excited about at the beginning of a fresh learning week!
Access to the Pen-pal/E-pal finder page where they can reach out and make friends
Access to the Teen/Tween chat Zone (ages 11+)
Free ticket to our Halloween, Winter/Christmas and Spring/Easter parties (usual price £4 each per family)
Lollipop bear (our LLP bear) can come and stay with your family with her special book (if you have a community membership, you just need to send us an email if you want Lollipop to come and stay at some point!)
More community membership benefits are being planned, so watch this space!
Monthly Competition
We also run a monthly competition called “Win it, Review it, Keep it!” on Facebook where you can win cool extras to help with learning.
Service for Teenage Entrepreneurs
Learn Laugh Play run a site called Teenius for young people to sell their products and services in a safe supported environment.
Earn money by inspiring home ed children yourself
Learn Laugh Play are currently launching our new “Mini Courses” initiative. This is to enable home ed parents to create a passive income by creating short high quality video courses on subjects they are passionate about. If you want to know more about becoming an LLP Mini Course Creator, please drop us an e