Abacus and mental maths classes for homeschool families
Live weekday morning classes for home-educated children aged 4 to 14, taught on the INDIGO programme by certified instructors — scheduled around your week rather than around a school day.
Book a free homeschool trial
Morning classes, not after-school ones
Most children's group classes are scheduled for after school, which is exactly the wrong time for a family that has been learning since nine in the morning. We run weekday morning slots between 9am and 12pm UK time so the class lands inside your teaching day rather than at the end of it.
That also means smaller morning groups made up of other home-educated children, rather than your child being the only one in a class of schoolchildren doing an after-school activity.
Choosing your weekly rhythm
Home-educating families structure their weeks very differently, so the timetable is agreed with you rather than assigned.
Two or three sessions a week
Pick the number that fits your routine. Sessions run 45–60 minutes.
Fixed days that suit your week
Many families anchor classes to the same mornings each week; others work around co-ops and trips.
Recordings for the weeks that do not go to plan
Every session is recorded, so an appointment or a trip away does not cost your child a step.
Pace set per child
Children progress through the levels at their own pace rather than to a fixed class timetable.
Several children, at different levels
Home-educating families often have children spread across several ages, which is usually the hardest thing to timetable. Each child joins the group for the level they are actually working at, not the level their age suggests — so a six-year-old and a ten-year-old can both be at Level 2 without either being held back or pushed on.
Where families have more than one child enrolled, we coordinate schedules so siblings' classes sit close together in the morning rather than scattered across it.
Families enrolling two or more children pay £80 per child per month rather than the standard £95. Full details are on the pricing section of our homepage.
Evidence for your records
If you keep a portfolio of your child's work, the programme produces evidence as a by-product rather than as an extra task for you:
- Monthly assessments showing where your child is within their current level.
- An INDIGO certificate at the end of each of the six levels.
- Entry to the international INDIGO competitions.
These are records of what your child has done on the INDIGO programme. How you use them is entirely up to you.
How it sits alongside your maths curriculum
The INDIGO programme is a specialist mental arithmetic strand, not a complete maths curriculum. It covers calculation — addition, subtraction, and at Level 6 multiplication, division and decimals — and does not attempt to cover geometry, measurement, data or problem-solving topics.
Families generally run it alongside whatever maths curriculum they already use, in the same way they might run a separate music or languages strand. Nothing about it assumes you follow a particular scheme, and there is no homework beyond short daily practice on the abacus.
To see exactly what is covered level by level, read about the six-level mental maths pathway. For the practical side — equipment, group sizes and timings — see how our online abacus classes work.
Try a morning class
A free 30-minute trial, one-to-one with a certified instructor, at a time that fits your teaching day.
The trial is a 30-minute one-to-one session with a certified instructor. No card required.