Glossary

A – C

Accepted answers

Alternative correct spellings or phrasings that are marked right on recall cards. For example, “fibre” and “fiber” are both accepted on Food GCSE nutrition cards, as are common abbreviations such as “carbs” for carbohydrates. The accepted list is authored alongside each card so students are never penalised for correct regional spelling or reasonable shorthand.

Adaptive picker

The algorithm that decides which card to show next during a session. It uses a five-bucket priority ordering: (1) skipped and overdue, (2) wrong and overdue, (3) unseen, (4) due and previously correct, (5) not yet due. Unseen cards are deliberately placed above already-answered correct cards so new material reaches students promptly rather than being buried behind revision of familiar content. Within each bucket, selection is random. The picker operates purely on each card's review status — it does not filter by card type or adjust which formats are shown based on a student's proficiency. Type variety in a session reflects the composition of the card bank itself. See Spaced repetition for the full algorithm.

Avatar

The character image representing a student on leaderboards and their profile page. Each subject has its own avatar set — chefs for Food, scholars for History, climbers for Geography, and so on. Students unlock additional avatar variants by earning XP. See Profile & cosmetics for unlock thresholds.

Board (exam board)

The organisation that sets and marks the GCSE or A-Level exam for a given subject. Educator supports AQA, Edexcel, OCR, Eduqas, WJEC, and CCEA across its subjects. Each card carries a boards array listing which boards include that topic — students can filter their sessions to their own board. KS3 cards have an empty boards array because no exam board applies at Key Stage 3.

Beta (subject status)

A subject tile marked Beta has a complete card bank and is fully functional for students — it works identically to a Live subject from a practice perspective. The card bank may still be updated based on classroom feedback. Drama and PE Theory are currently in Beta. Compare Live (fully validated, stable content) and Coming soon (card bank exists in development but is not yet available to schools).

Boss battle

A variant of school event that filters the card pool to higher-tier cards and pays bonus XP (20 XP per correct card versus the usual 10). Boss battles can optionally be set as collective — where the whole class contributes toward a shared correct-answer target and everyone earns the medal when it is reached — but the two flags are independent: a boss battle can be solo or collective. Boss battles appear as a progress banner on the student dashboard and practice screen. See Event below.

Coming soon (subject status)

A subject tile marked Coming soon has a card bank in development but is not yet available to schools or individual learners. The tile is visible on the homepage as a preview. The pipeline is Coming soon → Beta → Live.

Card

The atomic unit of content in Educator — a single question-and-answer pair. Every card belongs to a subject, module, topic, and subtopic, and carries a type (recall, MCQ, match-pairs, etc.), a tier (Foundation, Higher, or Both), and a boards array. Cards are authored by the Educator content team against published exam-board specifications and do not change between sessions. See Practice for all card types in detail.

Card report

A flag raised by a student or teacher when a card appears incorrect, ambiguous, or typographic. A Report button is visible on every card during and after it is shown. Reports are queued for review by the Educator content team; raising a report does not skip or remove the card from the current session. Teachers and Heads of Department can view reports submitted by their own students.

Card skin

A cosmetic that changes the visual theme of a student's trading card — the design frame, colour palette, and background shown behind the card content during practice. Card skins are unlocked by reaching XP thresholds and are applied per subject. They have no effect on scoring or card difficulty.

Chronology card

A card type where students are shown a set of events out of order and must drag them into the correct chronological sequence. Used primarily in History GCSE to build the timeline fluency that source-based questions and essay plans depend on. All events in the set must be placed correctly for the card to count as a correct answer.

Class code

A short alphanumeric code that teachers share with students so they can join a class in the app. When a student enters a class code during onboarding or from their dashboard, they are added to that teacher's class roster, their progress becomes visible to the teacher, and any homework assignments set for the class appear on their dashboard. Class codes are generated automatically when a teacher creates a class.

Cloze card

A fill-in-the-blank card where one key word or phrase has been removed from a sentence. The student types the missing word. Cloze cards are particularly effective for definitions, processes, and formula structures where the surrounding context carries most of the meaning — for example, naming the missing variable in a formula or completing a scientific process step.

D – F

Daily goal

The number of cards a student must complete in a session to count that day as done and advance their streak. The default is 15 cards. Standard, Speed Round, Marathon, Mark it, and topic drills all count; live sessions (teacher-hosted) do not. Teachers can set a different goal for their class; students can also adjust it from their profile settings.

Department tier (pricing)

The entry-level school subscription — one GCSE subject plus its matching KS3 bundle at £400 per year. A second subject adds £350/yr. Schools wanting three to six subjects move to the Multi-department tier at £1,250/yr flat. All subject tiers include a four-week free pilot with no card required. See School accounts for the full pricing table.

Distractor

A plausibly wrong answer option on an MCQ or match-pairs card. Distractors are authored to be the answer a student who half-knows the topic might write — never silly red herrings that give away the correct answer by elimination. In History, distractors on MCQ cards are typically well-formed explanatory sentences, mirroring the standard of the exam. Three distractors appear alongside one correct answer on each MCQ card.

Drill weak cards

A practice mode that pulls only the cards you have answered incorrectly in recent sessions and repeats them until you answer each one correctly. The session ends when every card in the weak set has been answered correctly at least once. Drill weak cards is the fastest way to close specific knowledge gaps without waiting for the spaced-repetition schedule to resurface them naturally.

Event

A timed challenge created by an admin that can layer an XP bonus on top of regular practice sessions. During an active event, every correct card earns the base 10 XP plus the event's bonus amount (if any). Events are shown as a banner on the student dashboard and the practice screen, including a countdown to when the event ends. Boss battles are a specific variant of event with a harder card pool and bonus XP — they can optionally include an optional shared card-count target for the whole class. Live sessions are not included in event XP bonuses.

Foundation tier

The lower of the two GCSE exam tiers, covering grades 1–5. Cards tagged Foundation appear in sessions for Foundation-tier students and in sessions for students on both tiers. For school classes, the teacher sets the tier in class settings. Foundation-tier filtering ensures students are not shown Higher-only content before they need it.

Free tier

The no-cost individual account level. After a 7-day full-access trial, free-tier students can complete up to five sessions per day across all subjects. Free-tier accounts do not receive unlimited streak freezes or access to all cosmetics. School accounts are not subject to the free-tier session cap — the cap only applies to individual accounts.

H – K

Higher tier

The upper GCSE exam tier, covering grades 4–9. Cards tagged Higher appear only in sessions for Higher-tier students. Cards tagged Both appear for all students regardless of tier. Higher cards typically require understanding of causation, significance, or evaluation rather than straightforward recall.

Homework

An assignment set by a teacher targeting a specific topic with a deadline. Homework assignments appear on the student's dashboard as a card with the topic, subject, and due date. Students complete the homework entirely within the app using the normal card interface. The first time a student completes a homework assignment, they earn +1 streak freeze as a reward. Teachers can track completion in their dashboard.

KS3

Key Stage 3 — Years 7 to 9, ages 11 to 14. Educator's KS3 subjects follow the DfE national curriculum rather than any single exam board specification. KS3 cards have an empty boards array. Every GCSE subject subscription includes the matching KS3 bundle at no extra cost — for example, a Food GCSE licence also unlocks Food KS3.

L – M

League

The competitive ranking system for individual accounts. There are 25 tiers, from Iron IV at the bottom to Champion at the top, determined entirely by lifetime XP. Promotion is immediate when a threshold is crossed — there is no waiting until the end of the month. Individual accounts can see their league standing on the leaderboard. School students are not part of the league system; they use class and school leaderboards only.

Live (subject status)

A subject tile marked Live has passed expert teacher review and the automated linter — the content is considered stable and production-quality. Additions and corrections still happen, but the core card bank is validated. Compare Beta (accessible but still being refined) and Coming soon (in development, not yet accessible).

Live session

A teacher-hosted real-time class quiz. The teacher starts a live session from their class page (at /teach/[classId]/live), selects one or more topics or chooses Mixed, and students join from their dashboard. As students answer cards, the teacher sees a live leaderboard updating in real time. Live sessions are designed for in-class use — the competitive leaderboard is visible to the teacher, not pushed to students' devices as a social signal.

Marathon

A practice mode consisting of 50 cards in a single session, using the same adaptive card picker as a standard session. Earns the same 10 XP per correct card. Designed for pre-exam revision blocks when a student has 20–30 minutes and wants maximum coverage.

Mark it

A practice mode where students read a model answer and decide how many marks it would earn under the mark scheme — playing examiner rather than student. Mark it is available only for subjects whose card corpus includes extended-response cards. It is most effective once a student already knows the facts and wants to internalise the marking criteria.

Mastery level

One of five stages a card progresses through as a student answers it correctly over time: Unseen (never shown), Seen (shown at least once), Familiar (answered correctly once or twice), Proficient (answered correctly across multiple spaced intervals), and Mastered (consistently correct over a long interval). Answering incorrectly drops the card back one level. Mastery levels drive the spaced-repetition schedule — higher levels result in longer gaps before the card reappears.

MCQ (multiple-choice question)

A card type presenting one correct answer and three distractors. Distractors are written to be plausible rather than obviously wrong. In History, both the correct answer and the distractors are often full explanatory sentences, because the subject rewards contextual reasoning in exams. Students tap or click their chosen option; the card back explains why the correct answer is right.

Module

A grouping of cards within a subject — used primarily in History GCSE, where the curriculum is divided into named paper topics such as “Weimar & Nazi Germany” or “Medicine through time”. A module sits above topic in the hierarchy: subject → module → topic → subtopic → card. Most other subjects use topic as the top-level grouping without a module layer.

Multi-department tier (pricing)

A school subscription covering three to six GCSE subjects (plus their matching KS3 bundles) at a flat rate of £1,250 per year. Includes all teacher tools, unlimited students and classes per subject, and the four-week free pilot.

P – R

Pilot

A four-week free trial for school accounts. During the pilot, the school has access to the full app — all teacher tools, unlimited students and classes, homework, live sessions, and all cards for the licensed subject. No payment card is required to start. After the pilot, if the school does not convert to a paid subscription, data is frozen for 60 days and then deleted.

Pro (subscription)

The paid individual account tier, available at £50 per year or £6 per month. Pro subscribers get unlimited sessions per day (the free tier caps at five after the trial), unlimited streak freezes, and the full cosmetics catalogue (additional card skin themes and exclusive profile cosmetics). The base cosmetics — character rank system, trading card, and starter avatars — are available on the free tier too. Pro does not affect access to card content — all card content is free.

Rank

A title earned by accumulating XP within a subject. There are six rank levels per subject, each with subject-specific names — for example, Food GCSE progresses from Apprentice through Junior Cook, Cook, Sous Chef, and Head Chef to Master Chef. Rank thresholds are 0, 500, 1,500, 4,000, 10,000, and 25,000 XP. Rank is independent per subject — a student can be a Master Chef in Food and a Trainee Historian in History simultaneously.

Recall card

The most common card type — a short-answer question where the student types or says the answer from memory. Answers are checked against the correct answer and the accepted answers list. The recall format is used wherever the exam tests bare factual retrieval: names, dates, definitions, quantities. Answers are typically six words or fewer; longer answers use MCQ or cloze instead.

SM-2

The spaced-repetition algorithm that Educator's scheduling is based on. SM-2 (SuperMemo 2) assigns each card an ease factor and an interval. After a correct answer, the interval is multiplied by the ease factor to determine when the card reappears. After an incorrect answer, the interval resets. Educator's implementation also weights response speed — a fast correct answer earns a longer interval than a slow one, reflecting stronger memory encoding. See Spaced repetition for the full specification.

Spaced repetition

The evidence-based revision technique of reviewing material at increasing intervals over time, timed to just before you would forget it. Rather than cramming everything on one evening, spaced repetition distributes study across days and weeks, building long-term retention far more efficiently. Educator's entire card scheduling system is built on spaced repetition. See Spaced repetition for the research background and practical implications.

Speed Round

A practice mode with 15 cards and an 8-second countdown per card. If the timer runs out, the card is marked wrong. Speed Round builds the fluency and pressure tolerance needed in an exam room, where factual recall must be near-instant. It reveals which knowledge is truly automatic and which is still effortful under time pressure.

Standard session

The default practice mode. A standard session runs for the student's daily goal card count (default: 15). Cards are selected by the adaptive picker — weak cards first, overdue cards next, unseen last. Standard, Speed Round, Marathon, Mark it, and topic drills all count toward the streak; live sessions do not.

Streak

The number of consecutive days a student has completed a regular practice session. Standard, Speed Round, Marathon, Mark it, and topic drills all count; teacher-hosted live sessions do not. Missing a day resets the streak to zero unless a streak freeze is consumed automatically. The dashboard displays the streak count prominently as a primary engagement signal.

Streak earn-back

When a streak of 3 or more days resets with no freezes remaining, a 48-hour earn-back window opens. If 2 sessions are completed within that window, the streak is restored. The dashboard shows a banner tracking progress during the earn-back window.

Streak freeze

A consumable item that automatically protects a streak when a day is missed. When a freeze is in reserve, it is spent on the first missed day and the streak remains intact. Students can hold multiple freezes (up to 5). School students earn freezes by completing homework assignments (+1 per first completion) and earn one additional freeze for every 7-day streak milestone. Pro subscribers receive unlimited freezes.

Subject key

The internal identifier for a subject used throughout the app and database — for example, food, history, geography_ks3, combined_science. KS3 variants append _ks3. Subject keys are used in URLs, database rows, and leaderboard queries to scope data correctly per subject.

T – Y

Tier (card)

The GCSE exam tier a card is written for — Foundation, Higher, or Both. Foundation cards appear for Foundation and Both students. Higher cards appear only for Higher students. Both cards appear for everyone. Students set their tier in their subject settings and can change it at any time. KS3 cards are not tiered and always use Both.

Topic

A subdivision of a subject used to organise cards and filter practice sessions. Topics map broadly to the sections of a GCSE specification — for example, “Proteins” or “Food safety” in Food GCSE, or “Cold War” in History GCSE. Students can choose a topic in Topic drill mode to practise one area specifically, and teachers can set homework targeting a single topic. Topics sit below the module level (in subjects that use modules) and above the subtopic level in the card hierarchy.

Topic drill

A practice mode scoped to a single topic, using the same adaptive card ordering as a standard session. Accessible from the mode picker by selecting a topic from the subject's topic list. Useful when a class has just covered a specific area and wants targeted reinforcement, or when a student's progress dashboard shows one topic noticeably behind the others.

Trading card

The collectible visual card representing a student's progress in a subject — displayed on their profile and on leaderboards. A trading card shows the student's avatar, rank, XP, streak, and subject. Card skins change the visual theme of the trading card frame. The trading-card metaphor is a core part of Educator's identity system, connecting gamified progress to something tangible and collectible.

Trial

The 7-day full-access period for new individual accounts. During the trial, there is no session cap and all Pro features (unlimited streak freezes, all cosmetics) are available. After the trial ends, the account moves to the free tier (5 sessions/day cap) unless the student upgrades to Pro. The trial is automatic on sign-up — no card required.

True / False card

A card type showing a factual statement that is either true or false. The student taps True or False, and the card back explains why the statement is correct or incorrect. True/False cards are particularly effective for common misconceptions and easily confused facts — the binary format forces a clear commitment rather than allowing hedging.

Whole-school tier (pricing)

The largest school subscription — all Educator subjects (GCSE and KS3) for £2,000 per year. Includes every teacher tool, unlimited students and classes across all subjects, and the four-week free pilot. Schools wanting MAT-wide pricing should contact hello@educator-labs.com.

XP (experience points)

The primary progress currency in Educator. Every correct card earns 10 XP; incorrect answers earn nothing. XP is tracked separately per subject — a student's Food XP and History XP are independent counters. XP drives rank progression (thresholds: 0 / 500 / 1,500 / 4,000 / 10,000 / 25,000), cosmetic unlocks, and — for individual accounts — league standing. An average student earns roughly 2,000 XP per week; a student doing an hour a day earns roughly 16,000. During boss-battle events, each correct card earns 10 + the event's bonus XP.

Year card

A card type where the student types the year a specific event occurred. A narrow tolerance is accepted (typically ±1 year unless the exact year is directly assessed). Used in History GCSE for key turning-point dates that examiners expect students to know precisely — such as the outbreak of the First World War (1914) or the passing of the Representation of the People Act (1918).

Related pages

• Practice — card types, practice modes, and how the adaptive picker works in full detail
• Profile & cosmetics — ranks, avatars, card skins, and XP unlock thresholds
• Spaced repetition — the research behind SM-2, mastery levels, and interval scheduling
• Subjects — all subjects, levels, and exam boards covered by Educator