Revision apps parents can see progress in: what each shares
In short
Most revision apps share nothing with parents at all: Quizlet, Anki, Seneca and BBC Bitesize are built around the student's own account, and the only way to see anything is to look at their screen. A small number offer a genuine shared progress view, and FacilStudy is one of them — but only when the student sends the invitation, and never for tutor chats, photos or individual answers.
The short answer
If you are looking for a revision app that lets you see whether your teenager is actually working, the honest starting point is that almost none of the well-known ones do. They were built for students, and in most cases for classrooms, where the second account belongs to a teacher rather than a parent.
That leaves three realistic routes: an app with a deliberate parent or partner view; the school's own platform, which you probably already have a login for and are probably under-using; or a weekly ten minutes where your child shows you what they got wrong. The third costs nothing and works better than most software.
What "parents can see progress" actually means
Before comparing anything, it helps to separate three quite different things that all get described as parental visibility.
- Nothing shared. The app has one account, it belongs to the student, and there is no second seat. You can see the screen if they show you. This is the default for the large majority of revision apps.
- Sharing the account. Some parents log in as their child. It technically works, it usually breaches the app's terms, it exposes anything private in the account, and it teaches a lesson about privacy that you may not want taught. It is not a parent view.
- A genuine second view. The app issues a separate, read-only login for an adult and defines exactly what that adult sees. This is rare, and where it exists it is worth reading the definition carefully — "see their progress" can mean anything from a weekly streak to every answer they have typed.
The second and third are worlds apart, and the distinction matters more than the feature list. An app that hands a parent everything is not safer than one that hands them a summary; for a teenager it is usually worse, because the sensible response to total visibility is to stop using the app for anything that matters.
What each app actually shares: a comparison
Below is what we are confident about at the time of writing. Apps change, and free tiers change fastest, so treat this as a starting point and check the app's own site before you pay for anything.
| App | What a parent can see | How | Cost model |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quizlet | Nothing by default. Teachers can set up classes and see class activity; there is no parent view as of writing. | Look at the student’s screen, or ask them to show you a set and test them from it. | Free tier with ads and limits; a paid subscription for extra study modes. |
| Anki | Nothing. Statistics — reviews done, cards due, retention — live in the app on the student’s device. | Ask them to open the stats screen. It is genuinely informative if they have been using it. | Free on desktop and Android; a one-off paid app on iOS. |
| Seneca Learning | Nothing directly. Seneca is built around teacher-set assignments, so results flow to the school rather than to you. No parent dashboard we can confirm as of writing; check the app’s own site. | Ask the school whether they use Seneca and what the teacher can see. | Free core content; a paid premium tier. |
| BBC Bitesize | Nothing. There is no progress-sharing feature; the value is the content, not the tracking. | Use it alongside a testing method of your own — it is a revision resource, not a monitoring tool. | Free, licence-fee funded. |
| Most streak-based study apps (Duolingo-style) | Usually nothing beyond what the student chooses to show. Family or group plans normally share billing, not progress. | Some send the student a weekly summary they can forward. Check the app’s own site before assuming a family plan means visibility. | Free with ads; paid subscription tiers. |
| FacilStudy | Streak, time studied this week, mastery per subject, topics needing attention, and upcoming tests. Never tutor conversations, never the photographs of notes, never individual answers. | The student invites one adult as a Study Partner. The adult signs in on the web with a six-digit email code — no app to install. The student can revoke access at any time. | Free tier: 5 scans a month, daily plan, no partner view. Plus £4.99 a month includes Study Partner. Pre-launch. |
Where we were unsure, we have said so
Several apps run classroom features that look like parental visibility in marketing copy but route data to teachers instead. If a row above says "check the app's own site", that is because we could not verify a parent-facing view, not because we know one does not exist.
Why most revision apps share nothing — and why that is defensible
It is easy to read the table above as an industry-wide failure. It is closer to a design choice, and a reasonable one.
Revision apps are used by adults, by university students and by 13-year-olds. Building a parent view means building an account-linking system, deciding who counts as an adult, handling divorced and separated households, and — under the UK's Children's Code — thinking hard about whether a child understands that they are being monitored. Most products decline the problem rather than get it wrong.
There is also an educational argument. Self-regulation is a large part of what revision teaches, and the Education Endowment Foundation's guidance on metacognition treats planning, monitoring and evaluating one's own work as a skill to be developed rather than a job to be outsourced to an adult. An app that reports every answer to a parent quietly removes the thing the student was supposed to be learning.
The parent view you almost certainly already have
Before installing anything, check the school platform. Most UK secondary schools run a parent app — Satchel One (Show My Homework), Class Charts, Arbor, Bromcom, Edulink or similar — and it typically carries homework set, homework submitted, attendance, behaviour points and assessment data.
That data is more reliable than anything a revision app can offer, because it is what the school is actually marking. It is also free, already permitted, and completely uncontroversial with your teenager. If you cannot remember your login, the school office can reset it in a few minutes.
What it will not tell you is what happens between four and nine in the evening. That is the gap a revision app with a partner view can fill — and it is the only gap worth paying to fill.
How FacilStudy handles it
FacilStudy is the app we are building, so treat this as a description rather than a recommendation. The student photographs up to six pages of their own notes; the app produces a study pack — summary, key concepts, flashcards and a quiz — and a fifteen-minute daily plan that works across subjects and counts back from test dates.
The Study Partner view exists because "is any of this happening?" is a fair question for the person paying for it. What a partner sees is fixed and short: day streak, time studied this week, mastery per subject, topics that need attention, and upcoming tests. What a partner never sees is equally fixed: tutor conversations, the photographs of notes, and individual answers or quiz scores.
The invitation always comes from the student, not from the adult, and it can be revoked from the app without a conversation. That is a deliberate trade: a parent gets a real signal, a teenager keeps a private place to be wrong, and nobody has to share a password. Study Partner is part of Plus at £4.99 a month; the free tier gives five scans a month and the daily plan without it. The app is pre-launch — you can join the waiting list or read the parents page.
Five questions to ask before you install anything
- Does the student issue the invitation, and can they withdraw it? If the answer is no, expect the app to be quietly abandoned.
- Exactly which fields does an adult see? Ask for the list. "Progress" is not a list.
- Is anything private excluded? A tutor chat or a wrong answer that a parent will see is a tutor chat or a wrong answer that will not be honest.
- Does it need an account for the adult, or a shared password? Shared passwords are not a feature.
- What happens to the data if we stop paying? Deletion should be available from inside the app, not by email request only.
And one question for yourself: if the app showed you that they did twelve minutes yesterday and nothing the day before, what would you do with that? If the honest answer is "have the same argument, with evidence", the app is not the fix. How to tell if your teenager is actually revising covers the version of this that does not need software.
Common questions
- Can parents see their child’s Quizlet progress?
- Not through a parent account — Quizlet has no parent view as of writing. Teachers can create classes and see class activity, so any visibility usually runs through the school rather than the home.
- Is there a GCSE revision app with a parent dashboard?
- Very few. Most well-known revision apps have a single student account, and any second seat is designed for a teacher. FacilStudy includes a Study Partner view on its Plus tier, invited by the student.
- Should I just use my child’s login to check on them?
- It usually breaches the app’s terms, exposes anything private in the account, and tends to end badly when discovered. A view the student has agreed to gives you less data and far better information.
- What is the cheapest way to see whether revision is happening?
- Your school’s parent portal, which is already paid for, plus ten minutes a week where your child shows you what they got wrong. Neither costs anything and both are more reliable than a streak.