The criteria for achieving a ‘fun’ rating is:

This is awarded to the real favourites. Apps are required to provide entertainment for most of our children for longer than 10 minutes at a time.

This is awarded to apps that are enjoyed repeatedly by the majority of children for 5 minutes or more. At least some of the child testers will have remained keen to play with this app regularly and may be very engaging for specific groups of children.

Many of the children enjoyed playing with this app, and some for prolonged periods of time. It is not a favourite but still provides engagement and entertainment.

We award 2 stars to apps where the majority of children become disengaged quickly and choose not to play with it again. It has not become a favourite with any of the children.

If most children get bored quickly and are reluctant to play with an app more than once, we give this a one star rating. There may be educational resources that are not engaging on their own but are still valuable as a teaching aid.

The criteria for achieving a ‘Ease of Use’ rating is:

Apps are tested on their ease of use (sometimes referred to as usability or user experience rating), with the following criteria:

This is only awarded to Apps where we find no problems whatsoever with their usage. Children will be able to work out how to use the app to it’s full capacity with minimal third party intervention.

Toys will be simple to set up and easier for children to use and understand than other apps in their category. Children will generally be able to use this app without third party intervention, apart from necessary input in setting up (e.g. setting up suitable access for tech toys and tablets).

Third party intervention is sometimes required but the child can make good use of the app on their own.

The app requires frequent assistance from a third party, but the child is able to use some features.

The target age group is unable to use the app without constant third-party help. Instructions are not clear enough to play with the app/game (where applicable).

The criteria for achieving a ‘Skills Developed’ rating is:

Apps are tested on their Skill Development with the following criteria:

Apps that actively encourage children to develop skills across 3 or more skill developmental areas (e.g. cognitive, creative and language skills) or are particularly good at developing one or more core skills, such as literacy or numeracy.
5 Stars are hard to achieve and are only available for Apps we consider exceptionally good for learning and development.

Apps that help children develop either in at least 1 developmental area with the opportunity for children to progress the skills significantly, or that promote development across several areas with less progression. We are confident that parents and teachers/childcare professionals would consider this to be an ‘educational app’.

A three star rating for skills developed indicates that the app has substantial benefit to a child’s development in at least one area.

2 stars are given to apps that have potential to develop skills but they have limited learning outcomes. The skills they develop are typically less core or may be skills children have already mastered, so they test and refine skills rather than developing them. We suspect most parents and teachers/childcare professionals would not perceive this to be an ‘educational’ product.

1 star is given when there are no obvious skills developed by using the app. The app is clearly focused on being fun rather than educational.