When we have put months into studying, I want to know whether my child is genuinely improving, so I can decide whether to keep or change what we are doing.

Job context

Who

A parent already paying for at least one form of extra learning

When

At the end of a term, or when a course is up for renewal

Trigger

A renewal invoice arrives before any evidence of results

Situation

What was spent is measurable; what came back is not

Constraints

Only school marks are available, and they move with paper difficulty

5 Pains

• Marks cannot separate improvement from an easier paper

  High

  The same seven can mean progress or decline.

  Root cause: There is no common scale across assessments

• Cannot attribute improvement to anything

  High

  The tutor, the extra class and simply growing up all run at once.

  Root cause: Nobody set a baseline before starting

• Providers only report good news

  Medium

  The progress report is written by the party being paid.

  Root cause: The measurer and the measured are the same party

• Afraid that stopping wastes what was already spent

  Medium

  Money already spent keeps the family in longer than it should.

  Root cause: No stopping criterion was ever set

• The child resents extra testing just to measure progress

  Medium

  The measurement itself costs the child time and goodwill.

  Root cause: Measurement is separate from learning, so it reads as extra work

5 Desired Outcomes

• Compare the child today with the child six months ago

  Functional

• Know which of the current activities is doing the work

  Functional

• Have a criterion for stopping or switching

  Functional

• Measure without making the child sit another test

  Functional

• Feel settled that the money is going somewhere real

  Emotional

5 Existing Solutions

A solution is not the same thing as a product — a customer can hire a behaviour or a workaround too.

• The centre's progress report

  Product

  Written by the party being paid, and virtually never recommends stopping.

• Independent standardised test

  Service

  Genuinely comparable, but infrequent and costs the child a whole session.

• A homemade grade log

  Workaround

  The parent hand-builds the time series the system should already hold.

• Ask the subject teacher mid-term

  Behaviour

  The most honest assessment available, and the least structured.

• Compare with the neighbour's child

  Behaviour

  The measure parents actually use when no other exists.

2 Opportunity Gaps

• Everyone selling learning also grades their own learning.

  Why existing solutions fail: An independent measure might conclude that the family should stop, so no provider has a reason to build it.

  Potential opportunity: A third-party-held measure embedded in daily work, so it costs no extra session.

• Nobody sets a baseline before a family starts spending.

  Why existing solutions fail: A baseline reveals that most improvement comes from the child growing up, not from the service.

  Potential opportunity: One measurement at the start, treated as a condition of taking the money.