1 reviews | Active since Jul 2023
Think Digital - False claims to Cambridge curriculum
Think Digital claims to have the Cambridge curriculum available on their platform but I call this false advertising and duping their clients/customers. Upon closer inspection, I found that all content on their platform is the same but labeled under different curriculums. I also found they have been using CAPS curriculum resources, (which can be found for FREE on the Department of Education's website) and passing this off as Cambridge curriculum! I was livid when I found this out. Think Digital is NOT an accredited Cambridge Curriculum platform, please do not be fooled.
The standard of education in the lessons that are being delivered is, by far, much lower than the actual Cambridge curriculum. I decided to do a deep dive into what the Cambridge curriculum offers and compared this to Think Digital. My kids did 2 years of Think Digital during 2021/2022. The grades I have compared are from Grade 1 to Grade 4. What Think Digital claims as being the Cambridge Curriculum is far from it - from the topics covered to the delivery of the content, there is a big difference.
There is no quality control on assessments and contents - unclear questions, correct answers being marked wrong, and spelling and grammar errors in the revision work. Whether you have chosen a British, American, or South African curriculum, I found most of the worksheets being dumped for practice were American-based ( British English and American English do differ in spellings - and this caused great confusion when my kids could not understand why some words were marked wrong if this was how it was provided in their worksheets). When asking for corrections, you (the client) have to go through their platform and provide the specific topic, slide number, and page number for the incorrect information. There were so many that I came across, that I finally stopped contacting them to rectify. Some assessments include work that has not been covered in the lesson provided.
In 2021, Think Digital was a cheaper option for education during the economic stress caused by COVID. At that time, it cost us R5000 in total for both kids for the year. Shortly thereafter, as they became a bit more popular, their prices increased drastically and changed currency from Rands to Dollars. 2022 saw me paying out at least R12 000 for 2 kids for the year. After the deep dive and detailed comparisons, I found doing homeschool-based learning by purchasing the Cambridge books myself, worked out almost the same price and the quality of education was much higher. I understand that many working parents out there cannot afford to take on the sole task of homeschooling their kids, but please, I urge parents to do their research before enrolling their kids into these types of online schools. Since the onset of the pandemic, numerous online schools have popped up, many not accredited and some pure ****s. This has been in the news across South Africa - a simple Google search will get you several articles doing the rounds of *****ulent online schools.
The Department of Education has plenty of FREE resources on its site to use as well for the CAPS curriculum.
If you are considering taking on the homeschooling task, I would suggest visiting the below sites for more information : SA Homeschoolers - https://www.sahomeschoolers.org/ Pestalozzi Trust - https://pestalozzi.org/98
Please note, this is my view and research done for the foundation/intermediate phases (Grades 1 to 4). I cannot comment on the higher grades.
We're sorry to hear that TDA was not the right fit for your two children in Stages 2 and 4. Although we explicitly state on our website that we are not Cambridge registered, we are 100% Cambridge aligned. Unfortunately, Cambridge UK, do not accredit ANY online schools at all. An extensive review has been done on Stage 2 and 4 and we can confidently confirm that all Cambridge lessons, differ substantially from those of our CAPS lessons. To begin with, CAPS students are only introduced to Science in Grade 4, whereas our Cambridge students already have science as an individual subject from Stage 1. It is alarming that both your students have only ever logged in to their profiles twice this year. Your Stage 2 student logged in only once in January and never again. Perhaps it is possible that you were unable to make a full, accurate and fair review in only a few hours? Your student in Stage 4, logged in once in January and once again on the day you completed this review. Further more, English and Maths have far more lessons to work through in comparison to our CAPS students. It is indeed possible that there is some "cross contamination" between the two curricula where the same topics are covered. For example, both curricula would cover "Parts of Speech" or "Addition" etc. This does not in the least indicate that our Cambridge curriculum is substantial or of a lower standard. We would strongly encourage you to spend more time on the two stages before concluding your assessment on our Cambridge curriculum. The weekly activity reports for your two students have been emailed to you for easy reference. Should you have any questions pertaining to the lack of activity indicated on the reports, you are welcome to contact us and we will gladly assist you. Lastly, we would be happy to offer you a virtual tour of our online campus to walk you through the various features of your students' dashboards :)
We're sorry to hear that TDA was not the right fit for your two children in Stages 2 and 4. Although we explicitly state on our website that we are not Cambridge registered, we are 100% Cambridge aligned. Unfortunately, Cambridge UK, do not accredit ANY online schools at all. An extensive review has been done on Stage 2 and 4 and we can confidently confirm that all Cambridge lessons, differ substantially from those of our CAPS lessons. To begin with, CAPS students are only introduced to Science in Grade 4, whereas our Cambridge students already have science as an individual subject from Stage 1. It is alarming that both your students have only ever logged in to their profiles twice this year. Your Stage 2 student logged in only once in January and never again. Perhaps it is possible that you were unable to make a full, accurate and fair review in only a few hours? Your student in Stage 4, logged in once in January and once again on the day you completed this review. Further more, English and Maths have far more lessons to work through in comparison to our CAPS students. It is indeed possible that there is some "cross contamination" between the two curricula where the same topics are covered. For example, both curricula would cover "Parts of Speech" or "Addition" etc. This does not in the least indicate that our Cambridge curriculum is substantial or of a lower standard. We would strongly encourage you to spend more time on the two stages before concluding your assessment on our Cambridge curriculum. The weekly activity reports for your two students have been emailed to you for easy reference. Should you have any questions pertaining to the lack of activity indicated on the reports, you are welcome to contact us and we will gladly assist you. Lastly, we would be happy to offer you a virtual tour of our online campus to walk you through the various features of your students' dashboards :)