Homework help for South African families
You don’t have to know the answer to help your child.
Snap a photo of the homework. Aqilo explains it to your child — and gives you the words to help.
7 days free · no card needed
Homework · Grade 5 Maths
What is 3/4 + 1/8?
The big rule: to add fractions, the bottom numbers (called denominators) must be the same.
- 3/4 → bottom is 4
- 1/8 → bottom is 8
So — what could we turn the 4 into, to match the 8?
For the grown-up at the table
“Ask her what the bottom numbers are. If they don’t match, they can’t be added yet.”
Eight o’clock, most nights
“I don’t understand my homework.”
You’ve had a full day. Supper is somewhere between the stove and the table. And the book in front of you looks nothing like the one you had at school — the method changed, the wording changed, and explaining it the way you were taught only makes it worse.
A tutor costs more per hour than most families want to think about, and it is half past seven on a Tuesday anyway.
Two pages of maths. A question she has read four times.
She is not being difficult. She is stuck — and being stuck for long enough starts to feel like being stupid.
What she needs is someone to walk her through it. Not the answer.
How Aqilo works
Three steps, and you're both unstuck.
No setup evening, no lesson plan, no scheduling a tutor for Thursday.
Snap it
Photograph the question, type it, or say it out loud. A crooked photo of a workbook page under a kitchen light is exactly what this is built for.
Aqilo explains it
Step by step, at your child's level — working through the problem with them rather than handing over the answer. In English or Afrikaans.
You get the gist
Parent Assist gives you a plain-English summary and words you can actually use at the table. No need to know the subject yourself.
Why Aqilo
One question. Two explanations.
Your child gets taught. You get briefed. Most homework tools answer the child and leave you standing there.
The homework question
Simplify 6/9
What your child sees
To simplify a fraction, we look for a number that divides into both the top (6) and the bottom (9).
- The top number is 6
- The bottom number is 9
Now — what number divides into both 6 and 9?
Here’s a hint: think about the times tables. What goes into 6… and also into 9?
Notice it never gives the answer. It waits for her.
Parent Assist · Mathematics → Fractions
Your child is learning to simplify fractions by finding the biggest number that divides evenly into both the top and bottom. Think of it like reducing a recipe — 6/9 means 6 parts out of 9, but we can describe the same amount using smaller, cleaner numbers.
Three things you can say
- What number goes into both 6 and 9 without leaving anything left over?
- If 6 and 9 are both in the 3 times table, what do you get when you divide each by 3?
- Can you draw 9 circles and shade 6 of them — then group them into 3s to see the simpler way to say the same thing?
You don’t have to know the method. You just have to be in the room.
More than one question
Homework tonight. Progress over time.
The homework is the way in. What keeps a child moving is what happens in the weeks after it.
- 1
Tonight
The question in front of them
It starts where every evening starts — one question that has stopped your child in their tracks.
- 2
Straight after
A few more, while it's fresh
Aqilo turns the thing they just learned into practice on the same topic, so it sticks rather than evaporating by Thursday.
Try 3 more · Fractions
- Simplify 4/8
- Simplify 10/15
- Simplify 12/18
- 3
When you want to know
A five-minute check-up
A short quiz that finds the gaps underneath the homework — the topics quietly causing the trouble.
Check-up result · Mathematics
- Needs work: Long division
- Needs work: Ratio & proportion
- 4
From there
A short plan, built around the gaps
Not a timetable to fall behind on. A few dated tasks aimed at what the check-up actually found, spaced so the work comes back before it fades.
This week's plan
- Practise Long division — currently 0%
- Practise Ratio & proportion — currently 0%
- Weekend recap: redo the questions you found hardest
- 5
When it counts
Working back from the exam
Add the exam dates and the plan bends around them, so revision starts before the week before.
Exam added
- Maths Paper 1 · 15 September
Aqilo tracks which topics are sticking and which keep slipping, and brings the shaky ones back at spaced intervals. It won’t promise you marks — nothing honest can. It will show you what your child actually practised.
Weekly summary
You’ll actually know how the week went.
A weekly email of what your child practised — so the question at supper is a real one, instead of “how was school?”.
Aqilo
Weekly summary · to you
semakaleng practised 6 questions this week
Topics practised
- Whole numbers
- Fractions
- Decimals
- Long division
- Ratio & proportion
- Algebra: expressions
What arrives is a list, not a score. The topics your child actually worked on that week — no percentage, no grade, no ranking against anyone else’s child.
It takes about ten seconds to read, which is the point. And when the same topic keeps appearing week after week, you haven’t been handed a number to worry about — you’ve been handed the conversation to have.
Built for here
Made for how school works here.
Built for South African learners using CAPS, IEB and Cambridge.
Your child’s curriculum, not a generic one
You tell Aqilo which curriculum your child follows and what grade they’re in. That goes to the tutor with every question, so the explanation is pitched at the right year rather than at nobody in particular.
English or Afrikaans
Switch an explanation to Afrikaans and the summary written for you switches too — so the person helping and the child being helped are reading the same language.
Priced in Rands
R149 or R299 a month through PayFast. No forex, no conversion surprise on your statement, and the 7-day trial takes no card at all.
Grade 1 to Grade 12
One account covers the house rather than one child — the R299 family plan carries up to three, at whatever grades they happen to be.
Aqilo was built in South Africa, for the evening you’re actually having — not the one a product somewhere else imagined you were having.
Pricing
Start free. Then choose by how many children.
Both paid plans have exactly the same features. The only thing the price changes is how many children are on the account.
Free trial
7 days
no card needed
Full access
Everything Aqilo does, for a week. Start tonight, with the homework already on the table.
Solo
R149
per month
One child
The whole of Aqilo for one learner — the tutor, the practice, the check-up, the plan and the weekly email.
Family
R299
per month
Up to three children
Exactly the same features as Solo, for up to three learners at whatever grades they’re in. With all three places used, that’s about R100 a child.
The trial takes no card, so it cannot quietly turn into a subscription. When the week is up you decide whether to carry on — and nothing happens if you don’t.
Trust & safety
What it won’t do.
The useful thing to know about a homework tool is not what it can do. It’s what it refuses to do when your child would rather it just gave them the answer.
It won’t hand over the answer
Aqilo is a tutor, not an answer key. It teaches the method, works one step, then asks your child to take the next. With the youngest learners it carries more of the early steps — a frustrated six-year-old gives up rather than persists.
Nothing happens where you can’t see it
Every explanation your child receives comes with a plain-English summary written for you, and the week arrives as an email. You don’t have to go looking for it, and you don’t have to read over a shoulder.
You can take it all back
Delete the account from Settings and the family’s data goes with it. No retention period you have to write in and ask about, and no form to fill in first.
Questions
The things parents actually ask.
Will it just give my child the answers?
No — that is the one thing it is built not to do. Aqilo teaches the method, works one step, then hands the next step back to your child. The exception is the youngest learners, where it carries more of the early work, because a six-year-old who feels stuck simply stops.
Do I need to understand the work myself?
No. Alongside your child’s explanation, Aqilo writes you a short summary in plain English and gives you a few things you can actually say. You don’t need the method — you need to be at the table.
Which curriculum does it use?
You tell Aqilo which curriculum your child follows — CAPS, IEB or Cambridge — and what grade they are in. That goes to the tutor with every question, so the explanation is pitched at the right year.
Can my child work in Afrikaans?
Yes. An explanation can be switched to Afrikaans, and the summary written for you switches with it, so you are both reading the same language.
What happens when the free week ends?
You choose Solo or Family, or you don’t. Because the trial never took a card, nothing can be charged automatically when it finishes.
How many children can I add?
Solo covers one child at R149 a month. Family covers up to three at R299 a month, at whatever grades they happen to be in. The features are identical — only the number of children changes.
Can I cancel?
Yes, from your billing settings. You keep access until the end of the period you have already paid for, and it does not renew after that.
Can I delete our information?
Yes. Deleting the account from Settings removes the family’s data with it.
There’s homework on the table tonight.
Start with that one question. You don’t need a timetable, a tutor booked for Thursday, or the answer — you just need something that will explain it to your child and tell you what to say.
7 days free · no card needed