How Heddy Points Reward Effort, Not Just Right Answers

Heddy Points are small tokens your child earns for genuinely engaging with a tutoring session — showing their working, sticking with a hard problem, reflecting honestly on how it went — not for getting every answer right. A wrong answer that came from real effort still earns points; a session that never really got started does not. There's a sensible daily limit, so it stays about good habits rather than grinding for numbers. In one line: the system is built to notice effort, and that is deliberately the whole point.

Heddy is the snowy-owl mascot who fronts aitutors.me. Heddy Points are your child's own running tally of engagement, earned quietly inside real tutoring sessions with Mentor (the tutor who greets your child and plans the week) and the subject professors. This article explains exactly what earns them, why we tie them to effort rather than correctness, and where your child sees them.

The worry this is designed to remove

Here's a moment a lot of parents recognise. A child finishes a tricky maths session, gets several answers wrong, and concludes: "I was rubbish, so I probably didn't earn anything." That belief — that only being right counts — is exactly what quietly teaches children to avoid hard things and stop showing their working.

Heddy Points are designed to break that link. The child who says "I don't get this yet, can we go slower?" and keeps trying is doing the single most valuable thing in learning. So that is what earns.

What earns points (and what doesn't)

Any of the eight tutors can award points — Mentor or any of the subject professors. It isn't tied to a particular subject. Two simple guards keep it honest:

• A session has to be real. It must last at least three minutes. A session that's opened and closed, or a two-message exchange, earns nothing — regardless of how well it's rated. This stops "instant brilliant" gaming.
• There's a daily ceiling. A child can earn at most 60 points in a day. After that, more sessions that day earn nothing — quietly, with no "you've hit your limit" message. It means points reward turning up and engaging, not marathon grinding.

Within those guards, the tutor gives an honest read on how the session went — not a test score, just the tutor's sense of how your child engaged with the material. That read sets the size of the reward:

Notice the bottom rows. Struggling on a hard topic still earns. Effort is never punished; only genuine non-engagement earns nothing. That's the honest version of a rewards system — the opposite of one that only pays out for correct answers.

Why effort, not correctness

Tying rewards to right answers has a predictable side effect: children start choosing easy work they know they'll get right, and hide the moments they're confused. That's the opposite of learning. Rewarding effort and good habits — persistence, showing working, honest reflection — points a child towards the harder, more useful work, and makes it safe to say "I'm stuck."

It also fits the rest of how the tutors behave. Our tutors run on an energy-aware system where a tired week means shorter sessions or rest, never pressure. Heddy Points were built to sit inside that philosophy, not fight it. We go deeper on the thinking in Why We Reward Effort, Not Correct Answers.

Where your child sees them

There's no separate app to install and no jackpot animation. Everything child-facing is calm and lives where your child already is:

1. A warm one-liner in the session. After a qualifying session, the tutor mentions it briefly — "nice work, that earned some Heddy points!" — and stays completely silent when a session earned nothing. Your child never sees "you didn't earn points because…".
2. The My Heddy room. Inside the web tutor, your child has a little home for their points where they can see their balance and what they've earned. (More in My Heddy: The Room, the Shelf, and Dressing Your Owl.)
3. A simple "how many do I have?" Your child can ask the tutor their balance at any time. That's all it can do — report the number. It can't spend, browse rewards, or upsell anything.

Points build up over time into levels on a friendly climbing scale — the Seven-Owl Ladder — and can be spent, with your approval, on small digital rewards for Heddy.

What points can never do

Being honest means being clear about the guardrails, too:

• They can't be bought. There is no way to top up points with money anywhere in the product. Earned only.
• They have no cash value. Points never become a discount, a free month, a gift card, or money of any kind.
• They never decay, and there are no streaks. Nothing erodes over time; there's no "you lost your streak" to worry about. A busy or unwell week costs your child nothing they've earned.
• A distress moment is never gamified. If a session raises a safeguarding concern, it earns zero points, always — checked before any point logic runs, so it structurally can't be treated as a scoring opportunity.
• No comparisons. There are no leaderboards and no comparing children — not even siblings on the same account. Points are your child's own quiet record.

If the whole idea of points still makes you uneasy — isn't this just bribery? — that's a fair question, and we answer it head-on in Do Points and Rewards Just Bribe My Child?.

FAQ

Does my child earn points even if they get answers wrong?

Yes. Points reward genuine engagement, not correctness. A child who wrestles honestly with a hard topic and gets it wrong still earns — struggling well is exactly the habit the system is built to notice. Only a session that never really got going (under three minutes) earns nothing.

Can my child farm points by opening lots of quick sessions?

No. Each session must last at least three minutes to earn anything, and there's a daily ceiling of 60 points per child. Once that's reached, more sessions that day simply earn nothing — quietly, with no penalty message. It keeps points about good habits, not grinding.

What happens to points on a rest week or a bad week?

Nothing bad. Points never expire and are never taken away. There are no streaks to break. A quiet week just means fewer new points that week — never a loss of what your child already earned. A safeguarding-flagged session earns zero, always.

Related reading

• The Seven-Owl Ladder: What Each Level Means
• Why We Reward Effort, Not Correct Answers
• Do Points and Rewards Just Bribe My Child?

Duke Harewood built aitutors.me for his own KS3-aged daughter. Heddy Points started from one rule he wanted the tutors to live by: reward the effort, never just the right answer. Updated 09 July 2026.