Our motivation method keeps students engaged

On day one your child is welcomed at the Super Spy School, where children are trained as real super spies. An essential skill for any spy is fast, accurate touch-typing: it is how you crack codes, decipher secret information and operate the latest gadgets.

At the start, when children are mostly practising single letters, it can quickly feel like drilling. That is why the story matters from the first moment. Your child meets Miss J, the typing teacher, and Mr I, the mysterious super spy they go on missions with.

Every character is played by a real actor. The typing lessons too are given by a real person, so the guidance feels human and stays part of the story. It soon becomes clear that a double agent is at large. Who is it? Curiosity about the answer is what makes children want to get on with the next typing assignment.

As children master more letters, it becomes clear which letters they still struggle with. Those are exactly the letters that need extra practice. But repeating the same letters endlessly is dull.

So TypeMission has several adaptive games, such as Typetris, Spydance and Codeblaster: playful takes on familiar games, set entirely in the world of TypeMission. The games follow what a child needs at that moment. Children practise precisely, while what they mostly feel is that they are playing.

A typing course asks for a great deal of repetition. To keep that repetition from turning dull, TypeMission offers several kinds of typing assignment.

Every assignment is part of the mission. By typing, children decode secret photographs, decipher messages or uncover clues about the double agent. Typing is never just typing: every exercise has a purpose within the story.

Halfway through the course every letter has been covered and the emphasis shifts to accuracy and speed. This is also when children start to feel what touch-typing gives them.

Whole sentences come faster and with fewer mistakes. Where children used to look at the keyboard, they now notice their fingers finding the keys almost by themselves. Sometimes they feel the difference in their schoolwork.

They no longer practise only to find out how the mission ends, but because they notice how much touch-typing gains them. Their own progress becomes a powerful reason to finish the course.