Squeebles Spelling Connect - Online Safety & Age Suitability

As parents ourselves, we know how important it is that you can trust the apps and digital content your children are using. Here is some information around the most common concerns / questions parents may have about how our Squeebles Spelling Connect app works and the information we collect / use.

Age Suitability

Our Squeebles Spelling Connect app is loosely aimed at primary school age children (5 to 11 years old), but plenty of children outside that age range use the app with great success. Younger children would likely require assistance from a parent or other adult however.

There is no content included within the app that could be considered inappropriate for children of any age. We have been very careful to avoid anything that could be considered frightening. The Squeebles are a friendly bunch!

Official Age Rating

We have to fill in questionnaires with all the stores we sell through, confirming our apps are appropriate for children and those same stores then carry out checks during the publishing process that ensure we're abiding by what we've said. Different countries have different ratings systems, but in most places Squeebles Spelling Connect is given a "4+" or "All Ages" rating, which is the lowest there is.

Parent / Teacher Login

The parent / teacher zone within the app is protected by a password (chosen by you) of at least 8 digits. Your subscription management is behind this login, so children can't upgrade / downgrade / cancel subscriptions or anything else to do with your store account from within the app. Be sure to pick a password they can't easily guess though (we have heard about some VERY resourceful / tech-savvy children in the time we've been doing this!)

All account settings (including the ability to set spelling lists, record word audio and manage / delete account data) are also behind this secure login.

Pre-recorded Audio

We provide audio recordings for over 8500 English words within the app. All our pre-recorded spelling lists use this audio by default and you can create your own lists from words that already have audio recorded too. This audio is created using a combination of software (text to speech technology) and occasionally recorded by us if we can't get the pronunciation we want using the software. All audio we create is thoroughly checked before being uploaded to the app.

User-generated Audio

You can also record your own audio for any word, so as to personalise the app for your children and provide them with a more enjoyable experience or one that makes it easier for them to understand the words they're being asked to spell (to make it specific to your regional accent for example, or to use the app to learn other languages).

Recording your own audio means children hear the audio a parent or teacher has recorded when being asked to spell a word. This functionality is behind a secure parent / teacher login and only children who are part of that account can hear the audio the parent or teacher has recorded. There is no way to share audio recordings between accounts.

Personalised Settings

We've tried hard to include the ability to personalise the app for each child, so they get the experience that best suits their learning journey. Some of these settings are there to support children with special educational needs (see our SEN page for more information on this). Be sure to check these settings out and adjust them for each of your children as some of them will affect how easy it is for your child to use the app and make it more suitable for their particular learning age.

No Adverts

We feel very strongly that children should not be subjected to advertising within apps. You will never see an advert within a Squeebles app.

No Tempting In-App Purchases

We also feel very strongly that children's apps should not contain tempting in-app purchases for items, upgrades, power ups or whatever.

We will not include features that end up with your children pestering you because they must have that extra shiny new pack of gemstones or whatever it may be.

Simply put - your subscription covers everything within the app and that won't change.

No In-app Communication or Messaging

There is no way children can communicate with anyone else via the app. There are no chat functions, no multiplayer online games or any other form of communication or messaging.

High score boards only contain child usernames (which are set by the app, so cannot contain any inappropriate language), or in the case of school accounts, school names, which are verified by us and cannot be changed afterwards.

No Unnecessary Cookies or Tracking

Depending on the type of account you have, we collect slightly different information about you. This is kept to the absolute minimum required to allow the basic functionality of the app to work for you. More information on exactly what is collected is available on our privacy page.

We collect almost no information about your children, other than the basics required so that you can recognise whose account you're managing if you have multiple children.