Be Their Guide: Supporting Every Parent to Support Every Child
Empowering families with the tools, insight and confidence to guide their children’s learning journey — at home and beyond.
About Be Their Guide
Be Their Guide is a new charitable organisation built from world‑class doctoral research at the University of Oxford. It exists to empower parents and carers—regardless of background—to play a confident, informed, and transformative role in their children’s learning at home.
Rooted in evidence and driven by equity, Be Their Guide brings together two core strands of parental support: homework.guide, a groundbreaking AI-powered tool that helps parents support their child’s homework without giving the answers; and reading.guide (coming soon), a digital companion to help families build joyful, effective reading habits at home.
Founded and led by a UK expert in teacher training and a doctoral researcher at the University of Oxford, Be Their Guide is now building the foundations for national impact and seeking founding partners, funders, and leadership team members.
Our Mission
We believe that every parent—regardless of their educational background—has the power to guide their child’s learning.
Our mission is to:
Support learning as a relational, reflective, and empowering process that builds confidence for both caregiver and child.
Reduce the attainment gap through practical, accessible tools grounded in research and designed for everyday family life, linked to schools.
Tackle educational inequity by supporting caregivers to develop children’s minds to think critically, and reach their potential, by taking full advantage of what can be achieved at home.
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Real Progress Success Through Parental Involvement
Parents’ involvement in their children’s learning can transform educational outcomes, regardless of background. Across neighbourhoods…
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Understanding the Importance of Educational Equity
Educational equity is not about treating all learners the same; it is about ensuring every…
Empower Learning with Proven Strategies
Discover essential tools and insights designed to help parents and educators bridge the attainment gap effectively.
Research Informed Resources
Curated materials that support differentiated learning, enabling every student to reach their full potential with tailored guidance.
AI Support
Engaging platform that leads you and your child to answers through metacognitive solutions, rather than just giving answers
School homework and reading linked to the home platform
A collaborative space offering advice, success stories, and expert tips to nurture ongoing growth and close educational gaps.
Empowering Parents and Schools for Student Success
Join us to access expert strategies and resources that close the attainment gap.
Empowering Parents to Close the Attainment Gap
Reach out to us for support and expert guidance anytime.
Our Origins: A Research-Driven Vision
Be Their Guide was born from a doctoral research project at the University of Oxford exploring how artificial intelligence can support parental involvement in homework. This research—centred on metacognition, equity, and sociocultural theory—identified a clear opportunity: AI can enable, not replace, meaningful parent–child interactions.
This work led to the creation of homework.guide, a platform where parents receive tailored prompts to guide their children through difficult tasks, aligned with Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development. Children are supported to think, not just to complete.
The research is being shaped by extensive fieldwork in schools across the UK and Europe, and draws on expertise in teacher education, digital learning, and inclusive pedagogy.
Our Approach
- Sociocultural theory: Grounded in thinkers like Vygotsky, Bernstein, and Bourdieu.
- Practical pedagogy: From years of experience training secondary teachers in England.
- AI innovation: Designed not to shortcut learning, but to scaffold it.
- Parental empowerment: We provide tools, not judgements.
- Everything we create is:
Accessible to parents without jargon
Free to the families who need it most
Tested in real school contexts
Built to close the attainment gap, not widen it
Our Projects
homework.guide
An AI-powered homework assistant for parents. Teachers upload homework, and parents receive prompts to guide — not solve — the work. Grounded in doctoral research at Oxford, this tool prevents over-helping and builds children’s thinking.
reading.guide (launching soon)
A structured, joyful guide to home reading. Supports parents in building their child’s vocabulary, comprehension, and confidence. Works with any book. Grounded in literacy pedagogy and child development research.
Get Involved
We’re recruiting our founding team.
As we move from research to rollout, we are looking for experienced individuals who share our vision of equity in education.
- Fundraising & Account Managers: To shape our income strategy and secure sustainable grant funding and partnerships.
- Operations and Executive Leaders: To help scale the charity, build school partnerships, and manage impact delivery.
- Trustees and Advisors: To help steer our ethical direction, financial governance, and national strategy.
If you are passionate about making a difference in the lives of children and families—and want to shape the future of home learning—we’d love to hear from you.
Register Your Interest ➜
Support Our Work
Together, we can make effective parental support the norm, not the exception.
- Strategic funding partners
- Philanthropic donors
- School and local authority collaborators
- Academic and research collaborators
All donations and partnerships help us ensure that the tools we build remain free, accessible, and effective for the families who need them most.
Expressions of interest for support are welcome.
Contact Us
Whether you’re a potential partner, funder, school, or volunteer—please get in touch.
📧 research@homework.guide
🔗 www.betheirguide.org
Be Their Guide is a UK-based charity currently in formation, built from doctoral research at the University of Oxford and committed to equitable parental involvement in education.