Maths Pathway Homeschool is a complete maths program: a diagnostic, then 451 modules of video and worksheets from Year 1 to Year 10A, for $299 a year per child. Sprout Tutor is daily practice on the Victorian Curriculum in English, maths and science, free while it is in beta. If you want one thing to be your child’s whole maths course, Maths Pathway Homeschool is built for that job and Sprout Tutor is not. If you already have a way of teaching and want marked practice you can see question by question, the comparison tilts the other way.
This page is for Victorian homeschooling families weighing the two. We build Sprout Tutor, so this is an interested comparison: every Sprout Tutor claim was checked against our own code, every Maths Pathway claim comes from Reflective’s own pages as read on 13 October 2026, and there is a section on what Maths Pathway does better. Maths Pathway is now made by a company called Reflective, and the school version has been renamed Instructive; if your question is about the school product, read Maths Pathway is now Instructive instead.
Side by side
| Maths Pathway Homeschool | Sprout Tutor | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A full maths curriculum, “designed to run consistently over time, not as a short-term supplement”. | Guided practice: a short teaching deck on one curriculum code, then ten marked questions. |
| Subjects | Maths. Literacy is a separate product, Lingo Home, at $150 a year. | English, maths and science. |
| Years | Years 1 to 10, up to Year 10A content. | Years 1 to 10. |
| Curriculum | Mapped to the Australian Curriculum, and described as aligning with each state curriculum. | The Victorian Curriculum F–10 Version 2.0 only, coded to each content description. |
| Price | $299 a year or $29 a month per child. You pay for the first two children and up to five are covered. Two-week free trial. | Free on every Sprout plan, including the free one, while in beta. Not on the pricing page. |
| How it decides what is next | A diagnostic sets a learning pathway; a test at the end of each learning cycle measures it. | Fixed rules after every answer: three right in a row up a tier, five wrong in a row down. |
| How it teaches | Instructional videos and worksheets, done online or printed on paper. | A short slide deck per topic, then questions in ten interaction types. Screen only. |
| What the parent sees | Reports in the Reflective Home hub: what your child is working on, and Effort, Accuracy and Growth. | Every recent question as it was shown, the answer given, hints and reveals, and a log of Year changes. |
The real difference: how each one decides what comes next
Both call themselves adaptive, which tells you nothing. The useful question is what the adapting is made of.
Maths Pathway works in cycles. Your child starts with a diagnostic assessment that, in Reflective’s words, determines “what they need to learn next” and “generates a personalised learning pathway”. They work through modules, then at the end of each learning cycle sit “a test based only on the work they’ve recently completed”. Progress is reported as Effort (how consistently they do the assigned work), Accuracy (how well they show understanding) and Growth (how far they move through the curriculum). The adjustment happens at the cycle boundary.
Sprout Tutor works answer by answer. Within a Year there are three tiers, support, core and stretch. Three correct in a row moves up a tier and five wrong in a row moves down. Five wrong at the support tier drops the working Year by one, three right at stretch climbs it by one, and a revealed answer counts as wrong. Ten questions finishes a topic. These are plain functions in our code, not a model’s judgement, and every change of Year is written to a log you can read. The full rulebook is in how Sprout Tutor decides what comes next.
Neither rhythm is better in general. A cycle gives a child room to struggle through a module before anything is judged, which suits a child who needs time. Answer-by-answer adjustment catches a child who is drowning within five questions, which suits a child who gives up fast, and it means a child can work below their assigned Year on one subject without anyone deciding that in advance. Our page on working at a different level explains why that matters in a Victorian homeschool.
What Maths Pathway Homeschool does better
A comparison that cannot name what the other product does better is not worth reading. Here are four things, plainly.
- It is a whole course. 451 modules with instructional videos, in a sequence, up to Year 10A. If you do not want to plan maths at all, it plans it. Sprout Tutor teaches one code at a time with a short deck, and you still decide what your child covers across a year.
- It works on paper. Reflective says worksheets can be done in the online portal “or on paper if you prefer”. Sprout Tutor is screen only. For a child who learns better with a pencil, or a family limiting screens, that is a real difference.
- It runs outside Victoria. If you might move interstate, or your child might return to a school using the Australian Curriculum, a program mapped to it travels better. Sprout Tutor covers the Victorian Curriculum only, for now.
- It has a track record in schools. The homeschool version is built on the platform Australian schools have used for about a decade. Sprout Tutor went into public beta on 22 September 2026.
A fifth, for some families: a Maths Pathway parent quoted on Reflective’s site says you can request a report of your child’s progress, “handy for the yearly homeschool reports we need to complete”. Sprout Tutor’s dashboard shows the latest 100 answers and the latest 50 Year changes, and it has no export button yet, so for a Victorian review you save screenshots, as our page on apps in a Victorian learning plan describes.
What Sprout Tutor does that Maths Pathway does not
- You see the literal question. Not a percentage. The dashboard opens any recent question in full: every option, the correct one marked, your child’s answer, the hint and whether they used it or revealed the answer. A struggling-codes list shows right, wrong and revealed counts per Victorian Curriculum code. The parent dashboard page walks through it.
- English and science too. One login, three subjects, each set to its own Year.
- Coded to Victoria, code by code. Each topic is one Victorian Curriculum 2.0 content description, so the code in your learning plan and the code on the practice match.
- No open chat box. Your child unlocks their page with a four-digit PIN you set (six wrong guesses locks it), and the only text a child types is an answer. Questions come in ten interaction types, from ordering and matching to spot the error, described in beyond multiple choice.
- It costs nothing while in beta. One honest exception: if your child misses three or more of a topic’s ten questions, Sprout offers a full help lesson on that code, and a lesson uses lesson credits from your account.
Want to compare for yourself? Start free, set a PIN, assign maths at your child’s Year and watch the first ten answers arrive on your dashboard. Sprout Tutor is free while in beta, on the Victorian Curriculum.
What a year costs
For one child, Maths Pathway Homeschool is $299 on annual billing or $348 on monthly ($29 for twelve months; Reflective says annual saves $49). Because you pay for the first two children only, a family with three, four or five children pays $598 a year on annual billing. Add Lingo Home for literacy and it is $150 a year per child on the same two-child basis. Sprout Tutor costs nothing while in beta, and we will not quote a future price for it, because there is not one.
Free is not automatically better value. If Maths Pathway Homeschool replaces a maths curriculum you would otherwise buy and plan yourself, $299 is modest for a year of sequenced teaching. If you already teach maths your own way and want practice on top, you would be paying for the course part and not using it.
Which one, for which family
Choose Maths Pathway Homeschool if you want maths fully handled: a sequence, the teaching videos and the worksheets, at your child’s level, with a parent report at the end. Also if you need paper, or might leave Victoria.
Choose Sprout Tutor if you already teach, or use a textbook or a co-op, and want short daily practice in English, maths and science that is coded to the Victorian Curriculum and that shows you exactly which questions went wrong.
Use both if your child is on Maths Pathway for maths and you want English and science practice, or a second look at a maths topic the cycle test flagged. They do not connect to each other, so you choose the topic. And remember the VRQA does not require Victorian home educators to follow the Victorian Curriculum or the Australian Curriculum, so curriculum alignment is a convenience, not a registration rule; see registering to homeschool in Victoria.
Whichever you pick, keep one thing in view: the effectiveness of personalised-learning software, theirs and ours, has not been independently established, and very few rigorous studies of it exist. Does AI tutoring actually work sets out what the evidence does say. Try both during the free periods and judge by your own child.
Maths Pathway Homeschool and Reflective Home facts, prices and quotes checked 13 October 2026 against reflective.global/maths-pathway-homeschool and reflective.global/reflective-home. Prices are in Australian dollars as published and may change. Sprout Tutor facts checked against our own code the same day. We are not affiliated with Reflective. Sprout Tutor is in public beta, follows the Victorian Curriculum only, and is free on every plan while in beta.
Ready to see the practice half? Start free and give your child a PIN-protected Sprout Tutor subject on the Victorian Curriculum, free while it is in beta.
FAQ
How much does Maths Pathway Homeschool cost?
Reflective lists $299 a year or $29 a month per child, with annual billing saving $49. You pay for the first two children only and up to five are covered, so a larger family pays $598 a year on annual billing. There is a two-week free trial. Prices checked 13 October 2026.
Is Maths Pathway Homeschool aligned to the Victorian Curriculum?
Reflective says its homeschool content is mapped to the Australian Curriculum across Years 1 to 10 and aligns with each state curriculum. Sprout Tutor is coded only to the Victorian Curriculum Version 2.0. Victorian home educators are not required by the VRQA to follow either curriculum, so alignment is a convenience rather than a registration rule.
What does Maths Pathway Homeschool do better than Sprout Tutor?
It is a complete, sequenced maths course with instructional videos, so you do not have to plan maths. Its worksheets can be done on paper. It is mapped beyond Victoria. And it is built on a platform Australian schools have used for about a decade, while Sprout Tutor entered public beta in September 2026.
Can we use Maths Pathway Homeschool and Sprout Tutor together?
Yes. A common split is Maths Pathway for the maths course and Sprout Tutor for English and science practice, or for extra practice on a maths topic a cycle test flagged. They do not connect to each other, so you choose the topic.
Is Sprout Tutor free?
Sprout Tutor is free on every Sprout plan, including the free one, while it is in public beta. The one exception is a full help lesson Sprout offers after three or more wrong answers in a topic, which uses lesson credits from your account.