We love Night Zookeeper! The recently added quest function is something my daughter (age 7) really enjoys and I know that she can work through it on her own and is actually learning. We’ve also... See more
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Night Zookeeper
Fantastically Fun Learning
Night Zookeeper is a London-based children’s brand comprising of an online learning program, a book series and a TV mini-series. All of our products centre around the magical world of the “Night Zoo”. Our aim is to make learning fantastically fun for children aged 6 to 12 years old, and unlock their creativity in the process. Our reading and writing program has been used by over 1 million children worldwide.
Night Zookeeper was founded in 2012 by Joshua Davidson and Paul Hutson. Our e-learning product was originally launched in November 2012 as a creative drawing iOS app for kids, which went on to be recognised as one of the 50 best apps of 2013 by The Observer and The Guardian.
In 2014, we revamped the app into a web version which included more extensive writing elements, a dashboard for monitoring progress and personalised feedback from tutors. Over 1 billion words have been written by children on the site. Night Zookeeper is also used in schools by teachers worldwide in an effort to harness the power of digital learning in the classroom.
Throughout the pandemic, Night Zookeeper was able to act as a useful resource for families around the world to keep their children learning as schools were forced to close and remote learning took hold.
As of 2024, our program is used by thousands of children in several countries as a way to improve their reading and writing skills in a fantastically fun way, whether as part of a homeschool, in the classroom, as a supplementary resource, or simply a productive form of screen-time.
Room 621, The Shepherd's Building, W14 0EE, London, United Kingdom
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My child is very excited to imagine stories and to write them with the help of night zookeeper. This creative writing is gradually helping with her spelling skills.

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Night Zookeeper has both of my children challenging each other to learn more. They get excited about learning and "playing games" and don't realize how much they are learning!

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I like how this gives kids so many ways to do self-directed learning. It gives parents feedback on specific strengths and weaknesses their child has in their learning. It allows parents to modify the grade level for each kid. I like how it provides optional writing prompts, feedback, and is encouraging. While there is room for improvement and aspects of the program I would like to see done differently, it certainly is worth it as a low-demand, high-reward play-based accessible format that is a helpful, accomodative learning tool for some ADHD/Autistic/PDA learners. It has just enough order behind the scenes for a homeschool parent to see the learning behind the play, while integrating learning moments regardless of how the child chooses to play. There are plenty of opportunities to expand the learning and make things more challenging or rigorous, already provided, depending on how "intensive" you want this program to be for your kids. However, I have found more self-directed engagement when I place fewer expectations on how much my kids have to interact with the program.

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This app charged me and refuses to give a refund. Supposedly after "we’re unable to issue refunds for payments made after the 24-hour window." Tricks you into a trial and charges you leaving only a small window of time to dispute. Terrible practices, SCAM.

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My son who is in 6th grade loves it. He said it makes learning fun. We homeschool and want him to feel some sort of independence and fun in his subjects. This was exactly what he needed.

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I was recommended to Night Zookeeper by a friend. From the first day, she was hooked. The content is refreshing, using play to learn English in a gamification way.

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This program has made my kids more confident with their reading, writing, and spelling! They're comprehending more, reading faster, and enjoying the learning process again.

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My 10 year old LOVES Night Zookeeper. She spends a lot of time playing the games even when it's not "school time"

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I love that my kids love it! Unfortunately the app has a lot of glitches! Usually need to restart it daily. I would also like there to be more clear lessons on teaching not just games.

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I love the ability to keep the kids engaged. I know it is helping them to like to write especially when they do not like to write.

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It provides many interactive lessons and activities that can help children aged 6 and above be more interested in learning

Reply from Night Zookeeper
We have a kid who struggles to write and pay interest to this subject. Night Zookeeper hooked him in from Day 1. If fact, he begged to try as soon as he saw me setting up the account and then continued to explore for a few hours. We are still exploring the app (versus the website) but we have succeeded past our first hurdle-his desire. He enjoys getting feedback and comments on his writing and loves the games and the whole team of characters. We've had a little confusion on the behind the scenes aspect for organizing assignments and planning ahead but overall love the program.

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My child is homeschooled and using this as her spelling and grammar primarily. But we’ve been using it more often as her writing assignment for the week as well, because she has been enjoying the prompts on NightZookeeper so much! I’ve loved seeing her excitement for writing grow this year. I appreciate that she is getting feedback from tutors too, so she knows where she’s doing well and where she can improve.

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My daughter loves NZK! This has given her confidence and willingness to write creatively. She’s loves accepting the challenges!

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My son was reluctant at first but now he plays on it most days. We do a few quests then he plays on the main bit. He loves making characters.

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My homeschooled 4th and 7th graders have been using Night Zookeeper for over 3 months now. They love using the interactive prompts to create characters and write about them. They are both diagnosed with Dyslexia, so reading and especially writing and spelling are challenging for them. Being able to see their mistakes underlined and get corrections quickly helps them a lot.

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Received an error message signing up for the free trial. Then they debated my account anyway when I thought the sign up process didn’t even work. Very difficult app to use. I can’t even log in. I would say find another program unless you have endless patience for technical difficulties.

Reply from Night Zookeeper
I love the concept, and my kids really enjoy it. I can see how it could be super helpful for the lower grades, but it's really too simple for my 10 and 11 year-olds. I wish it could push them further in their academic skills! I wish there was a more established progression rather than a menu of activities to choose. I wouldn't mind as much if the activities were really challenging their skills, but they seem more recreational with an educational slant than actually helping them focus on skill building. The biggest gap my kids have noted to me is not having a good way to learn spelling. You either know it or you don't on this platform, and if you do pick it up, it'd just be by trial and error, or absorption (which you can do anyway by reading). They have been frustrated by that.
They recently introduced "quests," which is significantly better in regards to focusing on skill progression. I wish they'd take those further and make them more rigorous. Again, great for the earlier grades, not so much for the middle ones.
I want to love it! And it truly has gotten my kids engaged and more interested in free writing -- just not giving them a ton of progressing skill practice to improve their writing. If it did a stellar job at that, I'd be super pleased and give it 5 stars

Reply from Night Zookeeper
This is an amazing program, it has inspired my childrens interest in English, story writing and typing.
Their one critique is that their stories aren't always published, and it isn't indicated why, so they can't fix the problem to get them published and the tutors don't always send feedback.

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My son really enjoys this game. I love that he is learning and still getting his screen time fix!

Reply from Night Zookeeper
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