A UK alternative to My School Year

My School Year is a mature, well-reviewed US homeschool tracker that has been a How-to-Homeschool Top Pick every year from 2020. It plans, logs, and reports the school year. The honest question is not whether it works, but whether a US-shaped tool fits a UK home-ed family who eventually has to write to an English local authority.

How My School Year earned its place.

The product does the basics with care. The lesson planner lets you build classes, mark work complete, reschedule what slipped, and auto-grade on completion. Across multiple children you can copy reading lists and lesson plans rather than rebuild them. The Family Edition rolls in chores, reading logs, volunteer hours, and standardised test scores, so it tries to be one tool for the whole picture, not just the academic core.

It is a strong fit if you are a US family, or a UK family tracking a teenager against a US-style credit and GPA framework for college applications. The high-school transcript generator and automatic class-average calculation are genuinely useful there, and Google and Apple Calendar sync are advertised parity features. If you value longevity, there are six years of public reviews to read before you commit.

Where Willowfolio is built differently.

The wedge is shape, not feature count. Willowfolio is built around UK home-ed law, with Section 7 of the Education Act 1996 framing in the council-report PDF, and Key Stages plus the Early Learning Goals as the native curriculum scaffolding. My School Year’s compliance reports are correct for US state regulators. They just do not match what an English LA tends to ask for in a suitable-education inquiry, so you’d be re-shaping the output by hand each time.

Pricing also reads differently. Willowfolio is monthly only, in pounds, at £3.75 for one child and £2 for each additional, capped at £11.75 for five children or more. There is no annual plan, by choice. My School Year ships an annual option at around $40 a year (this figure is sourced from third-party listings; the publisher’s pricing page was unavailable on our verification date, confirm live before committing) with a lifetime price-lock for unbroken subscribers, which is the right call for a buyer who prefers one yearly bill in dollars. We are not trying to compete on that shape.

The last difference is philosophical. My School Year is a grades-and-transcripts tracker in the tradition of US school-at-home. Willowfolio is built for the broader UK home-ed landscape, including Montessori, Charlotte Mason, and unschooling, with optional three-period lesson, work cycle, and sensitive-period fields for families who want them. You can also try the product at /try-demo with a populated demo household, no account required, before you decide.

Common questions.

Will My School Year work for UK home education?

It will run from the UK and let you log lessons day to day. The catch is its compliance reports are shaped for US state regulators, so anything you wanted to hand to an English local authority under Section 7 would need re-shaping by hand first.

Does My School Year support Key Stages or Early Learning Goals?

No. Its curriculum scaffolding is built around US grades K to 12. Willowfolio uses UK Key Stages and the Early Years Foundation Stage as the native framework, so the vocabulary you’d write in a council report is already there.

What about a council-report PDF for an English LA?

My School Year produces compliance reports designed for US state requirements. Willowfolio’s council-report PDF is shaped around what English local authorities tend to ask for during a suitable-education inquiry, with Section 7 framing baked in.

Is there a way to try My School Year without entering card details?

My School Year offers a 30-day free trial, but it asks you to create an account first. There is no anonymous look-around. Willowfolio’s /try-demo lets you click through a populated household with no signup at all.

Will I pay in pounds?

No. My School Year bills in US dollars at around $5 per month, or roughly $40 per year on the annual plan (this figure is sourced from third-party listings; the publisher’s pricing page was unavailable on our verification date, confirm live before committing). UK families absorb the exchange rate, plus any foreign-transaction fee their card issuer charges, on every renewal.

Does My School Year handle Montessori tracking?

Not as a first-class concept. It is a grades-and-transcripts tracker by design. If you want optional three-period lesson, work cycle, and sensitive-period fields, those live in Willowfolio.

Can two parents share an account?

A co-parent or second-adult role is not advertised on the My School Year tour or in the third-party reviews we read. Willowfolio ships a documented co-parent invite flow as a standard feature.

If you’d like to see the difference yourself, the demo is the fastest read on whether the shape fits. The council-reports page shows what the LA-facing PDF looks like. And if you are still weighing options, the full set of comparisons sits beside this one.