Short answer
The heatmap is a read-only summary of what your logged activities happen to map onto in the National Curriculum (NC) areas. Darker squares mean more entries were logged and tagged to that area in the period you are viewing. Lighter squares mean fewer or none. That is the whole mechanic. It is not scoring your child.
What the colours mean
White or very light. Either no activities were logged for that area in the period, or activities were logged without NC tags. A white square does not mean the child has not covered that area; it means your log does not show it.
Light to medium. A few activities in that area in the period. Normal for a focused term; most home families are intense in two or three NC areas at once and quiet in others.
Dark. Many activities logged in that area. Often the child's current interest, the parent's current focus or the current topic for a home-ed group.
The colour scale is relative to your own log, not to any national average or age-group norm. Another family's heatmap would tell you nothing about yours.
Why an empty row is not a failure
Three honest reasons a row can be blank or light.
The first is that you did not log activities in that area during the period. Not that the child did not do any; that you did not log them. Many real-life activities (a walk with naming of trees, a conversation about money at the shop, a ten-minute piece of writing at the kitchen table) go unlogged, especially in the first term of home education. The heatmap reflects logging, not living.
The second is that you logged the activities but tagged them differently. Montessori practical life often covers several NC areas at once (science, design technology, PSHE, physical development). If you tagged a cooking session only as "practical life", the NC-area squares it touches will not light up. This is not a fault in the log; it is a choice about how fine-grained to tag.
The third is that the period you are viewing is too short to be a fair sample. Many home families show much lighter heatmaps week-on-week than they do term-on-term. Zoom out to a half-term or term view before drawing any conclusions.
Using the gaps
Treat a persistent gap over a whole term as a gentle prompt, not a verdict. Three questions worth asking, in this order:
- Did we do work in this area and not log it? If yes, no action needed; tighten the logging habit for next term if you want the heatmap to reflect reality.
- Is this an area we have chosen to leave light in this period? If yes, that is a lawful choice. The National Curriculum is not a requirement for home-educated children; breadth over a year or more is the usual frame.
- Is this an area we want to pick up next term? If yes, the heatmap has done its job: it has suggested a direction. Add one or two activities in that area to next term's plan and watch the square lighten.
If that did not work
- Squares that should be dark are showing as empty. Check that your activities are tagged to NC areas in the log. Untagged activities do not appear in the heatmap.
- The heatmap looks entirely white. Make sure you have selected a sensible date range at the top of the view; the default is the current week.
- The heatmap is slow to update. Entries usually appear within a minute of logging; if yours have not appeared, close and re-open the app.
If you are still stuck, email [email protected]. A real person reads it.