Digital reading record FAQs

Visit boomhub.app/signup to create your teacher account. This lets you set up a school account and add your staff and pupils. You can start a free 30-day trial to explore the features, then continue with a subscription after the trial.

Yes. GoRead is now officially BoomReader, and GoWrite is now officially BoomWriter. They're the same products from the same UK company, Squirrel Learning Ltd, under new names. GoRead won the Bett Award for best educational app.

No. There's a separate company in the USA also called BoomWriter. Although the products look and feel similar, the companies and products are completely separate. Our BoomWriter (formerly GoWrite) is made by Squirrel Learning Ltd in the UK and is included free with every BoomReader subscription.

No. Wonde is the quickest way to bring your staff, pupils and classes across from your school's MIS, but it's optional.

You can also upload a CSV file of your teachers and pupils in BoomReader to create their accounts. It's built into the platform and doesn't need Wonde at all.

For Wonde schools: changes made in your school's MIS are reflected in BoomReader after the latest sync, which happens overnight. There may be a slight delay while your MIS syncs with Wonde and Wonde then syncs with BoomReader, so please allow 24 hours for changes to appear. You can also force a sync by clicking the Sync From Wonde button on your Manage class page.

For non-Wonde schools: follow the instructions provided in your BoomReader account to add a new pupil.

No. Schools can use BoomReader purely as a teacher and parent app. If you have older pupils, consider the benefits of pupils writing about what they read and using the book review features.

Yes. You can add children to more than one class, for example a Year 1 class and an RWI group.

Yes. You can add as many teachers as you like to each of your classes.

At the top of the pupil page, click the i icon to view the pupil's details. From there you can choose refresh, which gives the child a new code.

Rather than removing a reading band, we advise creating a new band called "free reader".

Children earn gems for logging their reading, up to twice a day. The log can come from a teacher, a parent or the child. The number of gems is random each time (between 1 and 3).

Children also earn gems for completing book reviews.

Teachers do not have to award gems manually, but they can give extra gems by clicking the Award gems button on the pupil page.

Yes, you can follow us here:

• Instagram (@boomreader)
• Facebook
• X (@BoomReaderUK)
• LinkedIn
• YouTube
• TikTok (@boomreaderuk)
• Threads (@boomreader)

BoomReader and BoomWriter share the same accounts. Tag us in your school's posts!

Our current prices are on our pricing page.

Go to your School Hub and follow the instructions there. You need an admin-level account to change subscription settings.

BoomReader does not charge for taking out or replacing pupils mid-year.

We do not charge for additional pupils during the academic year. We ask all schools to review their pupil numbers when they renew. For up-to-date prices, see our pricing page.

These are all the domains that BoomReader and BoomWriter need access to for full functionality. If any of them are blocked by filtering software, you may have problems accessing some or all of our services, so please ask your IT support to make sure they are unblocked.

Root domains used by the apps (all https only):

• boomreader.co.uk
• boomwriter.co.uk
• boomhub.app
• go-read.co.uk
• go-write.co.uk
• goapps.app
• go-read.app
• go-write.app

The apps use several subdomains to handle user and data access, so a wildcard rule should allow any subdomain, for example *.boomhub.app.

Some of the apps also access data using the WebSocket Secure protocol (wss). You may need to add specific rules for these:

• wss://api-portal.boomhub.app
• wss://api.goapps.app

Our technical security measures are set out in our technical security policy, on our policies page.

We collect personal data about staff, children and parents:

• Staff data: names, email addresses, roles and school contact information.
• Children's data: names, class and year group details, and content they create such as reading logs, comments on reading and book reviews.
• Parents' data: names and email addresses.
• Special category data (MIS integration): for schools that give access to their management information system (MIS) through an integration provider, we may collect sensitive personal data, including gender, ethnicity, special educational needs (SEN), Pupil Premium entitlement and English as an additional language (EAL) status.

All data is collected solely to make the application work and to help the school improve children's reading. This includes creating accounts for teachers and parents and enabling core features using pupils' names and reading log data.

Most data comes directly from what users enter (school admins, school staff, parents and pupils). Pupil demographic data is synchronised from the school's MIS through an integration provider, where available.

Yes. Schools have full control over the data shared through the MIS integration. They can choose not to sync specific categories of special category data. For example, a school can choose not to sync ethnicity data and still use the platform's core features.

All user data is stored on Heroku EU servers, in encrypted, secure data systems hosted within the UK and EU.

Yes. We use encryption at rest (AES-256) and appropriate technical measures to ensure the confidentiality, integrity and resilience of our systems.

Data storage is currently restricted to the EU only. We keep the option to store data in other regions if there is enough demand for the service in those areas.

Our databases are separated by environment: development, staging and production. Production data is strictly isolated and is not used in non-production environments.

Access is restricted to specific internal teams:

• The developer team has access to technical data, including databases.
• The education support team has access to each school's platform for support, problem-solving and debugging.

Access is managed through Heroku role-based access control. All staff use multi-factor authentication (MFA) through Heroku and the Heroku command line interface (CLI) to access data. Everyone who works with personal data is under a strict obligation to keep it confidential.

Our infrastructure is hosted on Heroku, and protections are covered by Heroku's security policy. We reduce risk by not allowing third parties to read or write data through APIs.

Personally identifiable data is kept for the length of the subscription contract. We automatically anonymise a pupil's personally identifiable information 90 days after they leave the school, or when the subscription is cancelled.

We keep non-personally identifiable data (for example, the number of books read and the number of logs) indefinitely, for research and to improve the product.

As the data processor, we act on the written instructions of the school, which is the data controller. Requests for immediate deletion must be made to the school in the first instance. Once the 90-day anonymisation has taken place, personal data cannot be retrieved.

Our data, and any changes to it, are continuously and automatically backed up over the last 4 days through Heroku, to ensure availability and resilience.

In line with our Data Processing Agreement, we will tell the school without undue delay, and in any case within 24 hours, once we become aware of any actual or suspected personal data breach.

Schools should tell BoomApps straight away if they suspect a data breach. The BoomApps data officer will work with the development team, the school and the ICO as appropriate to reduce the risks.