Episode 99: The story of Maths — No Problem!

Andy Psarianos

Hi, I'm Andy Psarianos.

Robin Potter

Hi, I'm Robin Potter.

Adam Gifford

Hi, I'm Adam Gifford.

Andy Psarianos

This is The School of School podcast.

Welcome to the School of School podcast.

Robin Potter

Are you a maths teacher looking for CPD to strengthen your skills? Maths — No Problem! has a variety of courses to suit your needs, from textbook implementation to the essentials of teaching maths mastery. Visit mathsnoproblem.com today to learn more.

Adam Gifford

Welcome back to another School of School podcast, joined by the regular gang. Andy, how are you?

Andy Psarianos

Hello, hello. I'm fine. Thank you for asking.

Adam Gifford

Good, yeah. And Robin, what about you? How are you doing today?

Robin Potter

Yeah, I'm doing great. Nice to be here.

Adam Gifford

Cool. Do you know, I'm pretty excited about this episode. I'll tell you why. I've been in and around Maths — No Problem! for a number of years now. But I don't know the full story. I know snippets of the story, but not right back to the origin. And oh, aren't we fortunate that we've got Andy here today? Because you are the origin of the story, no? So I want to know, and I want to hear... And I'm sure that I'm going to litter this with questions, I hope you don't mind. And, Robin, you might be the same because-

Robin Potter

Yes, I am.

Adam Gifford

... I want to know how did Maths — No Problem! come into being. So I'm going to be quiet and hand over.

Andy Psarianos

Geez, let me see. Well, we got to go back to the Balkan War where the... No, I'm just kidding. Maths — No Problem! started because my daughter started falling behind. So we moved from Norfolk, I was living in the UK at the time, I live in Canada now. So we moved from Norfolk to Kent. And in Kent, of course, they have the grammar schools. And say what you want about the grammar schools, but moving from Norfolk to Kent, one very quickly realised that the kids in Kent were far more serious about their maths education than the kids in Norfolk. Whether or not that had anything to do with the grammar schools, I'll let you fill in those blanks. But my daughter went from being okay to the top in her maths performance, to being very much at the bottom instantaneously. And that had a severe impact on her own self-worth, I guess. It really shocked her.

So I decided I would help her, as any parent would. Now, I had worked in Singapore in the '90s, and I knew that Singapore... I taught in Singapore in the '90s, and I knew that Singapore did really, really well in mathematics for a... And that's a whole story on its own why I knew that. But let's just say that in 1997, when the first TIMSS came out, I was in Singapore. 1996, I should say, the end of 1996. I was in Singapore and I heard about it. Singapore stunned the world by being the best country in mathematics from nobody ever expected that. Because the last time anybody checked anything was going on in Singapore, they were pretty close to the bottom. So how did they transform themselves from the bottom to the top? Anyway, I knew there was something to spectacular going on in Singapore as far as mathematics education in primary schools went. And because I had taught there and I had lots of contacts, I got some books from Singapore. And I started teaching my daughter using these Singaporean math textbooks.

And part of my personality, I suppose, I got very much into this. And realised that there was something going on here. So this is a decade after I taught in Singapore. So this is 2007 now. My daughter's struggling, and I did this. And then, because I was importing books, I started other talking to other parents, and they were interested in what I was doing as well. So I started getting some books for them, and started training them on how to use the books, because I was training myself. And it grew from there. And next thing I knew, I'd put up a website, and I was importing books from Singapore. So I was importing what was called the Primary Mathematics series. And I was importing what was called the My Pals are Here series, which were the two... Primary Maths series was the original series, My Pals was the most common one used in Singapore at the time.

And I established some relationships with publishers in Singapore, and started selling these books to schools as early as 2007. So Maths — No Problem! started officially in 2007, but was formulated as a company in 2008. So by 2008, we were trading as Maths — No Problem! So that's how it started.

Now, since then, come around... I was working full-time, leading a software development team in London, and working in the graphics and print publishing industry. And doing a lot of really cool stuff on the internet at the time, so I was very big on that. And I set up my own website, built my own website from scratch with a few people, and I just started selling books. And then, all of a sudden, schools and academics started paying attention to what I was doing. They were calling me and asking me, "Wow, tell me more about this," da-da-da-da-da. Schools started buying books. And I just started immersing myself more and more into this Singapore math concept. By 2011, I had basically devoted my entire professional career to doing just this.

Adam Gifford

Andy, can I jump in? Can I just jump in, just at that stage? So you've got up to there, I'm intrigued, the training aspect and stuff. So when you were selling to the teachers, were you also... Because juggling a full-time job and trying to support them. What were you working with? I'm sure as you go on, the story will unfold that, say, Ban Har was training and coming over and those sorts of things. But in those early days, you were obviously picking up things from people in Singapore. But what was happening on the ground there in Kent, or the UK, in terms of supporting, say, the teachers and those sorts of things? Or was it a little community that was just helping each other out?

Andy Psarianos

It was a little community that was helping each other out. But, also, what I was doing, even in those early on days, is I was getting professors and teachers to come from Singapore. But Ban Har never came until 2011. So I had been doing this for numerous years before I even met him. So I was working with other people in Singapore, other teachers, who I was bringing over to hold training sessions. And, of course, I sat through every single one of those training sessions and did everything. And that's how I started learning about it, partially, really, just immersed myself. There were a lot of academic papers written on this. This was already a thing in the United States. There was a lot of information on the internet, some of it good, some of it bad.

But I started fully immersing myself in this as early as 2008. I was really spending every waking hour that I could, when I wasn't working or looking after my family, researching this on my own. I read the Cockcroft Report from beginning to end. I did everything. I really, really was self-taught in those early years. But by 2011, I had invited Ban Har over to do a seminar with one of the large academy groups in the UK, which was the Ark Schools. And at that point, I was supplying the Ark Schools with their math textbooks. So before Ark started the Maths Mastery programme, I was working with them to supply their schools with books. And helping them with training, so doing things like bringing Ban Har over.

And I met Ban Har then, in June 2011, he came down and did a seminar. And it was for the Ark Schools. And then we visited a bunch of different schools and did some classroom teach... He taught a few classrooms, and visited some schools, and talked to teachers and stuff. Of course, I followed and went everywhere, with my notebook in hand, and learned everything that I could. And we also had a really, really, what I would say, a cataclysmic event took place. At the time, Tim Oates, Tim you know because he's been a guest on this podcast, Tim Oates was doing the research for the new National Curriculum for the government. So he was working directly for the Conservative government, or the Department for Education at the time. And he was commissioned to, basically, come up with a new National Curriculum, the 2014 National Curriculum. So this is June 2011, and he's doing his research.

And I set up a meeting with Ark, so Tim Oates, Amanda Spielman, who was the head of Ark Education at the time, who's now Head of Ofsted, but before was Head of Ofqual. So, obviously, another incredibly influential person. A few other people, a few other academics, we invited to have a meeting to talk about education. Another person that was there, and was really the one who helped get all these people there, was Helen Drury, the head of Maths Mastery programme, which is a competitor of ours.

So from that meeting that, for me, was a catalyst. It was like, "Okay, this is even bigger than I thought it was, and more significant, and more important." And I thought it was pretty damn important at that point. And that for me was, that point, that day, my whole life changed. So I knew then that I needed to dedicate my entire working career to making this happen. And this, to me... And we spoke to Tim, and I've spoken to Tim about this before, and I think we even spoke about a little bit. I think that was the turning point for the 2014 National Curriculum, was that aha moment that we... I'm putting maybe more importance on my participation in this, but I think Tim heard what he needed to hear. Amanda heard what she needed to hear. Helen heard what she needed to hear that day with Ban Har in 2011. And it changed everything in the education system in the UK.

And I became really the driving force behind this Mastery movement at the time. I was the one who was trying to get this instilled. So I was driving around the country on my motorbike, and I was doing seminars, and I was doing teacher training, and I was doing all kinds of stuff. And one might even question whether or not I was qualified to do this, but it didn't matter. Whatever I didn't know, from a point of... I had taught in the past. Whatever qualifications I didn't have, I made up for with sheer passion and energy.

And I just drove this whole thing like absolute madman in the UK. To a point where, at some point, the Department for Education got in touch with me. And at first, they started by ordering books from me, because they wanted to know what it was all about. Because, clearly, they were hearing from Tim. So the Department for Education ordered some books. I picked up the phone right away, and I called them. And I said, "What are you guys up to?" And next thing I knew, I was in meetings with the Minister. And I was right high up, talking to people about this stuff. And that felt really good, and that I was on the right track. And it just went on from there. And it escalated there.

So that's really how it started. 2014, we decided that we would put out an edition for the UK market. So we partnered with some people in Singapore and we wrote what is the first edition of the Maths — No Problem! series, which is now no longer for sale. It's been replaced with a new edition. And we wrote that in a fury. It was just a crazy... Like, "We got to get this done." It took a while. By 2016, we had finished. By then, the government had sanctioned the textbook trials, which is, Adam, I think when you started getting involved through the Maths Hubs.

Adam Gifford

Yeah, I think we were some of the first schools, actually, I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah, when we first got on that textbook project, yep.

Andy Psarianos

So instead of me just talking, why don't you talk about your early experiences with Maths — No Problem! from that point on. How did it look like from your end?

Adam Gifford

I think, fortunately, I knew a couple of people that knew you, and I think that they'd been down to London to see Ban Har when he'd first, or some of the first times that he'd come over. And then, a couple of things happened at once. The formation of Maths Hubs, and I was in a pilot group, alongside a couple of these colleagues, or the school was in a pilot group. I was, I think, the head of the school at that time. I don't think I was deputy. Anyway, it doesn't matter. The point is, is the textbook project came along. But I think that I'd already attended a training with Ban Har, and had seen the books in front of me. But what the most fundamental shift for me was that that training totally changed the way I taught. I'd had a snippet of it in New Zealand, when I worked with a lady who was absolutely magnificent at what she did. That was a massive shift in the way that I taught. And this was the next wave, that was just transformational.

And what I found with the books, and the training, and the support that I got, is it was the gift that kept on giving. And a year after, you look at the books, and you go, "Oh, I've just discovered something new. Oh, I've just discovered something new. Oh, I can do this. I can do this." And this has never stopped happening, by the way. So whatever that year was, very early in the piece, so we took it on as part of the textbook project. And one of the really good things that I think the government did there is they allocated funds for training. And I think that that's another part that's such an important aspect of making this work. And that's why I asked that earlier question is because the books, what you can get out of the books when you start to see them and you have that training and understanding why they're written in that way, and how they can support you, again, transformational.

And I know that when I took it into the school, one of the things that happened in my school is that, by the nature of being involved in so many maths, I don't know, initiatives and those sorts of things that were under the auspice of the DfE, I was the maths guy in the school. It made sense. But when we introduced Maths — No Problem! and we were able to put staff... And the governors were very good in that they supported the training. Man, that evangelical feeling that you've described, Andy, in the fact that you're onto something good, just spread like wildfire. And in my school, I sit right where you guys are taking maths over in the school. Because the passion and the understanding, the difference it made to teaching, not just the maths teaching, teaching across the board, because the understanding around learning and the structuring of it was in place.

And I think that that's when... I know for me, that's when these conversations were happening. And the excitement was there, and the shift in the way that people saw teaching and learning was absolutely fundamental. And it put teachers, and this is another thing that I'll be forever thankful for, in the position of learners again. Instead of, "Oh, we should just know this," which is a nonsense. It's an utter nonsense. So it was almost safe space to go, "Oh yeah, this is... Wow, how would you do this?" Or, "How would you do that?" Or here's a problem, and instead of thinking, "Oh, I should know how to do this," we were having conversations that were so fundamentally different to anything that happened before. So I think that there was an excitement. There was an excitement in schools that, I've got to be honest with you, that change in schools doesn't usually bring in my experience. And, okay, not for everyone, because people found it a little bit scary, learning something new. And that can come across as, "Oh no, I'm not into this." But it was something like I'd not experienced before.

So that was my experience in those early times. And you knew that... And I think the only thing, and that was the thing, that fear factor for some people. Because what it also did was, it opened your eyes up to what you didn't know about teaching primary school maths. And if you're in a position where people think, "Oh, you should know that." You've got two options. You either say, "Well, I don't. I don't know it and I'm going to learn it." Or you say, "Ah, it's a rubbish idea anyway. We don't need to do that because..." And I'd put my house on it that that's, by and large, due to fear of the unknown. And fear of being made to feel like, "Oh, I don't know this." But that excitement, that was the overwhelming thing, I think, Andy, at the beginning that we felt.

Andy Psarianos

Yeah. And to give credit where credit is due, a lot of things happened maybe by chance, by luck, or just by even fate. I don't know. That the right people showed up at the right time to get this momentum going. And, effectively, changed the entire education system, and how an entire country viewed its education system. And part of it was, in the early days, conversations with Dr. Tony Gardiner. And Tony was like, "Andy, I'm going to help you. This is great. You need to do this." I needed to hear that at that point because that was really important. And Tony Gardiner is a brilliant mathematician. And he was there, he showed up at the right time. And then, it was Ban Har showing up at the right time, and saying, "You've got to make this." He didn't say that, but he was there. He was there when we needed him. And he was an instrumental part in making this happen, and transferring that passion and that knowledge to the right people.

But then, other people like you, Adam, and other instrumental players, who were either Maths Hubs leads or just passionate practitioners themselves, took this on. And helped spread the word and became the evangelist. And all these things happened. And by the time you guys were trialling the textbooks, there was already talk about the government funding the schools to buy textbooks. And for the professional development, which became the textbook funding programme. Which Maths — No Problem! somehow ended up being the only textbook series in the entire country that was approved by the government for funding for schools. And we went through this period where we were the only school.

Now, later on, several years later, other publishers caught up. Other people that were part of our community, who went off on a branch and did their own thing that we trained. So the Power Maths, and the White Rose, and all those people were all trained by us. All this came from Maths — No Problem! in those early days. And I'm glad that they did what they did, although I wish that the customers stuck with us. But those things all happened. But we were out there evangelising and really preaching this word as best as we could. And we were very fortunate that we met the right people at the right time.

Robin Potter

This is such an amazing story. Adam, like you, I've heard parts of it before. But talking about, Andy, when you said a cataclysmic event, the planets really did align. Because I think what if your daughter had never.... Well, you'd never moved, and she never had struggled with math. And then, I think about the whole Tim Oates conversation and the timing of that, that had it been two or three years later, would he already have the curriculum in place for all of the UK? So I'm just sitting here thinking, I don't know, maybe we should be thanking Anthea really for struggling with math to begin with. But also just your determination.

Andy Psarianos

The beginning beginning, how did I end up in Singapore teaching in the first place is a whole fascinating... I was working-

Robin Potter

That's for our next episode.

Andy Psarianos

That's the next episode. I was literally working in Toronto, received a phone call, and said, "Do you want to come work in Singapore?" And I said, "No." And then Anne said, "You should go." And anyway, that's a whole... And then how I got involved in the whole TIMSS thing, and involved with the Minister of Education in Singapore, and all kinds of stuff. But I won't get into all that right now because that's a whole other story on its own. But the one thing that we did at Maths — No Problem! which was hugely significant, and I think unparalleled, was in 2014, when we decided that we would do our own series, I had only one criteria. And that was that it needed to be markedly better than anything that had ever been done before. And that's what I set out to do.

And I knew that would mean that it would be more expensive. But the thinking behind this was that the price of acquiring the Maths — No Problem! series is a one time thing. And I felt like it was more important to be able to justify that price once, than to forever have to justify the lack of quality, or the lack of... The true cost of doing something. And that's always been at the heart of the company from day one. And we are obsessive about getting things right. And we do really work really, really hard and do the best job that we can. And we abandon things all the time because they're not good enough.

And I think that that is the most important thing about Maths — No Problem! it's that we truly, truly, truly do the best we possibly can all the time. And we never compromise on quality. And it means that we're more expensive. It makes it harder to sell. But I never, never, never, never feel like I need to apologise, or never have to apologise on quality. And that's an important distinction, I think, for us from the others. So yeah, that's the brief version of the story. I could go on and on and on about that.

Adam Gifford

I was going to say, this feels like the story of Maths — No Problem! episode one.

Andy Psarianos

Yeah.

Robin Potter

Yeah, exactly.

Adam Gifford

It feels like we could go off on little sidelines of all sorts of different stages of the day.

Andy Psarianos

So that's 2007 to 2014. We didn't talk about 1997 to 2007. And we certainly haven't talked from 2014 to nearly a decade later now, 2023, and what's happened in that time. So other episodes, I guess. But I don't know. Do people want to hear this?

Robin Potter

Well, we do.

Adam Gifford

Yes.

Andy Psarianos

You guys do.

Robin Potter

Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, thanks for sharing.

Andy Psarianos

No, thanks for asking, guys. It was fun.

Thank you for joining us on the School of School Podcast.