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This page sets out the beliefs that underpin Materact, and the principles that govern how we build. It is the fuller version of who we are — for anyone who wants to understand how we think about maths, learning, and the role of AI in them.A person's relationship with maths rarely stays contained to maths. A student who learns that difficult problems yield to persistence and reason carries that lesson into everything they learn afterwards. A student who concludes that maths "just isn't for them" too often carries that conclusion just as far. Everything below follows from taking that seriously.
Our most fundamental belief is that every student has the capability to develop true mathematical understanding. The barriers that prevent students from realising their potential are not innate: they are the compounded product of differences in opportunity, environment, encouragement and meaningful practice. With the right support, every student can build a positive relationship with, and understanding of, maths.
The difficulty is that mathematical learning is highly individual — people build understanding in different ways, at different speeds, with different needs — while educational systems are, by necessity, generalised. 'Setting', the most common response to this tension, often makes things worse. It produces an environment where students develop mathematical identities based on their perceived ability, and where those placed in lower sets come to the conclusion that maths 'just isn't for them'. Instead of encouraging all students to thrive, the system entrenches gaps in attainment.
Beneath this sits a compounding mechanism: mathematics is cumulative. It isn't a collection of isolated topics — it's an interconnected network where new understanding only develops securely when the knowledge beneath it is properly established. Teachers rarely have the time to catch every gap the moment it appears at scale. Left unidentified, that gap makes the next topic harder, and the next: a small misunderstanding compounds into a growing one, and a growing one into exactly the kind of entrenched attainment gap described above. What looks like a fixed limit is usually just an unaddressed beginning.
We believe that AI presents the opportunity to radically improve education — above all through the promise of genuine personalised learning. At the same time, we recognise the serious risks the technology poses, chief among them an erosion of real learning through overreliance.
AI is a game-changer because it opens the possibility of true personalised learning for all students. Not in the way that EdTech usually employs the term, but in the way that a private tutor means it: knowing exactly where the student is, exactly how they think, and exactly where their understanding breaks down. Private tuition is the gold standard for a reason, and students with access to it are far more likely to develop confidence than those without. AI could make this possible for everyone.
Yet we have already seen how AI threatens to undermine real learning. Generic AI is ubiquitous in classrooms and encourages students to bypass the crucial moments of practice where they work to find a solution for themselves. The result is the appearance of progress without the substance of understanding. The difference between these two futures lies entirely in how the technology is built and used — and this belief shapes everything we make.
We believe that maths education has inherent value. A student who learns maths properly learns to break down complexity, to make their assumptions explicit, and to trust that difficult problems can be understood through persistence and reason. Its value therefore extends beyond any formula or practical application: mathematical thinking shapes how people approach the unknown.
That way of thinking has never mattered more. Numbers, data, probabilities and models determine how society understands the world and makes decisions. Mathematical literacy allows people to question what those numbers represent, how they were produced, and whether they deserve to be trusted or prioritised — not just whether a number is accurate, but whether it is the right number to be paying attention to at all.
Without that ability, people are at risk of being shut out from, or misled by, the debates that determine our shared futures. Mathematical thinking is ultimately a form of intellectual independence — and it cannot be given to a student. It has to be built.
We believe that all students, regardless of their background, deserve access to the best educational support. Quality education should not be contingent on where a person grows up, who their parents are, or their presumed aptitude. Mathematical ability is everywhere; the opportunity to nurture it is not.
Today, the students with the most privileged backgrounds receive the highest-quality support, while students of equal potential — in a different postcode, a different school, a different family — go without. This gap in opportunity is one of the great unresolved problems in education.
Educational equality is one of the most powerful forces for expanding opportunity. We want the kind of support that has traditionally been available to a few to be available to everyone.
We believe that education should always remain a field defined by human interaction, communication and mutual learning. AI's job is not to replace human teaching, but to augment it.
This is because education is about more than the transfer of skills. School is where students learn to be part of a community: to explain their thinking to others, to be encouraged by someone who believes in them, to learn from people. No technology can replace this, and none should try.
Teachers, in particular, play a role that goes far beyond delivering content — judgement, encouragement and care that no system can replicate. We build technology that gives teachers greater visibility and capacity, while leaving the teaching to them.
Our beliefs give us our principles, which shape every decision that we make at Materact.
All educational technology should be grounded in sound educational expertise. We research best educational practice before we build, and think carefully about the ways technology can have unintended effects on teaching and learning. Every product decision is tested against one question: does this serve learning, or does it serve the technology?
Learning involves necessary struggle; using the technology should not. The challenge should come from the mathematics, not from the tool.When technology demands attention, interrupts thought, or adds complexity, it competes with the very learning it is meant to support. So whenever we build, we ask ourselves: does this stay out of the way? Anything that pulls a student's focus from the maths, or a teacher's focus from their class, does not belong in the product.
We always consider the effect on real educators and students before making any decision at Materact. Our work is to serve them before anything else.We regard this as particularly important because we work with a technology that has real potential to cause harm in educational contexts. That is why educational professionals are closely involved in the design of everything we make — not consulted at the end, but present from the start.
We want as many students as possible to benefit from the tools we build. Every decision is made with this as the ultimate goal, and where we must choose between access and convenience, we choose access.
At Materact, we are a group of people who care deeply about maths and about the students who are told, too early and too often, that it isn't for them. We build tools to prove otherwise — thoughtfully, with clear eyes about both the opportunities and the risks of new technology, and in service of the most important people in education: students and teachers.
