Why I Stopped Caring About Teaching Maths (And Started Caring About Teaching Kids)

Last Tuesday, I was sitting in on a session at one of our client centres when I watched a 14-year-old girl named Sarah walk in for her third appointment. Same slumped shoulders. Same defeated look. Same whispered "I'm just not a maths person" when she thought no one was listening.

I realised something that made my stomach drop: we were helping this centre optimise the wrong metrics entirely. Not because their curriculum was wrong or their tutors weren't qualified. We were failing because we were automating solutions to the wrong problem.

Here's what I mean.

The Problem Centres Think They're Solving vs. The Problem They're Actually Solving

For years, I've watched centre owners obsess over the metrics I used to help them track. Test scores. Curriculum completion rates. Tutor utilisation. I built dashboards around academic outcomes because that's what owners asked about during our consulting calls.

But here's what the research actually tells us: Studies consistently show that mathematics anxiety often develops early in a student's academic career, frequently stemming from negative classroom experiences rather than inherent ability limitations¹. Research from educational psychology demonstrates that students' self-perception of mathematical competence can significantly impact their actual performance, sometimes more than their measured ability².

Most centres aren't in the maths business. They're in the confidence business. They just don't know it yet.

What I've Observed Across Dozens of Centres

Six months ago, I started paying attention to something different when visiting our client centres. Instead of focussing on what happened during the 50-minute tutoring sessions, I began watching those crucial first few minutes.

Here's what I've consistently noticed:

• Students who seemed relaxed and engaged early in their first session were far more likely to continue with the programme.
• Students who appeared anxious or withdrawn from the start? Most didn't make it past the first month.

The maths curriculum was identical across these centres. The tutor qualifications were similar. But that initial emotional connection seemed to predict everything that followed.

Sarah? She didn't smile until her fourth session at this particular centre. The moment she did, everything shifted. Not because she suddenly understood fractions better, but because she finally believed someone cared more about her as a person than her as a maths problem to solve.

The Real Work Happens Before You Open the Textbook

I used to help centres optimise their tutor hiring processes around maths degrees and teaching experience. Now I help them restructure their interviews around one question: "Tell me about a time you helped someone feel capable of something they thought was impossible."

The answers reveal everything. The best tutors I've observed don't start with "Where are you struggling with algebra?" They start with "What's something you're really good at outside of school?"

Because here's what I've seen work repeatedly: a child who builds elaborate Minecraft worlds often has spatial reasoning skills that transfer beautifully to geometry. A child who bakes with their grandmother already understands fractions intuitively. A child who plays football often grasps probability and statistics in ways they don't even realise.

The tutor's job isn't to fix their maths. The tutor's job is to help them see the maths they already understand.

Why This Changes Everything About How Centres Scale

Most tutoring centres scale by hiring more tutors and opening more locations. But if you're scaling the wrong approach, you're just multiplying your problems.

I've worked with several centres that made this shift from academic-first to relationship-first approaches. The transformations were remarkable:

• Retention improved dramatically across multiple centres
• Referral rates increased substantially (parents started bringing siblings and friends)
• Tutor satisfaction improved noticeably (turns out people love jobs where they actually help children feel good about themselves)
• Session attendance became more consistent (children actually wanted to come)

I can't give you exact percentages because every centre's starting point was different, but the pattern was unmistakable.

The Simple Operational Shift That Changes Everything

Here's the process change I now implement with every new client: We replace their intake assessment ("What maths topics are you struggling with?") with what I call a "Capability Inventory."

Every new student spends their first session talking about:

• Something they've gotten better at in the past year
• A time they helped someone else learn something
• What they want to be able to do with maths (not what they're bad at)

We don't touch a single maths problem in that first hour. We just listen. We validate. We help them remember they're capable of learning hard things.

The maths work flows naturally from there because they're approaching it from a position of strength, not deficit.

What This Means for Your Centre

I'm not saying academic rigour doesn't matter. Of course it does. But I've seen this pattern across dozens of centres now: academic progress happens more naturally when students feel psychologically safe and genuinely cared for.

The parents who ring asking about test score improvements? In my experience, they get both the emotional support their child needs AND the academic results they're hoping for. Because confidence and competence aren't competing priorities. They're the same thing.

Sarah's mum rang last week. Sarah's algebra grades have improved significantly over two months. But more importantly, Sarah asked to extend her sessions because she wants to try A-level maths next year.

That's not a maths victory. That's a human victory.

And that's the business these centres are really in. My job is just helping them see it.

References:

¹ Ashcraft, M. H., & Moore, A. M. (2009). Mathematics anxiety and the affective drop in performance. Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment, 27(3), 197-205.

² Bandura, A. (1993). Perceived self-efficacy in cognitive development and functioning. Educational Psychologist, 28(2), 117-148.