Whizz Education

Schools are increasingly focused on improving maths outcomes while making more effective use of teacher time. As classrooms reflect a wide range of abilities, leaders are seeking practical ways to support individual progress without requiring teachers to manually plan and deliver differentiated work.

The Maths-Whizz platform, created by Whizz Education, was designed to meet this need by enabling individualised maths learning at scale through virtual tutoring that integrates assessment into instruction, supported by a human-in-the-loop implementation and insight model that helps schools translate data into action.

Maths-Whizz has been in development for over two decades, long before the current wave of generative AI tools entered education. From its earliest iterations, the platform was built to simulate the behaviour of a human tutor, using adaptive learning to scale individualised attention to any number of pupils concurrently. This long-term focus reflects a deliberate commitment to learning outcomes rather than technology-led experimentation.

In a typical classroom, students can span a four-year range of mathematical ability, making it challenging for teachers to consistently meet every learner at their precise point of need. Maths-Whizz addresses this by functioning as a virtual tutor that dynamically guides each pupil through a continuously adapting learning journey, determining appropriate content and instructional response in real time.

“Instead of just delivering maths content, the system creates a personalised experience that adapts to each pupil’s level and guides them toward their full potential,” says Richard Marett, CEO, Whizz Education.

Individualised Tutoring that Strengthens Teacher Capacity

Every pupil begins with a diagnostic assessment across the maths curriculum, creating a detailed learning profile that identifies strengths, weaknesses and gaps at the topic level. Students are tutored to ability rather than age, ensuring foundational support where needed while enabling confident learners to progress. After tutoring more than one million pupils globally, Whizz Education is yet to encounter two identical learning profiles, highlighting the limits of age-based instruction.

Once a profile is established, the virtual tutor determines what to teach and how to adapt instruction. Teachers retain control and can direct the system toward specific curriculum topics, or allow the tutor to operate autonomously, confident that instruction remains appropriately levelled without additional planning. In practice, schools typically schedule 45 to 60 minutes a week on Maths-Whizz, during which pupils receive personalised tutoring while teachers are freed from manual differentiation and grouping.

As students progress, profiles update continuously, giving teachers real-time visibility at the pupil, class and school levels. These insights are supported by human-in-the-loop implementation guidance, helping schools interpret data and translate it into classroom action.

“Teachers should not have to choose between whole-class teaching and individual support; effective systems need to make both possible at the same time,” says Marett.

Building Confidence through Scaffolded Learning

Maths-Whizz places equal emphasis on learner confidence and competence, directly addressing the maths anxiety often created by drill-based approaches. Rather than prioritising task completion at all costs, the platform is designed to be accountable for learner confidence as much as attainment. Lessons are delivered through interactive animations supported by structured, scaffolded help at the point of need.

When a pupil struggles, visual, text and audio cues guide understanding. When progress is strong, challenge increases and low-stakes testing is introduced to reinforce readiness for classroom assessments. Carefully integrated humour supports learner engagement without compromising academic rigour. Each of the more than 1,200 learning objectives is uniquely designed, ensuring pedagogical precision.

Safe and Explainable AI with Continuous Insight

Behind the pupil experience sits a technology architecture designed for safety, consistency and transparency. Whizz Education uses deterministic, decision-tree algorithms to guide learning pathways, ensuring instructional decisions remain explainable to educators and school leaders. Machine learning was explored extensively through European academic research partnerships, but proved too variable for core tutoring, where consistency and trust are essential.

Today, machine learning is used selectively to explore learner mindset, while large language models are applied under expert oversight to interpret learning data and generate educator insights. This separation ensures advanced technologies enhance analysis and decision-making without introducing risk into direct instruction.

Maths-Whizz enables continuous assessment through its Maths Age framework, a globally consistent measure that profiles progress by topic rather than task completion. By embedding assessment within tutoring, the platform provides a continuously updating view of learning, reducing reliance on standalone formative assessment tools. Progress can be meaningfully compared across curricula, schools, and systems, supporting decision-making for multi-school trusts and education authorities.

Demonstrated Impact at Scale

Whizz Education’s approach has delivered measurable results. At a large primary school serving a mixed-ability intake and operating in a post-pandemic recovery context, Maths-Whizz was introduced as a weekly session with guided implementation support. Within the first academic year, pupils who used the platform for around 1 hour per week improved their Maths Age by an average of more than 18 months. Teachers reported increased confidence among lower-attaining pupils and greater independence across the cohort, enabling classroom time to be used more effectively.

At the system level, Whizz Education has supported large-scale implementations across diverse contexts, where sustained use of virtual tutoring has accelerated learning progress and narrowed attainment gaps. Schools and multi-academy trusts typically begin with pilots before expanding usage, guided by data-led insights and implementation support.

Through virtual tutoring, educator consultation and data-informed implementation support, Whizz Education enables schools to strengthen maths provision within real-world constraints. By integrating personalised tutoring, continuous assessment and actionable insight, the platform helps schools improve attainment and confidence while increasing teacher capacity at scale.