About SillyMaths
Why I built SillyMaths
My own children sat the 11+ and went to Wilson’s, Wallington Boys and Wallington Girls — and one of them went on to Tiffin Girls for sixth form. So I have been through all of this from both sides: as a parent, and as a teacher.
I’m a mathematics graduate and qualified maths teacher (PGCE), with over 30 years in mathematics education, including 15 years specialising in 11+ and selective school mathematics.
Over those fifteen years, students I have taught have gone on to Wilson’s, Sutton Grammar, Wallington Boys, Wallington Girls, Tiffin Boys, Tiffin Girls and Nonsuch.
During that time, I taught hundreds of children and watched families invest enormous amounts of time, money and effort helping their children reach their potential.
Every week followed a familiar pattern.
Students would work through a full practice paper — sometimes for homework, sometimes in the lesson itself.
The papers were marked.
Then, during the lesson, we’d go through the questions they had answered incorrectly.
On paper, it sounded like a good system.
In reality, it wasn’t.
Every child had made different mistakes.
I’d explain one question because one child needed it, while several others sat waiting because they’d already got that question right.
Then we’d move to another question, and the roles reversed.
Little by little, valuable teaching time disappeared.
By the end of the lesson, we’d often covered only a fraction of the questions each child actually needed help with.
There was another problem.
When the paper was done in the lesson, that hour of concentration left many children with little mental energy to spare.
Ironically, by the time we reached the most important part of the lesson — the learning — they had already switched off.
I could explain every question perfectly.
But if the child no longer had the energy to take it in, the opportunity was lost.
Week after week, I found myself thinking:
“I wish I could simply cross out every question they can already do and spend our time on the ones they can’t.”
That single thought became SillyMaths.
Not another full practice paper.
Just the bit they couldn’t do.
Over the years, parents also kept telling me the same thing.
“My child knows the maths… they just keep making silly mistakes.”
I heard it so often that it eventually became the name of the company.
So I designed a series of purpose-built diagnostic packs, one for each major 11+ maths topic.
Every question has been carefully engineered to reveal how marks are being lost within that topic. The analysis goes far beyond a score, classifying every lost mark into meaningful categories such as knowledge gaps, recurring mistakes, rushing, reading errors and questions left unanswered because time ran out.
From that diagnosis, SillyMaths generates targeted practice from a bank of similar questions, so children can spend their valuable study time strengthening the areas where they genuinely need help. Every wrong answer comes with a sentence a parent can read out to their child, so a mistake can be understood as well as practised.
I didn’t build SillyMaths to replace tutors, schools or practice papers. I built it to make them more effective.
Because after more than thirty years of teaching, I’ve come to believe one thing.
Children don’t improve because they do more questions. They improve when they spend more time on the right ones.
That’s why SillyMaths exists.