Teachers and classrooms

Why it helps

Low-stakes quizzing works in real classrooms. A systematic review of 50 classroom experiments found that 57% of their 49 effect sizes showed medium or large benefits from retrieval practice, across ages, subjects and formats (most of the studies were run in Western, high-income countries).¹ In one of them, sixth graders who took low-stakes quizzes in their real social studies course did better on chapter and end of semester exams than when they did not quiz or simply reread the material.²

For math, quick recall of number facts is also part of what pupils are expected to learn. The Department for Education's non-statutory guidance for primary schools in England says pupils need automatic recall of a core set of facts so they can focus on learning new concepts.³ A short daily warm-up is a natural place for that practice.

How Math Workout fits

One way to use it: start the lesson with a few minutes of Add & Subtract or Times Table Master on pupils' devices, then move on. Times Table Master's AI coach asks a missed fact again later in the round, and the Progress heatmap shows which facts each pupil knows securely. Method Lab teaches one named method at a time with a worked example before pupils try it (five lessons are free). And World Challenge gives everyone in the world the same 50 questions each day, so a class can take it together and talk about the hard ones afterwards.

Built around science, for this age

Practice testing and spaced practice are the two study techniques that a large review rated most useful, including in educational settings.⁴ That is the thinking behind the classic workouts and the app's Progress review, which spaces each fact by how well it is known (see Times Table Master).

Mixing problem types helps too. In a randomised trial in 54 seventh grade math classes, pupils whose assignments mixed problem types scored 61% on a surprise test a month later, against 38% for pupils who practised one type at a time, and teachers ran it without special training.⁵ A meta-analysis of interleaving found that the average benefit for math tasks was small,⁶ and the trial tested topics where choosing a method is the hard part. I'm Feeling Clever mixes the four operations at random, which is related but not the same thing.

For new methods, learning from worked examples helped math performance across 55 studies,⁷ which is how Method Lab is built. And for basic fact fluency, a meta-analysis of small studies found that drill and practice combined with modelling the answer gave the largest effects.⁸

• World Challenge
• Times Table Master
• Method Lab
• Classic workouts

Privacy for schools

What it collects. Random device IDs (not linked to a name or any advertising profile), scores and progress, play counts for the free allowance, an approximate country worked out on our own server, and the leaderboard name a player types. With an account: the email address or Google account, progress and purchase records. It does not ask for or keep anyone's age.

What it does not do. No ads, no advertising trackers, no selling or renting of personal data, and no tracking across other apps or websites. Google Analytics is used to see how the app is used, with Google's advertising features turned off. Say It! in Mental Math Master only uses the microphone when it is switched on, and Math Workout never records or stores voices; if a phone cannot recognise speech on the device, its own speech service may send the audio to its provider (see the privacy policy).

Accounts and names. Leaderboard names are public, so pupils should use a nickname, never their real name. Our terms require anyone below the age of digital consent in their country to have a parent's or guardian's permission to create an account.

Profiling. The app's memory model keeps track of which facts each player finds hard. England's guidance for schools buying EdTech names profiling pupils as an example of processing that may need a data protection impact assessment, so your school may want to do one.⁹

Where it is kept. Progress is kept on the device, and on our own servers at our hosting provider, IONOS, for leaderboards and accounts.

Deleting data. An account can be deleted at once from Settings, or by request on the delete-account page, and an email to support@mathworkout.app can also remove a leaderboard entry.

You can try it without an account in the Android app. On the website, 3 plays come before a free account is needed.

Read the full privacy policy