What It Actually Is
Maths For Mums And Dads is a UK-based maths support platform aimed at helping parents who feel out of their depth when their kids hit the national curriculum. The site was set up by a teacher-mum after noticing how many parents would just freeze up or accidentally teach the wrong method when their Year 2 child brought home a homework sheet involving bar modelling or place value partitions. The core offering breaks down each stage of the primary maths curriculum and shows exactly what the school is expecting at that level. There are short videos, printable worksheets, and a lot of worked examples that mirror the methods teachers use in class rather than the shorthand shortcuts adults tend to fall back on.
Getting Started With Maths For Mums And Dads
You don't need to create an account to browse the free content. Head to the homepage and pick a key stage from the menu. Year 1 and Year 2 content is the most popular, and reasonably for it. That's where most parents report first feeling lost because the way children are taught addition and subtraction has shifted away from the column method most adults learned. I'd suggest starting with the place value section for your child's year group before anything else. If a parent understands how numbers are being broken down at that level, the rest of the curriculum clicks into place much faster. The site structures everything around that principle, which is why it's actually useful rather than just another generic resource library.
How The Site Is Organised
Each year group has its own page split into topic areas: number and place value, addition and subtraction, multiplication and division, fractions, measures, geometry, and statistics. Under each topic you'll find a brief explanation of what the child needs to know, followed by worked examples that show the expected method step by step. The videos are usually between two and five minutes long, recorded with a tablet screen so the working is visible without any production polish. Below the free material there's a paid membership tier that unlocks extra worksheets and quiz generators. The free content alone covers the full curriculum, which is worth noting because some sites lock the basic method explanations behind a paywall.
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What Works Well And Where It Falls Short
The site excels at mirroring exactly what a classroom teacher expects. That consistency matters because the biggest friction point for parents is trying to help their child with a method that contradicts what they're being taught at school. When the home method and school method differ, children get confused and parents end up frustrated. The site sidesteps that by sticking closely to mainstream UK teaching approaches. The worksheets are functional but plain. They look like something photocopied from a schemes-of-work document, which is accurate but not particularly engaging. For children who respond better to visual stimulation, you might need to supplement with concrete resources like base-10 blocks or numicon shapes rather than relying on the printed pages alone. The video quality is adequate but not produced. Some recordings have poor lighting or background noise, and the audio isn't always consistent. It's clearly a one-person operation running on limited budget, and that shows in places. That said, the content itself is reliable and the explanations are clear enough to follow even with subpar production value.
One real limitation I found is the absence of progression tracking. If you're working through the site with your child over several weeks, there's no way to mark topics as complete or return to a dashboard showing what you've covered. You have to keep track manually, which is fine for an organised parent but a nuisance if you're trying to fit this around work and other commitments.
A Specific Problem I Encountered
My daughter was struggling with subtraction with borrowing in Year 3, and the school's method involves partitioning numbers and crossing out tens. The site had a section on this, but the worked example used the number 52 minus 17, which didn't quite match the kind of question she was getting wrong. She kept missing the regrouping step when the tens digit was zero, like 103 minus 48, and none of the examples on the page covered that edge case clearly enough for her. What I ended up doing was taking the same method explanation and adapting it myself. I wrote out three examples on whiteboard paper using zero-crossing problems, walked through each one slowly, and had her do the same type of question three times. The site gave me the framework; I filled in the gap with targeted practice. That's honestly the pattern that works best with this resource across the board. Use it for the method explanation, then create your own examples that match the specific mistakes your child is making.
Is It Worth The Money
The free content is substantial enough that most parents won't need to upgrade. The paid worksheets are useful if you want extra practice material that's already formatted and ready to print, but they aren't essential. A parent with a printer and thirty minutes can replicate that effort using the method guides already available for free. If you're a parent who values having everything in one place and doesn't mind paying for convenience, the membership is fair value. If you're someone who prefers to source materials separately or adapt them to your child's needs, the free tier will likely cover everything you need.
Where To Find It
The site is Maths For Mums And Dads, available at mathsformumsanddads.co.uk. No app download is required. The content is browser-based and works on mobile, tablet, or desktop without any additional setup.
