FOR MATHS DEPARTMENTS
Running Mathiter in an international school maths department
You already have a gradebook, a synced practice tool and a free video library. This page is about the one job none of them does, and exactly what it costs you to find out whether it is worth having.
If your department is mid-contract, nothing on this page asks you to end it. The only ask here is one class, one term, free, running alongside what you already have.
The placement test is free forever, for any number of students. No card, no quote, no call.
One person deep per course
Most international-school maths departments are one person deep per course. You may be the only person in the building who teaches BC.
There is no second BC teacher to moderate against, no shared item bank, and nobody to tell you that four of your students are distributing an exponent over a sum while three are dropping a negative. That analysis has to come from somewhere. Here it comes out of the wrong options themselves.
“Seven of twenty-four chose B, sign error distributing a negative” is a lesson plan. “Seven got Q4 wrong” is a to-do list.How the misconception layer works →
COVERAGE
Filed under the code your scheme of work already uses
1,228 teachable standards across 19 course tracks. Every question and every lecture carries a code from the specification it was authored against. Here are the numbers, counted the same way for every row, including the rows that don't flatter me.
How I counted. A teachable standard is a leaf node in the curriculum file; domain-level header codes are not counted as standards. English lectures is the number of English lecture scripts written against that track. Draft stubs are excluded — there are four placeholder files in the Grade 8 folder with no content in them and they are not in this count.
AP, the Digital SAT, and the Common Core / AERO spine
One English lecture per standard, with no exceptions, on every AP course, on the Digital SAT and the ACT, and on every year of the spine from Grade 5 to Algebra 2. Thirteen tracks, 558 standards, 558 lectures. This is the deep end of the shelf and it's the part I'd pilot.
| Track | Teachable standards | English lectures |
|---|---|---|
| AP Calculus AB | 76 | 76 |
| AP Calculus BC | 24 | 24 |
| AP Precalculus | 58 | 58 |
| AP Statistics | 46 | 46 |
| Digital SAT Math | 37 | 37 |
| ACT Math | 36 | 36 |
| Algebra 2 (Grade 11) | 72 | 72 |
| Geometry (Grade 10) | 43 | 43 |
| Algebra 1 (Grade 9) | 49 | 49 |
| Grade 8 | 31 | 31 |
| Grade 7 | 28 | 28 |
| Grade 6 | 32 | 32 |
| Grade 5 | 26 | 26 |
| US total | 558 | 558 |
Grade 5 to Algebra 2 is the AERO / Common Core spine that most American international schools run. I'll say plainly what that is worth: it's a qualifier, not a selling point. Without it I'm eliminated; because I have it, nothing is won. The argument is above this table and below it, not in it.
Also on the shelf, and thinner
The map is complete on all of these. The teaching behind it is not, and it is not equal. Cambridge Further Mathematics has 89 standards and zero lectures. I'd rather you read that here than find it in week three.
| Track | Teachable standards | English lectures |
|---|---|---|
| IB Mathematics: Analysis & Approaches | 114 | 22 |
| IB Mathematics: Applications & Interpretation | 119 | 30 |
| Cambridge IGCSE 0580 | 128 | 14 |
| Cambridge A-Level 9709 | 136 | 38 |
| Cambridge Further Mathematics 9231 | 89 | 0 |
| UK National Curriculum | 84 | 3 |
On IB: if your Grade 11 and 12 run DP alongside AP, AA and AI are mapped as separate trees under IB's own codes, 114 and 119 standards. Two limits before you plan anything on that. The teacher assignment builder only reaches the US tree today, so you cannot yet set homework against an IB code. And score prediction is not configured for IB. The lessons are thin as well, 22 and 30. If DP is why you're reading this, the honest DP pilot is the free placement test.
On Cambridge: treat 0580 as a placement and reporting function rather than a taught course. When a student arrives in November from an IGCSE school, the tree is there to put her somewhere. Fourteen lectures is not a syllabus.
A full AP paper to sit
One thing I won't say. There is no AP paper your students can sit. A simulation for AP Calculus AB and BC is built and it is not released, so AP here means standards, lectures and score prediction. I'll call it a feature the day it ships and not before.
PLACEMENT
A November arrival, placed on her first afternoon
International-school lists turn over all year. A student arrives from an IGCSE school, or another American school, or a national system, and there's no common yardstick between any of those transcripts. Mathiter places her with a two-parameter IRT model, the family of model behind adaptive standardised testing, and reports an ability estimate with a confidence range and a percentile.
It chooses the next question, not the next page.
Item selection by maximum information at her current estimate; ability computed by EAP over 61 quadrature points. Between 5 and 30 items.
It stops when it knows enough.
The test ends when the standard error is tight enough, 0.35 or 0.45, not after a fixed count. Short when she's consistent, longer when she isn't.
The item parameters keep improving.
Item difficulty and discrimination are recalibrated from real student responses as they accumulate, so the instrument sharpens over time. To be exact about it: that calibration pool is global, not per-school — your students' responses go into it, but the parameters they meet are calibrated across everybody using the bank, not against your cohort.
Free forever, unlimited students.
Not a trial allocation and not a per-seat cost. Place a whole year group in a week and use nothing else, and I still count that as the product working.
And past twenty problems, a projected score
Once a student has answered twenty problems, their practice data is analysed into a projected score with a confidence range and a domain breakdown. Released and returning a score for the Digital SAT only. AP Calculus AB, AP Calculus BC, Cambridge IGCSE, A-Level 9709 and Further 9231 have exam profiles configured in the product but the scoring model behind them has not shipped, so today they return nothing — I would rather write that here than have you go looking for the number in week three. Not configured at all for IB, AP Precalculus, AP Statistics or the ACT.
LANGUAGE
Your students read the mathematics in English. The interface doesn't have to.
The barrier in an international-school maths room is usually academic language, not mathematics. Justify. Describe. Estimate. Interpret. A student does the algebra perfectly and loses the marks on the sentence around it.
Five interface languages, one language of instruction.
The student app runs in English, Korean, Japanese, Chinese and Malay. A student can put the chrome in her first language without taking the mathematics out of English.
Any term in a lesson, tapped.
IPA, audio, the everyday meaning, and the meaning the word has in mathematics, which is usually not the same thing. Built into the lesson rather than sitting in a glossary nobody opens.
The limit.
That term lookup covers Korean, Japanese and Chinese. Malay gets the interface, not the glossary.
THE TEACHER SIDE
The teacher console, and the thing I have to say before you read about it
The workspace is built and I use it every teaching day. Its interface is in Korean. An English build is in progress and I'm not going to give you a date I can't hold, and I'm not going to draw a mock-up and call it a screenshot. So there's no picture in this section. Here is what's actually on the screen, in words.
Class overview
Student count, average accuracy, average XP level, and who has been active this week. The IRT ability estimate is on each student's own page, not averaged onto this one — an averaged ability across a mixed class doesn't mean much anyway.
A needs-attention list
Surfaced automatically: every student under 60% accuracy, with their accuracy and the number of problems it's based on. It names the student, not the topic — the topic is one click away on their page.
Assignment builder over the standard tree
Tick standards in your own syllabus tree, each showing a live question count before you commit. Hand-pick, or let it distribute by measured ability, with a per-student Easy / Medium / Hard preview by name. A 30-day weak-topic panel sits beside it.
Assignment results
Per-question accuracy across the class, so the item everyone missed is the first thing you see, and the misconception behind the exact distractor each student chose.
Student detail
Ability, a per-topic radar, misconception counts, and comparison between students.
Live classroom
Invite link, synced whiteboard strokes, pasted images, per-user undo, and an answer-key toggle only the teacher can flip, enforced on the server rather than hidden in the UI. It is one teacher and one student. It is not a class broadcast tool.
Interface language, plainly
The teacher console, the live classroom, the parent view and the student assignment screens are all in Korean today. The rest of the student app — lessons, practice, the placement test, the Digital SAT simulation — is in English. An English build of those Korean surfaces is in progress. I don't have a date, and I'd rather leave that blank than invent one. One honest exception on the student side: 43 backend error messages still come back in Korean as toasts. They're on the list.
There's a second thing in the same sentence. What's built is a tutoring-shaped console being rewritten for schools. The rewrite and the translation are one job, which is why I can't split the date. If your pilot depends on an English console this term, that is a good reason to wait, and I'd rather you knew now than in October.
What a pilot actually looks like
GAPS
What Mathiter doesn't do
Eight things a department will ask me for that I don't have. If any one of them is a hard requirement, stop reading here. I'd rather lose the pilot than the second meeting.
| Not built | What that means on a Monday |
|---|---|
| Classes and sections | There is no class, section or period entity anywhere in the product. A student belongs to one teacher. Five sections of 28 is 140 individual students on one list, and there is no department-wide view above it. |
| Roster import, SSO, LMS sync | No Clever, ClassLink, OneRoster, LTI or Google Classroom. Google sign-in does work, so a Workspace school avoids a new password — but there is no domain restriction, no roster sync and no provisioning from your side. You add students one address at a time. |
| Whole-class live teaching | The live whiteboard classroom is one teacher and one student. No class broadcast, no breakout groups. |
| A school-admin view | There is no admin console for a head of department or a leadership team. A teacher reads their own students and nothing above that exists in the product today. |
| Teacher-authored questions | You choose from the bank or from the standard tree. There is no item editor, so you can't write a question of your own and tag it. |
| Printables and PDF export | None. It is a screen product. If your homework goes home on paper, this doesn't fit that. |
| A full AP paper to sit | The Digital SAT simulation is the only full exam simulation released. A version for AP Calculus AB and BC is built and not released, and I won't count it until it is. |
| Independent efficacy evidence | No efficacy study, no published school reference, no SOC 2, no ISO 27001, no ESSA rating. IXL has ESSA Strong and I have nothing comparable to put next to it. |
THE OFFER
One class. One term. Free. And everything you already run stays exactly where it is.
You are probably a year into a contract. I know that, and there is no version of this where a maths department drops its main platform in October. So the offer is sized for the situation you're actually in. It is additive, it is free, and it needs no purchase order, no budget line and no procurement conversation to start.
The honest reason to start this term rather than next August
Your renewal is the real decision date. Whatever you sign then, you'll sign it on evidence, and the evidence that counts in that meeting is evidence from your own students. That takes a term to collect. Starting now is how you walk into that room with numbers rather than an opinion.
- 1What you give me — One class and one teacher. That is the entire footprint. Pick the cohort where the stakes are highest — an AP Calculus or SAT group if you have one — or pick the course you teach alone and have nobody to compare notes on. Every US row from Grade 5 through Algebra 2 has a lecture behind every standard, so a Grade 8 Algebra or Algebra I class is as complete a pilot as an AP one.
- 2What it costs — Nothing, for the whole term. No card, no auto-conversion, nothing to cancel, and no quote at the end unless you ask me for one.
- 3What runs alongside it — Everything you already use. Mathiter isn't a general practice licence and doesn't try to be one, so it doesn't need a slot to be vacated for it.
- 4What I ask of you — Set work at least once a fortnight, because the diagnosis needs data — and know now that the assignment builder you'll set it in is in Korean today. It is a tree of standards with a question count on each, so it is navigable with the written notes I send you, but it is not an English screen and I am not going to pretend it is. Tell me when something is broken, and if you decide against it at the end, tell me why. That's the actual price.
- 5What we look at at the end — Three numbers, and none of them are mine to spin: each student's ability estimate with its confidence range, the submission rate on the work you set, and the misconceptions that came back most often across the class. Those are all on your own screen, so it's your write-up rather than my marketing, and it's yours to take into the renewal meeting either way.
- 6How you walk away — Tell me. Your students' history comes out on request and the accounts close. There's no exit call and nothing to argue about.
Questions I get asked
We're a year into a contract with someone else. Is there any point talking now?+
Yes, and it's why the pilot is shaped the way it is. Nothing here asks you to end a contract or run a procurement, and nothing has to come out to make room. One class, one term, free, alongside what you have. The decision that matters is your renewal, and the only evidence that will carry weight in that room is evidence from your own students, which takes a term to collect.
Is the teacher side in English?+
Not yet. The teacher console, the live classroom, the parent view and the student assignment screens are in Korean today. Lessons, practice, the placement test and the Digital SAT simulation are in English. An English build of the Korean surfaces is in progress and I don't have a date. When I have one I'll hold it; until then I'd rather say nothing than guess.
Do you cover AP?+
AP Calculus AB is 76 teachable standards with 76 English lectures. BC is 24 and 24, Precalculus 58 and 58, Statistics 46 and 46. One lecture per standard on all four. Score prediction has exam profiles configured for AB and BC, but only the Digital SAT actually returns a score today. There is no AP paper your students can sit: a simulation for AB and BC is built and not released, and I won't describe it as a feature until it is.
Does it do IB?+
Analysis & Approaches and Applications & Interpretation are complete trees under IB's own codes, 114 and 119 standards. Two limits before you plan anything on them: the teacher assignment builder only reaches the US tree today, so you cannot yet set homework against an IB code, and score prediction is not configured for IB. The recorded lessons behind them are thin, 22 and 30. If DP is the reason you're here, the honest DP pilot is the free placement test and the practice loop — better you hear that from me.
Our new students arrive from IGCSE schools. Can you place them?+
Yes, and it's free with no cap on how many. That's the strongest single reason to have an account at all. Cambridge 0580 is on the shelf as a syllabus tree of 128 standards, but with only 14 English lectures behind it, so use Cambridge here for placement and reporting rather than as a taught course.
How do students get accounts?+
They register with an email address, or with Google sign-in, and you add them by that address. No roster import, no domain SSO, no Clever or Google Classroom. For a class-sized pilot that's a list of emails typed in one at a time. There are written English setup notes for it and I answer questions within a working day, but I'm not going to promise to sit and do your data entry.
Where does student data live, and does an AI see it?+
Google Cloud, Seoul region (asia-northeast3), on Firebase, Cloud Run and Firestore. Two paths send data to Google Gemini, and both are disclosed and go in the DPA. The first is analytics: learning data is analysed into a student profile and, for the Digital SAT, a projected score. The second is the AI Tutor, where the student chooses what is sent — a typed maths question, an image or a PDF, ten a day on a free account. The Socratic dialogue is neither: it is authored in advance and served from the database, so there is no model call on the teaching path. Sub-processors are Google LLC, Toss Payments and Whois Corp. On age: registration takes an optional guardian email for progress notifications, and there is no age field and no consent gate — so guardian consent is not something the product collects. If your school needs it on file, it has to be captured on your side. The full answer, including what the AI Tutor stores and the fact that it cannot be switched off, is on the data page.
Will you sign our data processing agreement?+
Yes, on request. It has to disclose Google Gemini as a sub-processor for learning data. Data export is supported on request; I haven't agreed a turnaround I'd be confident holding to, so I'm not printing one on a website.
What does it cost for a department?+
The placement test is free forever for any number of students. The pilot is free for the term. For school licensing, tell me the cohort and you'll get a number in my first reply. I don't publish one, and I don't publish anyone else's either.
You're one person. What if you stop?+
Fair question, and I don't have a clever answer. What I have is: your data comes out on request, I'll sign the agreement that says so, and first response within 24 hours on working days. No SOC 2, no ISO 27001, no efficacy study. If a single-operator dependency is disqualifying for your school, then it's disqualifying, and I'd rather you decided that now than in March.
One class, one term, free, and nothing you already run has to move.
Tell me the course, the year group and roughly how many students. First response within 24 hours on working days.
Run one class free this term →Or email marketing@mathiter.com