Mathematics is a connected discipline. Each chunk of knowledge depends on the clarity and stability of what came before it. When concepts are taught out of sequence or when students do not receive enough guided practice, gaps accumulate quickly.

Maths Hero was built to address this problem. It provides a clear, explicit and well sequenced pathway through the Australian Curriculum. The lessons are designed to be teacher-led and highly interactive. Lessons include modelling, scaffolding, and differentiation, so that the various ability levels in classrooms can be catered for.

Designed by the Shaping Minds team, these lesson sequences are based on the Shaping Minds Scope and Sequence of the Australian Curriculum and are actively refined through testing in diverse Australian classrooms.

Maths Hero draws from well-established findings from cognitive science, psychology, and educational research.

Daniel Willingham’s core insight, beautifully illustrated in Oliver Caviglioli’s diagram above, is simple but profound: memory is the residue of thought. Students remember the mathematics they actively attend to and think about, and it’s the quality and frequency of that thinking that determines what becomes ingrained in long-term memory. Each Maths Hero session is designed with this in mind. Clear modelling, purposeful examples, high rates of guided practice and frequent checks for understanding all work together to keep every student thinking about the right ideas at the right time.

Educational expert Barak Rosenshine combined the Science of Learning with a deep analysis of the practices of high-performing teachers when developing his highly respected Principles of Instruction. These 10 principles (originally 17) provide an incredible overview of what constitutes effective teaching. Rosenshine emphasises the importance of teacher modelling, scaffolding, guided practice, and checking for understanding strategies that promote success and clarity. This becomes a recurring theme in the following research.

Explicit, well-sequenced instruction
Renowned instructional expert Anita Archer, known best for her “I do – We do – You do” gradual release model, has strong alignment to Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction. Archer’s teacher-led lesson framework focuses on three distinct phases:

• “I do”: the teacher models new content clearly and concisely with think-alouds and fully worked examples.
• “We do”: students practise together under close teacher guidance with lots of interaction and immediate corrective feedback.
• “You do”: only when mastery is evident do students move to independent practice.

Another powerful advocate for teacher-led instruction was Siegfried Engelmann, renowned author and researcher, and leader of the Direct Instruction group in the colossal Project Follow Through experiment. In the largest and most robust research ever conducted in education, teacher-led instruction produced the highest mathematics gains of any model across both basic skills and problem-solving. It also had the most impact on student confidence and wellbeing. Project Follow Through settled it decades ago: nothing has ever outperformed teacher-led instruction for learning mathematics.

After decades of combined research, legends Sweller, Clark and Kirschner reinforce the evidence base that has come to be known as the Science of Learning. They advocate for similar ideas to those above, but focus particularly on balancing the cognitive load on students’ working memories. They emphasise that novices learn new material faster and more deeply when the teacher provides clear worked examples, explicitly models each step, and gives immediate, targeted feedback. As Kirschner puts it, without that guidance “novices can engage in problem-solving activities for extended periods and learn almost nothing.”

The Deans for Impact Science of Learning paper helps formalise this evidence base and reinforces Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction and the work of both Engelmann and Archer. Synthesising decades of modern research on memory, attention and how students process information, Deans for Impact confirmed that when lessons are clear, well-modelled and free from unnecessary distractions, working memory has the space it needs to engage with new ideas. This recognition of the importance of cognitive load also helps explain why many teacher-led strategies that focus on modelling have historically been so impactful.

Active participation and accountability
High-impact instruction only works when every student is attending to and thinking about the mathematics. That’s why the Hollingsworth and Ybarra engagement norms matter. Routines like choral responses, read-with-me, pair shares, and efficient whiteboard routines keep attention tight and make student thinking visible. Paired with the TAPPLE cycle, teachers get constant, reliable feedback about understanding so errors are caught and addressed immediately.

Formative assessment expert Dylan Wiliam further promotes the importance of checking for understanding and describes how it is the critical bridge between teaching and learning. Teachers must confirm student understanding before they move deeper into the learning, otherwise they risk gaps forming and cognitive overload.

The team at Shaping Minds didn’t build Maths Hero from theory alone. It comes from years of teaching mathematics in real classrooms, writing and analysing curriculum, refining lessons, and observing thousands of sessions across Australia.

In that time, we noticed some consistent needs: teachers needed a practical sequence of the curriculum, less workload spent creating lessons, more consistency in design and delivery, and a renewed focus on teacher interaction and guided practice.

• A coherent sequence of ready-to-teach lessons for Foundation to Year 6
• Emphasis on teacher modelling and worked examples
• Guided practice designed to build understanding gradually
• Opportunities for checking for understanding during each lesson
• Embedded routines of differentiation for various ability levels
• Alignment with the Australian Curriculum and state-based variations
• Alignment to Daily Review Maker for those also using that platform
• Lessons shaped as much by classroom experience as by research

Maths Hero is not designed to replace teacher judgment. It is designed to support it by giving teachers a clear pathway through the curriculum, reducing teaching workload, and ensuring that every lesson is built upon a solid foundation of evidence-based instruction.

If you have further questions, feel free to use the contact form.